Us wedding photographers are an interesting bunch. We rarely sleep, we travel the country (and often the world) for our jobs, and we always work weekends. We will often obsess over the smallest detail in a photo, but forget to eat breakfast three days in a row. But one thing we can do is take your average, everyday wedding and turn the memories of it into pure glamour. We use light (both natural and otherwise), angles, tricks, and tools (and sometimes gypsy magic) to make every detail look like it came from a million dollar wedding. Your ring not so massive? Not a problem, it will look like the Hope Diamond when we’re done with it. Dress came from David’s Bridal instead of Paris couture? We make it look as if Vera Wang herself came to your house and custom designed the dress for you.
All of the things we do may seem easy, but it takes years of honing skills, years of seeing, years of being there, years of failing and trying again; it takes all of this to get to a point where we can create magic for you. The important question you want to ask yourself is “how do I know my wedding photographer is all of these things?”
It’s important to know if your photographer can deliver the goods; if they are going to make some magic out of your wedding day. There are two things that absolutely must happen for this to all take place:
1. You must love your wedding photographer.
2. You must trust your wedding photographer.
We don’t mean love in the traditional sense. We mean love like “OMG I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HAVING THESE PHOTOGRAPHERS DO MY WEDDING” love. We mean trust like “I know what my photographer does, and I trust that they will do what they do and do it well for my wedding” trust. To get to this level of love is easy, the trust takes some understanding.
The love comes from the joy you feel when you see your wedding photographers’ imagery, how it takes your breath away, or brings a tear to your eye. It comes from how comfortable and relaxed you feel when you talk with your photographers, how they make you feel like a long-time friend. You want your photographers to feel like friends because more than any other person on your wedding day, you will spend most of your time with your photographer. There needs to be some love!
The trust comes from understanding your photographer, and your photographer understanding you, your vision, and your desires. You must then trust that your wedding photographer has the skill-set and experience to see your vision through. Just as important is that you understand the style and aesthetic of the photographer and choose one that fits your vision. If you are a traditional person, with traditional photography in mind for your wedding, Imagine Photography may not be your ideal wedding photographers. If you are into chic, modern wedding photojournalism with a touch of gorgeous magazine-style portraits, we most definitely would be ideal for you.
Style, and the interpretation of style, are really important when choosing your wedding photographer. Think of it this way: You wouldn’t hire Hulk Hogan to model women’s handbags, and you wouldn’t hire Gisele Bundchen to model the latest in Farm Equipment. If your photographer is great at what they do, and you are comfortable with them doing it, you have developed trust.
Now that you trust you photographers, you have to let them do what they do best so they can deliver this vision the way you wanted. It’s always a great idea to give your wedding photographer a short list of important people and shots for your family formals, but to hand a photojournalist a list saying “picture of my father with tear in his eye” may not even happen at the wedding, or it might happen when we are taking a picture of you with a tear in your eye, or while we’re taking pictures of your rings and cake, or hell, maybe even having a quick restroom break. The trust comes in knowing that at the end of the day, you will have a complete, magnificent collection of wedding images you can cherish for a lifetime. Images that can be put into album form and handed down for generations so your great, great grandchildren know all about you.
That is trust. That is love.
Ready to start your journey? Contact us.