Not everyone can afford a Hello! Magazine style wedding and plenty of couples are opting for a budget wedding these days. So apart from haggling with a professional photographer over price and getting all of the photos on a DVD, what other options are open to you to really save money?
Some bride and grooms have opted for disposable cameras to solve this problem and been sorely disappointed by the poor quality of the photographs they got back.
Find someone who is a skilled amateur or semi-professional photographer
Is there a skilled photographer amongst your guests? You will be amazed at the number of good amateur photographers out there! Failing this, ask around to find a friend-of-a-friend or contact the local art college who run photography courses and have lots of keen photography students. If you’re really lucky and more than one person steps forward, ask one to be responsible for the “formal photographs” and the other to work in the background taking photographs of your friends and family enjoying themselves.
If you are not using a guest, understand how many hours they can be at the wedding and agree this up front as you don’t want to find they have to leave halfway through your wedding.
What equipment do they have?
Good photographers will bring the right equipment for the job so you should ask what equipment they have or have access to. Big group shots need to be shot from a height, make sure the venue has a step ladder available if needed. Their equipment will also have to work hard over a long period of time, make sure they have spare batteries and storage cards to last the duration.
Planning your photography with your photographer
Planning with him or her is really important. If they can visit the venue(s) with you this will help significantly but they will also need to know your itinerary timings and what you want them to capture at what stages during your day.
Crowd Management
Professional photographers have years of experience of individually managing “the crowd” at a wedding. Assign an usher who can corral and manage people to help your photographer out.
What if no one can help you?
Don’t despair! Ask all of your friends to take as many photographs as possible of your special day. Today’s digital cameras provide almost “guaranteed” good photos. Have everyone upload their photos to your shoebox so you can then choose which ones you want as your “formal” wedding photos.
After the wedding
Your photographer and guests will have taken lots of photos. They can securely upload all of their amazing photographs to your shoebox from their home PCs, so all of the photographs from your wedding are in your personal shoebox. Delete what you don’t like and then share your online album with those that were there and those that could not make it, anywhere in the world!!
Prints and Albums
This is easily done as well as you have access to all the high resolution photos from your shoebox. You can also print photos, posters or canvases via shoebox360.
Friends who work in creative industries such as graphics design or publishing will have great skills to edit digital photos and layout albums… ask for their advice and maybe secure a little of their time for them to do their creative thing on your album or photobooks!
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