professional enough for your special day, do they have insurance and all the other points we raised earlier. All I would suggest is, try not to let an amazing photographer slip through your hands for an amount that you might regret later. HOW LONG SHOULD WE SET ASIDE FOR PICTURES? This is often overlooked or under appreciated. Couples sometimes worry that guests will get hungry, bored or even fed up waiting until mealtime. This really isn’t the case as guests love to chat, chill, relax, have a drink etc. A good photographer will be skilled enough to work with the time constraints given and will advise in a pre-wedding chat what to expect and can be achieved in the time allotted. We always recommend a longer period as it gives you time to relax and chat with your friends and family rather than being whisked away really quickly. A good rule of thumb is around 2.5 to 3 hours from the start of service until the meal is served. A registry service is generally 20-25 minutes and when it’s time to eat, the venue would tend to start calling people to seat around 25 minutes before service. This then leaves around 1.5 hours from the end of the service to call up, enabling plenty of chill-out time with your loved ones. It also gives us more time to capture lots of laughing candid pictures which are always huge crowd-pleasers. WE ARE CAMERA SHY AND REALLY DON’T LIKE THE IDEA OF BEING PHOTOGRAPHED! At least 90 per cent of wedding couples ‘dread’ the idea of posing for the camera as they don’t consider themselves photogenic. Personally we relish this outlook as it gives us the perfect opportunity to show them just how beautiful they can look in a picture that is skilfully taken. This is achieved by generally keeping the shoot very casual, walking and chatting, asking you to stop and whisper cheeky things in each others ears – it’s posing without posing and you almost forget the camera is there! HOW MANY GROUP PICTURES WILL BE TAKEN? In our experience of pre-wedding meetings, some couples have a small element of negative experience or story about the group shots and are worried this could be something the guests fear and find a chore. We’re fully aware that in general, some family and friends would prefer not to be called up for pictures so instead we take this opportunity to have lots of light-hearted fun with them. As a general rule, we’d suggest choosing around 8-10 different group shots. That said, all weddings are unique and it’s important to capture memories of all the people you’ve asked along. WE’RE HAVING A CHURCH WEDDING, IS THERE ANYTHING WE NEED TO KNOW? Churches generally don’t have the most flattering of light inside. The vicar would always prefer very little photography (and sometimes insists on none at all). In general they pretty much always insist on no flash photography. It’s your responsibility to discuss this with your chosen venue in advance as we can not be held responsible should they refuse us from taking pictures on the day. Personally we always make a point of meeting with the church as early as possible and introducing ourselves in a very friendly manner, we switch our cameras to silent mode, we refrain from using flash and try to stay in one place for the majority of the service whilst using a long lens where possible. DO THEY SHOOT WITH JUST ONE CAMERA AND ONE LENS? You may think this totally irrelevant, but consider the possibility of equipment failure during the wedding. Quality camera gear is generally very reliable but you never want to tempt fate. Your photographer should carry, not only a second camera of equal quality but also a range of lenses to cover different situations and again in case one should fail during the day. Some photographers may not have invested money in such areas and whilst their rates may seem very appealing, this could be an area they have omitted and could be why one supplier is higher priced than others. DUAL MEMORY CARD, BACK UP PROCEDURE & OFF- SITE STORAGE This is an area that very few couples would ever know about, however it could and should be classed as one of the most important. Your photographer’s camera needs to have a dual memory card slot and you need to check they shoot to both cards at the same time. What this means is, if one memory card fails or becomes corrupt (memory cards are not perfect and are subject to failure) you need to know they have the security of the same files on the second memory card. You want to check they back up to two different hard drives when they return to the computer as this will ensure they have the same safety once the files are downloaded and finally, they should have an off-site storage (normally Cloud) facility to alleviate the risk of fire or theft. Jason Little, Photographer | Jason Little Weddings 07979 498 698 | www.jasonlittleweddings.com 93 ASK THE EXPERTS
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