6 Things Wedding Photographers Wish You Knew

As wedding photographers, there is nothing greater than our amazing couples who invite us into their day! We love our couples and have so much we wish we could tell you. But we’ve narrowed it down to our top 6 things wedding photographers wish you knew!

1. We want you to enjoy your wedding day as much as your guests!

There is nothing more frustrating to a wedding photographer than a couple that is stressed out! We know you’ve planned so carefully over the last year for this day, and we want you to be present in every moment and enjoy it. As wedding photographers, we have this weird sixth sense for measuring stress levels. We know when a groom has had enough photos, when a mom needs a word of encouragement when the florist is late, and when a bride needs a moment by herself to collect her emotions and get a hug from mom and dad.

When wedding photographers see those stress levels rising, our first instinct is to fix the problem or do damage control! We will be the first person to ask a bridal group to leave the room for a moment, or to reassure a bride that the schedule is fine and the wedding doesn’t start until she arrives. We care about you and want your wedding to be as magical and wonderful as you have always imagined it would be.

2. We want to hear all about your wedding details.

As wedding photographers book clients a year and half in advance, we have a lot of time to imagine your wedding and how we’re going to photograph it. We will regularly check your Pinterest for your latest wedding pins and inspirations! We are over the moon excited when brides send us a photograph of them getting their dress fitted, or when they’ve chosen their flowers. Those little details help us strategically put together a plan to best photograph their day.

3. We take it personally (though we know we shouldn’t)

The best way to hurt a photographer is to put an Instagram filter over your photograph, to not give photo credit when posted on social media, or to never respond after receiving a wedding gallery. We know business is business, and people are busy, but these things will have us second guessing our business, our life, and who we are at our core. We will question nearly every step of the process and wonder where we went wrong!

When we see our photos on Instagram with a filter, we question our hours of editing.

When we don’t see a photo credit, we think you wouldn’t recommend us to a friend.

When we never receive a response, we believe that you don’t like your photos.

Irrational? Yes. Ridiculous? Sure. But we, wedding photographers, are passionate about our work. It isn’t just our job, it’s our art that we’ve poured our everything into. We take it personally. If you want to love us well, save us from some minor panic attacks and send us a text that you at least received your photos.

Speaking of loving us well…

4. The best compliment we can receive is a referral.

Whenever we hop onto our Facebook, The Knot, and Weddingwire accounts and see a new review and rating, we do a happy dance. We feel so very lucky and honored to receive reviews from our clients, and wish that more clients knew how much they mean to our business.

Referrals & reviews are how our businesses stay alive. They bring us new clients and opportunities.  They let others outside of our client circle know that we can be trusted with their wedding day. The best compliment we can receive is a referral or two to your friends. (Plus, we get to see you at their wedding which makes us even more excited!)  

5. We like to work with people like us.

Some wedding photographers call clients their friends, their family, and we call them our tribe. Having an ideal client is a real thing. Our ideal clients are couples we would want to spend time with outside of their wedding day. They tend to like the same things that we do. This allows for an awesome client-photographer relationship simply because we have things in common!

But more than that, working with people who are like us makes us so much more confident on the wedding day. The client-photographer relationship thrives because we are comfortable with each other. An awkward photo session is now fun and relaxing!

Not every inquiry is a good fit for us, and that’s okay. We may not photograph your wedding, but it’s only because we believe someone else is better suited to you. And while we could do a good job, we want you to have the right wedding photographer. The wedding photographer who is that glass slipper, Cinderella moment, perfect photographer. Your wedding photographer experience will be ten times better because of it.

Finally, because we are natural friends…

6. We are excited to see you grow as a couple.

From the very first inquiry through the wedding, we spend so many hours getting to know you and what you’re all about as a couple. Through this process, our friendship grows and we enjoy seeing your Facebook posts and Instagram post just as much as your new mother-in-law. Wedding photographers wish the very best for their couples and love to see them grow as a couple. We love to photograph our couples year to year and see them as their love matures.

We hope that as you book your wedding photographers for your big day, that you’ll remember all of these little things!

Thanks for chilling on our corner of the internet. If you’d like to see more of our latest work, check out Scott & Emily’s amazing Cuyahoga Valley Engagement session!

Until next time!