Before, During & After Your Wedding Day :: What To Expect
If this is your first time booking a wedding photographer then you may not be sure what happens once you’ve paid your deposit and signed the contract.
I can’t speak for all photographers out there, but if you end up booking me here is run through of what you can expect to happen, and when.
Before Your Wedding Day
About 3 months before your wedding we will start to plan your engagement shoot if you have booked one. If you would rather do it earlier or later that’s fine too, just let me know.
After your engagement shoot the photos will be loaded into your online gallery.
This is the gallery that will also contain your wedding photos.
It will remain in ‘pre-release’ mode meaning only you can access it.
1 month prior to your wedding we should start to think about the timeline for the day.
If practical we can arrange a sit down meeting, otherwise a phone call will be fine.
We will need to establish what time I should arrive at the beginning of the day, and then the full agenda including the details of locations for getting ready, the ceremony and the reception.
A few days before the wedding I will get back in touch to confirm all the details I have, just in case anything has changed last minute.
I’ll also make sure your gallery is set up if you didn’t have an engagement shoot.
Your Wedding Day
I will arrive as planned and stay with you for most of the day.
The only time I’m not shooting is whilst everyone is having dinner. This is when I prepare the same day slideshow (if included in your package).
I will then set up the slideshow in the reception venue so that others can see it.
I’ll always make sure you both see it before anyone else :-).
I’ll also bring an iPad which your guests can use to pre-register for the gallery.
They will then receive an email once the gallery is released.
I’ll make sure you know in advance when that email is going out, as explained below.
After Your Wedding
Within 24 hours I will make sure you have a handful of photos that you can share.
I like to make sure that the first photos people see of your wedding are good ones :-).
These will be loaded into your gallery which will remain in pre-release mode for now.
I’ll also put a few extra photos from your wedding day on my own social media accounts, so keep an eye out for those in the first week.
Within 7 days I’ll put together a sneak peak slideshow like the one below.
I’ll send it directly to you first, you’ll be able to share it freely at your discretion.
Within (usually) about 28 days I’ll have the full collection of edited photos ready for you to have a look at.
The photos will be provided on your online gallery, which will remain in pre-release mode to give you a chance to look through the photos privately before everyone else gets to see them.
You will have the opportunity to hide photos from the gallery at this point.
You can download individual images or the entire gallery in high resolution.
When I send you the gallery I’ll also give you a proposed date for when the gallery will be officially released.
When that happens your guests will be emailed with the link and password they need to access your photos.
They will be able to download web-quality images and purchase high-quality downloads and order prints.
If you want more time to review the images let me know and I’ll change the release date.
If your package includes a video that should be ready within about 6 weeks after your wedding day.
Albums
If your package included an album then we can start designing it as soon as you have received the images.
You can use the online gallery to tag all the photos you want in your album, or you can leave it to me to pick the ones I think work best.
I will put together a first draft layout and send that to you. You can review, send comments and request changes, I’ll make those changes and you can review again. We’ll keep doing that until you are happy, and then I’ll get it ordered.
It usually takes 2 weeks from placing the order to delivery.
If you haven’t already ordered an album with your package then you can always add one later. I keep the galleries online indefinitely so don’t worry about leaving it a year or two.
So, that’s it in a nutshell 🙂
So that’s everything you can expect from me. Between all of these steps I’m always available if you have questions or concerns, so please feel free to get in touch.
Any questions?
Shoot me a message on my Facebook page and I’ll get straight back to you.