Do You Really Need A Professional Wedding Photographer?

Recently, I met a woman who had gotten married a couple of years ago and she told me that she did not hire a professional wedding photographer but rather had some family friends shoot her wedding. As this was her second marriage, she just did not feel compelled to hire a professional.

She told me that after she got the photos back from everyone who took photos at her wedding, she noticed that there wasn't a single photo of her and her new husband together in the shots! Apparently everyone was taking photos of individuals at the wedding but nobody thought about taking a picture of the bride and groom together.

I suppose saving a few dollars is always on everyone's mind. But to save a few dollars and miss something as obvious as photographing the bride and groom together is unthinkable! Is this important in wedding photography? I'd say it is...

Today with the advent of low-priced digital cameras, I see a LOT of people taking photos at weddings. At some weddings I even see people who use cameras as nice as my cameras, although nobody seems to use the terrific lenses I use which often costs as much as the camera itself... sometimes more!

So why do you need a pro to shoot your wedding photos if you have access to so many amateur photographers who can shoot your wedding for free or perhaps at a low cost?

It's been often said that it's not the camera that makes the picture, but the photographer's vision that makes the picture. This is so true! The camera is just the tool that captures the image, but it's the vision of the photographer that composes the shot, determines the proper exposure to get the right effect, and the photographer's knowledge of what to shoot and when to shoot it that makes for a nice coverage of the day.

I have told many potential clients I meet that if you want someone to take your wedding photos for $500 or less, I'm sure you can find someone to do it. I have seen ads from a photographer out of town who advertises that he will shoot your wedding photos for free if you pay for his trip and hotel bill to your location. This photographer just wants to see the world, I guess.

I'm bothered by these types of photographers as it seems that their interest in this work is not in the best interest of their clients' needs. Anyone with a camera today can call themselves a "pro" photographer by charging just a few dollars to get a job taking photos. But it's the true professional photographer who spends lots of time learning and honing his/her craft by study and working at many weddings and improving his/her skills and offering better images at each wedding. Besides time investment, the working pro often continues to upgrade his/her equipment too to offer better images as well. It's a constant upgrade path.

I know I do this every year. Sure, my current cameras can continue to do the job. But often something new comes out to make a slight improvement in my images and I will sell last year's gear to buy this year's new models to improve my quality. I do this because I'm looking out for my client's best interest. I want them to have the best available and if that means spending a few dollars (ok, it's usually in the thousands, but who's counting) to get a better quality, I do it.

I attend seminars, read lots of books and magazines and visit countless webpages to learn to do a better job. I practice new techniques all the time too. Now I am going into my 17th year since I started shooting weddings, so why do I really need to do all this extra work? Again, there is always something new to learn that can improve my skills. And I like to put my clients interests first.

So do you really need to hire a professional wedding photographer to photograph your wedding? Only you can decide that. But if your wedding day is important to you, I'd say there's really no other way to go if you want excellent photos to document the day.