Now, if you have actually been to Chicago, then you shouldn't be too surprised that we would choose to have our wedding there. Chicago is an amazingly beautiful city. Here is a brief history lesson for ya. The city was completely destroyed in the great Chicago fire and when they decided to rebuild it, they brought in architects from all over the world to help design the builds, layout, etc of the new city. This explains why Chicago has such amazing architecture and also why it is called the "Second City" (I think, at least that is what they told us during one of those bus tour through the city).
Anyway this post was not supposed to be about Chicago (I always feel like I need to justify why we are getting married in Chicago), this post is about the wedding and wedding planning. So as I also mentioned in a prior post, I have a wedding planner. I knew that I would need help planning my wedding because my job schedule is extremely unpredictable and this is a destination. I am not really going to discuss the planner hiring process at this point, definitely the topic for a separate and later post. Instead, I am going to talk about the actual planning part. It is true that having a planner makes it easier but there is still a lot for me to do. I did hire my planner for full coordination because I didn't want to have to worry being limited to a certain number of hours or not having the assistance when I needed it. I also wanted someone who is familiar with this process, knows various vendors and basically just someone I could turn to for all things wedding. For some people, this person could be their mother, sister or a friend but most of my close friends are attorneys with very crazy schedules, I don't have any sisters and I didn't want to put all of the pressure on my mom (because I am pretty picky and I don't want to be angry with her if things don't go right. Also, I am her only daughter and I want her to enjoy my wedding day because she will only get to do it once). I really needed someone to stop me from making stupid decisions like the one that I is described below.
Now, I truly started planning my wedding about a year and a half ago, when I started day dreaming about the fabulous dress, venue food and decor...needless to say when I realized how expensive all of this stuff was, we had to scale back a bit. The true planning started last August when we booked our venue. Once we finally had a date, I was so excited to take engagement photos and send out one of those cutesy magnet Save The Dates with our picture on it. This started the stressful part of my planning experience.
I foolishly hired the photographer from hell to shoot our engagement photos. I call him the photographer from hell because he made the entire experience 10 times more stressful than it should have been. So, this brings me to the subject of this post, which is how to choose a wedding photographer.
First, let me say that this photographer was not hired to shoot the wedding. He was only hired to do the engagement photos. He was a photographer that I previously used to shoot glamour shots for me, when I wanted to feel pretty or sexy. Based of these photos, I loved his work and thought that he would be more than capable to do great engagement photos for me. The difference is that the glamour shots were taken in a studio, in a controlled environment whereas the engagement photos were to be taken outside, in the elements and using natural light. This may not sound like a big deal but this definitely make a difference. Too much sun light, not enough, too windy, these are just some of the things to consider when taking your photos. Make sure you chose a location that is scenic but not a place that is crowded with tourists, kids or just a bunch of people. The places that we chose for our photos were at the waterfront in New Jersey with New York as a backdrop and our second location was supposed to be on the waterfront in New York with New Jersey as a backdrop. I thought that this would be cute and since we met in NY and now live in NJ, it would have been a nice play on our love story. However, this inadequate photographer completely screwed up the locations. He first told me that he would need to rent a car transport his equipment between the two locations and he was going to add the cost of the car into his fee. I actually thought that this was fair. This photographer's studio was on lower Manhattan and very few people own cars, so I thought that this was fair. However, when we arrived to take the photos, the photographer never rented the car but he did charged me for it. So not only was he now stealing money from me but he also messed up my ability to take pictures in my chosen locations. When confronted about this issue, the photographer apologized and said that he would throw in some extra retouched photos and do special effects such as sepia, black & white, blur the backgrounds and various other things to make sure that the photos were stunning. I wasn't happy about this change in plans but since Joseph and I were already there and dressed for the photos, I decided to go through with it.
After this session, the photographer stated that he would send the proofs of the photos to me within 3 days. He mentioned that he only need to go through and sort the photos before sending them to me so that I could select the ones that I wanted to have retouched. Three days passed and I didn't hear from him. Three more days passed and still no word from him. I decided to call him and he told me that he was having problems with his assistants and that he wasn't able to sort the photos and a whole bunch of other excuses. He promised that I would have the photos in a few days. A week later still no photos. I called again and the photographer continued to give me excuses. I was now angry and I didn't want to hear any more excuses. He again promised to have the photos to me as soon as possible (keep in mind that these were only the proofs). Then two days later, I spoke with one of his assistants and she told me that the photographer's computer crashed and he actually lost all of my photos. This was over 3 weeks after our engagement photos session...and finally I am being told that the guy lost the photos. I thought that he was a professional photographer. he definitely charged a fee as if he was a professional. How could he not have the photos backed up? Why didn't he tell me this weeks ago and what happens now?
Well the photographer never told me himself that the photos were lost and instead, he left it to his assistant who subsequently asked me if I wanted to schedule a re-shoot. I really don't know why but I agreed to just do it over. I knew that Joseph and I were a little awkward in the photos the first time because it is strange to have someone standing in your face with a camera, while asking you to act as if he is not there. So, I was hoping that we would be more natural this second time around. At this point, I figured that we were pros. Now, I realize that i should have just demanded a return of my money and found another photographer. This was just stupid but hindsight is always 20/20.
We scheduled another photo shoot and this time, there was no excitement, no anticipation. We just wanted to get it over with (not the ideal mood for photo taking). But I had a little surprise for the photographer. Once we arrived at his studio, I pulled out a written contract. (Now, I understand how stupid it was for me to not have a written contract before. I had a bunch of emails but we never signed anything. I know that is not good enough and top it off with the fact that I am an attorney. I should have never made an agreement that was not in writing. This is pretty basic.) When the photographer saw the contract, he became irate. He said that this is an indication that I do not trust him (which I didn't). He said that he wouldn't sign it. He said that I was stressing him out and that he needed to be "clear" to take the photos. So, I said ok, well if you do not want to sign the contract, you can give me my money back. He responded by signing the contract, without reading it (he had adequate time to read the 2 page contract) and proceeding with the photo shoot. Once this shoot was over, the photographer again promised to get me the proofs right away and the next day, he gave me a CD that contained all of the proofs. It turned out that he actually took over 600 photos. He gave me every photo from our second session, even the bad ones, even the blurry ones, even the one where he actually took a picture of the sky or the ground. I mean he gave me every single photo, even the duplicates. I was a little annoyed that he didn't sort them but I was happy to just have proofs. I could work with these. After spending a few days of sorting the photos, I came up with about 69 photos that I liked (which is really only about 10%. I mean if you give a monkey the opportunity to take over 600 photos, he will probably come up with at least 60 good photos). Of these 69, I wanted about half of them to be retouched.
This is where things get nasty. My wonderful photographer told me that he was only going to retouch 10 photos and any additional photos would cost $40 each to be retouched. So, I whipped out our trusty contract (that he did not read) and pointed him to the section where it states that he would retouch 35 photos. The contract aside, he did promise to do extra photos and all these special effects as compensation for overcharging me and he did lose my first set of photos...what happened to customer service. I then told him that if he had a problem with the contract, we could discuss it with a judge. Of course, I didn't hear back from him for several weeks. I again contacted him and pointed out the provision in the contract in which he agreed to get the final retouched photos to me within a month/4 weeks from the date of the second photo session. I didn't hear back from him for several more weeks. I again contacted him and flat out threatened to sue him and it took about 2 more weeks before I received half-ass, mediocre photos, that had garbage cans and random strangers in the background. Also, amazingly, the retouched photos looked extremely similar to proofs that he sent me. This guys was the worst. He did nothing. He basically just stole my money. I was so disappointed but I learned a lot about how to choose a photographer, which I have boiled down into my rules about hiring a photographer. Also, I should add that I hired this horrible photographer before I hired my wedding planner and she was in no way involved with this catastrophe.
10 rules for hiring a photographer:
1. Do your research about the photographer. Read reviews, ask around, try to see as much of this person's work as possible. Also, realize that past good work doesn't necessarily guarantee that the person will do good work for you. It is just more likely that a person who does good work and has a good reputation will want to keep his/her good reputation. (I did read reviews about my photographer and they were all positive. He probably wrote them himself but I had also used this photographer before in the past with great results. So, this is not a guarantee. I notice that people that write reviews either have extremely good or extremely bad experience. I think this photographer didn't receive a negative review until I was the one writing it.)
2. Check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and State Attorney General to see if any complaint have been filed against the photographer. This is a continuation of rule #1, doing your research, but it is tool that is often overlooked so, I decided to make it a separate rule.
3. Interview multiple photographers. You need to make sure that you will be able to get along with your photographer, especially if this person is going to shoot your wedding because this person is going to be following you around for many hours on your wedding day. You want to make sure that you are not going to want to punch this person in the face at the end of the night. However, you are not just interviewing them for personality, you also need to get familiar with their photo style. Many photographers consider themselves to be photojournalist because they can tell a story through their pictures. A lot of photographers claim to fall into this category but they are not all good at it. This is why research is extremely important. Some photographers also claim to be editorial in style, which is like a magazine ad. There are many different types of styles but you first need to figure out what type of photos that you want and then find the photographer that matches your style.
4. Make sure that the photographer is clear on your vision and what you want the photos to look like. This also goes into the style of the photographer and the photos but you want to make sure that you have the photos that you want to have. If you want extremely artistic photos, make sure that you hire a photographer that is capable of this and that he or she is clear on what you want. This rule is more about communicating with the photographer. If you have something specific in mind, you have to make sure to communicate that with the photographer. For your wedding, make a list of photos that you want, especially for family photos but also make a list of the cutesy photos that you want of you and your new husband or you and your maid of honor...you get where I am going with this. It doesn't matter how good the photographer is, if you do not clearly communicate with him/her. Don't let your lack of communication stand between you and good photos. A wedding is only one day and once it is over, you are only left with photos (and video).
5. Be realistic. Nothing personal but when it comes to retouching photos, your photographer can do amazing things. They can add people to pictures, remove them from pictures and even open closed eyes (kinda creepy). Your photographer can make you look skinnier, fix skin blemishes, whiten teeth, remove misplaced hairs and even straighten disheveled clothing. However, I caution, you to be realistic about how much retouching you would like the photographer to do (and keep in mind that retouching is expensive). If you do not naturally look like Beyonce or Angelina Jolie, do not ask your photographer to retouch your photos until you look like them (hell, Beyonce and Angelina Jolie don't even look like Beyonce and Angelina Jolie, in real life). It is not just that it is most likely impossible but also you want to look like you on your wedding day...a beautiful, hot, divalicious version of you. So get the right makeup, hair, dress and let your light shine...don't try, want or expect to be something that you are not.
6. Do not settle and remember that you are technically the boss. So after I just lectured you on being realistic. I am not telling you not to settle, which is a little contradictory but it will make sense. Some photographers (and many wedding vendors) consider themselves to "Arh-teass" (whatever, you get what I mean) and because of this, they are sometimes condescending or think that they run the show. Well first off, you should have realized that there was a personality conflict before hiring the person but, if you did not remember that you call the shots (within reason). The photographer is being paid for a service (unless you are having a friend or someone do it for free, in which case you pretty much need to shut your mouth and be grateful). Do not feel intimidated or scared to tell the photographer what you want and what you expect. Do not just settle with what they choose to give you. Don't be afraid to speak up because you do not want to hurt his/her feelings. You are paying good money.
7. Don't be a control freak. Ok, so here I go flip flopping again. I should be a politician. Don't be difficult. No one wants to work with someone who is difficult. In reality, the photographer is an artist and you do want to give him/her room to be creative. Do not try to micromanage everything. Do not be a Bridezilla. I repeat do not be a Bridezilla because no one wants to work with or be around a bitch. You want your photographer to want to do their best work for you...not just because that is what you paid him for but also because he hopefully likes you. So be nice but if there is any nonsense, then drop the hammer. There is a balance between doormat and bitch that you must find when dealing with vendors (when dealing with everyone).
8. Make sure that you have a backup. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Often times wedding photographers will do your engagement photos free or it is included in the wedding package, if you hire them to do your wedding. I personally, do not believe in guaranteeing that the person will be shooting my wedding until I have seen them in action. If you hire the photographer for an engagement session only and you like the photos, you can still hire them for your wedding (assuming that the photographer works in a timely manner and most will if they want to do the wedding, which is the big money). In the event that you end up not liking the engagement photos, you have not invested much and you can go to another photographer. This is why you need a backup. Also, if the engagement photos are included in the wedding package for a photographer, you can always have them either swap it out for an extra hour of coverage of your wedding, discount the price or comes up with something creative like a trash the dress session (which I think is wasteful), a wedding boudoir shoot or a bridal shoot.
9. Make sure that the photographers is within your budget before you fall in love. This one is the funniest one to me because it is the one that I always have the most difficulty with. In life in general, I always want the fancies, or what I think is the nicest and it usually is the most expensive. I always say that my parents cursed me with the name Tiffani because I have Tiffany taste but Target money...ha! Anyway, I found a photographer whose work that I absolutely love online. I just happen to be trolling the wedding websites and this woman's work was the most artistic and beautiful wedding photos that I have ever seen. It wasn't your usual photos of the bridal party making silly faces or jumping in the air (nothing wrong with his, if this is what you like) but instead, her work was pure art. I mean you could hang it on your wall and it would look like a painting. I loved her. I wanted her. I thought that I needed her to do my wedding. I spent days admiring her photos. I talked to my wedding planner (WP) about getting her for me. My WP advised against it because she was familiar with this photographer and knew that she was way out of my budget. Like an idiot, I said I do not care. I love her work. I don't care what it costs (talking as if I am part of the Tiffany family). A few days later, my WP got back to me with a price for this photographer and needless to say, I was over my infatuation. The photographer's fee was more than double what I had in my photo budget. I was disappointed but it was my fault. With everything in life, get an idea of what it costs before you start fantasizing about it. This goes for wedding dresses, rings, venues, decor, houses, cars, etc. If you can't afford the photographer, do not get emotionally invested in their work. I must admit that as I write this, I am still sore that I couldn't get that photographer but luckily my WP found a great photographer for my wedding day, whose work is amazing and fits nicely within my budget! Crisis adverted.
10. Always have a clear contract in writing. This is the easiest one and the most important. The one that is the most common sense and the one that I am ashamed to have screwed up. I thought that I could take my engagement photo photographer at his word because I had worked with him before. he was always on the up and up with me but this was just a stupid mistake for me to make. Learn from me, have a written contract from day one. You do not need to hire an attorney to draft a contract. You can google samples. Be reasonable with your terms but also make sure to protect yourself. Try to think about worst case scenarios and then try to cover these "what if" situations in the contract. Do not draft the contract to be too one-sided or you may have problems with it in court (if you have to go to court). Be fair. make sure to include the amount of payment, timeline for payment, timeline for receiving the photos, the date of the event, the name of the photographer from the company (some photography companies have more than one photographer so make sure that you are getting the person that you expect to get), any terms that you agreed about for retouching the photos, include an anti-assignment clause (google it), think about damages and what the photographer will be liable for if the pictures are lost, destroyed, never received, etc. The photographer may also insist on penalties for you also if you do not pay in full, like a late payment penalty (this is fair if the amount is reasonable). This is not everything and you can learn a lot by researching it. Try to be as specific as possible. Make sure that you negotiate these terms with your photographer. You do not want to spring it on him/her at the last minute. Furthermore, most reputable places already have standard contract but please read it carefully and do not assume that their contract is adequate. The photographer will have his/her best interest in mind and the standard contract may not protect you. Make sure that you understand all of the terms of their contract and ask about anything that you do not understand. be careful before you waive any rights or agree to be liable for anything. If you believe that the contract is too one-sided in favor of the photographer, do not be afraid to negotiate and request that they add in or modify provisions. This goes for all vendors and all photographers. A contract is a meeting of the minds. Do not sign it unless you agree to everything in it. Do not feel coerced to sign it. There are other photographers and if the one you want will not agree to a fair and reasonable contract then that is probably not the photographer that you really want.
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