1. Your wedding is about you. Do what you want.

There are no rules when it comes to a wedding day. Every wedding day is different and every couple is different. What’s right for one couple may not be for another. Rules are often made to be broken. Do what you want on your wedding day. A good wedding photographer will recognize this and it will really help you enjoy your day to the max. A wedding is about you and your partner. Everything else is important, but ancillary.

2. Good photos take time. (But not that much time)

Time is the one thing you don’t have a lot off on your wedding day. If your wedding photographer doesn’t recognize this, you might be in for a surprise come your wedding day. A good wedding photographer can get things done timely, effortlessly, and most important efficiently. Some people prefer to take more picture’s and other’s prefer to take less. Either way, time is of the essence.

3. Get ready somewhere quiet

Prep time can be stressful, and it can be doubly stressful when you’re being crowded by a lot of (well-meaning) people. Try to cut the crowd down, so you can relax a bit. If there is one thing a photographer can’t hide, (even the best ones) it’s a stressed out bride.

4. Your dress is probably going to get dirty.

If you repeat this to yourself, it will be much easier to come to terms with it when it happens. If your planning an outdoor wedding, taking advantage of the environment comes first over some dirt on the bottom of the dress. While dresses and shoes are expensive, don’t fret all day about it. A well experienced photographer is aware of all these things and most often will ask you what your comfortable doing and not doing on your wedding day. 

Sometimes, the best picture’s require trekking through a field of dirt or a dirty city street. Embrace it! 

5. Consider banning iphones, ipads etc at the ceremony.

iPads are particularly horrid, especially held up in the air during the ceremony – particularly at inopportune times. 

6. Pick a good photographer and ditch the other lists.

Family photo lists are great – shot lists, not so much. Trying to micro-manage a photographer is not a good idea. If you like the galleries enough to book, you will like yours when you get it.

The photographer needs freedom to do his thing, to shoot what he sees in front of him. All couples, all locations, all moments are different, and it’s the photographer’s task to capture them as they happen, not to manufacture an image from a different place and time, shot by a another person. 


7. Poor Scheduling

There is nothing worse than rushing, especially on your wedding day. A good photographer can help you pick all the times for your wedding. Since this only happens once, you want to make sure you do it well. 


8. Give yourself some time alone on the dance-floor.

For your first dance / bridal waltz with your partner, make sure you allow yourself a bit of time alone together on the dance-floor. Savor it. It’s a few minutes that you should enjoy, alone, and it makes for some beautiful photos. Some of the best shot’s I take are in the second half of the first dance. The first minute is dedicated to the safe shots and the second minute is about the creative ones. If your bridal party swamp the dancefloor too early, you may miss out on that one magic image that could be a treasure to you for the rest of your life. 


9. The right wedding photographer can still make your wedding pictures shine even if you don’t follow any of their advice

Do you know how many couple’s have ignored what I told them? Many over the years, especially early on in my career. Funny enough, over the year's I've learned it doesn’t matter all that much, Now a day's, I've realized most, wedding days are meant to be exciting, surprising, & unscripted. A great wedding photographer goes with the flow. If there was ever a reason to have the right wedding photographer, it’s that. Remember, the photographer is there to stand in the right place at the right time and press the button.