Angled Light Photography

Tip #1

Tons of people ask me each year about what they should consider when hiring a wedding photographer – This is the first tip in a series of posts on finding the wedding photographer who resonates with you the most.

Check out this video below for the first tip!

Text from video for those who love reading!

Hey everybody, my name is Nathan owner of Angled Light Photography based here in Greenville, South Carolina. And I’m here today to give you three quick tips to find your perfect wedding photographer.

All right, so tip number one.

Always, always, always take a look at a full gallery from any photographer that you’re interested in. And what I mean by that is actually ask them to see what a full wedding day looks like. At the end of the day, what most photographers are going to show you on their websites and on their social media profiles is going to be basically their A game. It’s going to be what they think is their best work, but you’re not interested in just their best work. You’re not spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to just see what a few moments throughout the day looks like.

What you’re looking for is the photographer who you feel like can document your day in a beautiful and creative way. So when you take a look at a full wedding gallery, what you’re able to do very quickly is you’re basically able to decide, do I want this photographer or not? So to tell you a little story, I had a friend who was getting married. Unfortunately, we weren’t available on the day to be able to cover her wedding, we had already been booked. And so, she asked me if I could help her basically choose a photographer because she really didn’t know what she was going after and she was still trying to sort out what she loved and what she didn’t like and all that stuff. So I asked her just to send me the websites of three different photographers that she really likes. The first two, after looking at the site I discounted pretty quickly. And I just said, “Hey, I probably wouldn’t do these two for these two reasons.”

The third was actually really interesting because I went to their homepage, brought it up, guys, oh, it was gorgeous. I mean, the design of the website just swept me off my feet. The fonts that were used were beautiful. The words that were used in the homepage was stunning. And then honestly, the photography that they uses, it was like there was emotion just pouring out of the screen in front of me, grabbing me by the heart and pulling me towards the computer. And honestly, I was swept off my feet, as a photographer I was swept off my feet, but I started digging in just a little bit further and we started looking into their blogs and we started really digging into the background underneath, the stuff underneath. The pictures that were on the homepage of their website and then the actual pictures of most of the weddings it was like going from extraordinary to very much ordinary.

It was a drastic difference. But I want to encourage you to ask the photographer to see full weddings, okay? And the reason being is because you want to see everything, you want to see the getting ready and what does that look like? You want to see what bridesmaids photos look like. You want to see what the ceremony looks like. You want to see what the reception looks like. You want to see what the family formals look like. You want to see what the couples portraits look like. What you’re interested in is all the moments in between and number one is the photographer even getting that stuff? And number two, are they doing it in a way that resonates with you? Is the photography, is the composition interesting? Is the lighting interesting?

Is it work that you could see yourself putting into your album for your kids, putting on your walls at your home? Those are questions that you should be asking yourself. Always ask to see a full wedding gallery.

Thank you again for watching. If you enjoyed these tips and you want to hear more of this stuff, I would encourage you to check out my podcast, Weddings from the Pros. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, everywhere, check it out. And if you’d like to see more videos like this, more helpful information, please let me know. I’m happy to do more like this if people find it valuable. Thank you so much. I hope you guys have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you soon.