It is your wedding day, and you invest a lot of time, money and energy planning this very special day. You want everything to be perfect, and that includes the pictures too – which ultimately will be the only thing left after the day is over – that hundreds of dollars’ worth of three tier wedding cake gets eaten, all the beautiful flowers will get withered and thrown out, and that gorgeous wedding dress of yours gets neatly placed in a box and tucked away somewhere in the bottom of your closet.
Professional Wedding Photography is an Investment
Surely, everything wedding related can get rather costly, and wedding photography in Toronto is no exception. But, if you are on a tighter budget, you can always try to bargain on the less valuable things in order to have professional photographers documenting your wedding day; and while having that photo enthusiast family friend taking pictures can save you a big chunk of cash, at the end of the day that can turn out to be just disastrous – and since there are no do-overs when it comes to your wedding day, you are probably better off not taking that kind of a chance – and it’s simply not worth jeopardizing your relationship with that person, in case his photographs turn out to be … well, less than up to par with your expectations.
You see, it takes much more than a digital SLR camera to make a photographer a professional. Professional photographers invest a great amount of time perfecting their skills. They know the most flattering angles to shoot from and capture the right moments, know how to work in challenging situations and constantly changing lighting conditions, and of course they also know how to deal with people, including larger groups. Photography is a very personal service, and having good people skills is imperative.
Besides having pro SLR cameras, pro lenses, calibrated pro monitors and business insurance, the best professional wedding photographers also have excellent photo editing and graphic design skills in order to produce consistent prints and professional looking albums and books.
Yes, professional wedding photography is an investment! But, keep in mind that your wedding photographers are there all day photographing the entire event as it unfolds. They capture every little detail – starting from the dress, the flowers, the shoes, the cake, the center pieces… right down to all those priceless moments that transpire throughout the day.
Also keep in mind that your wedding photographers’ job does not end on your wedding day!
After they’re done photographing your wedding, they need to back up all the files, select the best images from the day, make some minor tweaking to the exposures and /or the white balance if necessary, and enhance the images with the proper photo effects. These are all very tedious and time consuming parts of the post-production process, which is why it’s necessary for your photographers to allocate enough time for these things.
Then comes the presentation of your gorgeous images. Your photographers and /or their team then spend a significant amount of time custom designing your wedding album, which requires an extensive knowledge of various design software, and of course it requires talent and graphic design skills. While all weddings are alike to a point, they all bring new experiences (and new challenges as well). Experienced professional wedding photographers are able to recognize what’s truly unique about each and every wedding, and by putting together the events that highlight the day in an album or a coffee table book, they can create a visual story that will definitely set your wedding apart from the rest. A professional wedding album has a classic, timeless design, which is clean and simple without any distractions – letting the images take center stage. When it comes to prints, professional photographers will provide only Premium Prints on real photographic paper, produced by a pro lab. The quality and the durability simply cannot be compared to consumer level prints.
Professional wedding photographers these days provide an online gallery as a digital proof of your wedding photos instead of the old fashioned proof book. Professional photographers also include a copy of the high resolution files on a disk or a USB stick either as part of their wedding collections, or they make these available for an additional fee.
Now that you know how much time, effort, talent and skill really goes into your wedding pictures, including the cost of professional quality products, I hope you can start to see the actual value for this special service. So once again… wedding photography IS an investment!
With having all that said, you can understand why hiring professional wedding photographers can truly become one of the most essential parts of your wedding day plans and budget. I highly encourage you to do your research in order to save yourself from a major disappointment. There are a lot of amateurs out there, as well as new photographers popping up every day, offering some unrealistically good deals, only to find themselves frustrated when they run out of that little bit of money, and get stuck with all the work that they simply cannot afford to spend time on, and they end up having to settle for providing their clients with cheap, low quality products.
I am sure you have heard of at least one of the horror stories of the ever-growing number of brides who deeply regret not having professional wedding photographers documenting their big day; so before you trust that good friend to capture your wedding day, or sign that contract, please remember that you will have these pictures forever, and you want to be proud when you show these to your children, and your grandchildren years down the road.