You Should Ask Your Photographer and Videographer these Questions Before Signing on the Dotted Line
You wouldn’t just sign a marriage license unless you got to know the person first, right? Scratch that, if you’ve signed on for Married at First Sight you would do exactly that. But for everyone else who needs to know the person they’re forming a relationship with, they ask questions and get to know the person better. The same applies to hiring wedding vendors, especially those handling your digital memories. So it’s only natural you’d vet you photographer and videographer before signing a contract with them and we’ve got plenty of questions you should ask them before jumping into bed together (so to speak, of course !).
Related: Match with a Photographer that Checks Off All Your Boxes
Get to Know Your Photographer
To help, Wisconsin wedding photographer, Allysha Noelle, has offered up her expertise to narrow down the questions you should most certainly ask your photographer before hiring them. (And, of course, we threw some of our own questions in to the mix.) But, first, the number one question, she notes, that, in her opinion, “typically separates professionals from hobbyists”: How do you safely handle the storage of wedding images to prevent data loss? . . . This is huge! And she couldn’t be more right as to the importance of this question, as we said, they are your memories, after all. Now for more:
Introductions
- Are you available on our wedding date?
- May we meet the photographer who will be shooting our wedding, if that’s not you?
- How many weddings have you photographed?
- How long have you been photographing weddings?
- What made you get into the wedding photography business?
- How many weddings will you be shooting the weekend of our wedding?
- Have you ever photographed a wedding at our venue before?
- Have you worked with our wedding planner or videographer in the past?
Style
- How would you describe your photography style?
- How do you handle posing couples?
- How would you describe your editing style?
- Can we review an example of a full wedding gallery you’ve completed in the past year?
Additional Services
- Do you offer additional services, such as a second photographer, engagement session, wedding album, other print products, etc.?
- Do you offer videography services, too?
- Do you offer assistance with planning the wedding photo timeline for the day-off?
- Do you offer drone photography, and are you appropriately insured and licensed with a drone pilot license?
Pricing, Packages, and Booking
- How do you collect payments?
- Do you offer payment plans?
- Do you have a travel fee? What is the distance that covers?
- What do your packages include? What is the investment?
- Can a package be customized to fit our needs?
- Is the engagement session included any of your packages?
- Are pre-wedding events, such as rehearsal dinners, included in any of your packages?
- How much do extra hours cost?
- Are corrective services on the photos an extra charge? If so, what how much is it?
- What is the booking process like?
- Can the booking process be completed online?
- How much is the deposit, when is it due, and is it refundable (and if so, under what circumstances)?
Other Details and Logistics
- What are typical response times and communication throughout the wedding photo planning process?
- Do you carry venue-approved insurance?
- Do you have liability insurance? Does it cover any assistants, too?
- What equipment or backup equipment do you bring to a wedding?
- When and how will the images be delivered? What is your turnaround time?
- How many images should we expect to be delivered?
- Are you the photographer for my wedding day or do you have associate shooters that would be there instead?
- What is the backup plan if you aren’t able to make it?
- When will we receive the contract to sign?
- What is your refund or cancellation policy?
- Will you post about our wedding on social media, your website, or submit it to a publication that will post about it?
Get to Know Your Videographer
Meanwhile, destination videographer Petr with Perky Pug Films has had the pleasure of filming weddings all over the world as a worldwide wedding videographer, so it was a no-brainer that we’d ask him to give us a hand when it came to compiling a list of questions to ask your videographer before hiring them. YW.
Related: Match with a Videographer that Checks Off All Your Boxes
Introductions
- Are you available on our wedding date?
- May we meet the videographer who will be shooting our wedding if that’s not you?
- Do you work with a second shooter or assistant? What will their role be on the day-of?
- How many weddings have you filmed?
- How long have you been filming weddings?
- Do you film weddings full- or part-time?
- What made you get into the wedding videography business?
- What is important to you when filming a wedding?
- How many weddings will you be filming the weekend of our wedding?
- Have you ever filmed a wedding at our venue before?
- Have you worked with our wedding planner or photographer in the past?
Style and Footage
- What kind of footage do you shoot?
- Do you film the families as well? If so, how much?
- Do you shoot more intimately, or in a rock-n-roll style? Cinematic or documentary style?
- How much do you edit your films?
- What does your color grade look like? Can we watch a film you’ve done for a wedding in the past?
- Are you films typically slow- or fast-paced?
- What kind of music do you typically use?
- Do you stage any of the shots?
- Will you provide us with the unedited footage and speeches?
- How do you make your highlight films? What do you typically incorporate? Will we have say in what goes into it?
- What footage will you receive exactly (think: formats or cuts), such as reels, clips, short video, long video, Super8, etc.?
Additional Services
- Do you offer photography services, too?
- Do you offer drone footage, and are you appropriately insured and licensed with a drone pilot license?
Pricing, Packages, and Booking
- What are your packages?
- How do you collect payments?
- Do you offer payment plans?
- Do you have a travel fee? What is the distance that it covers?
- How long will you be there for?
- How much do extra hours cost?
- Are corrective services on the film an extra charge? If so, what how much is it?
- How much is the deposit, when is it due, and is it refundable (and if so, under what circumstances)?
Other Details and Logistics
- When will we receive our contract?
- What is your refund or cancellation policy?
- When will we receive our video?
- What is your turnaround time on correspondence and our finished video?
- Do you backup the footage of our wedding as an in-case? (*BTW: They should say yes.)
- What is the backup plan if you aren’t able to make it to our wedding?
- Will you post about our wedding on social media, your website, or submit it to a publication that will post about it?
Photo courtesy of 28 North Photography
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