Why You Need a Professional Photographer on Your Wedding Day

Please don't let him/her do it... or why you really need a professional photographer on your wedding day.

Your wedding day is fast approaching and you need to find a photographer, surely a friend could do it on the cheap? What have you got to lose?

He's you uncle Fred or he's Bill from work or she's Sarah your neighbour, it really doesn't matter. You know he's got a good camera, he can change lenses on it! Must be good! And he even won a couple of competitions at the local camera club and had his picture in the local newspaper holding a trophy or two.

Your wedding day is fast approaching and you need to find a photographer to record your day, surely Fred, Bill or Ted could do it on the cheap? Go on ask them what have you got to lose?

Your victim (and I use the word advisedly) is so flattered you ask but says he's never done a wedding and wouldn't know where to start so politely refuses. Honest man! Or he thinks about it for an hour or so and hides under a stone until you've gone away. Sensible man! Or is flattered you've asked and decides to give it a go for you! This man is an idiot!

Yes your man might be a good amateur photographer - some are very good indeed. They will return to the same place time after time to get just the right light for the landscape or hide in the bushes for days to catch a picture of that elusive kingfisher. However your professional wedding photographer has few hours or so on a Saturday afternoon in unpredicted weather; sometimes in the pouring rain or brilliant sunshine to get 200 - 300 pictures which document your most precious day. Produce a visual record as a reminder to you, your family, your friends and your children. Does it as unobtrusively as possible and get at least some sort of result for you. That is not the same thing as stalking a kingfisher or getting up before dawn to catch the first rays of sunlight over Lake Windermere!

A wedding photographer needs total confidence in his own abilities, good professional, reliable equipment and the ability to work it in the dark with his eyes closed.  He needs equally good, reliable spare equipment in his car, just in case! The patience of a saint, the ability to become invisible, an outgoing gregarious personality, a powerful yet agile intellect, alongside other qualities such as commercial awareness,  and good judgment. Many photographers have a go at social and wedding photography but few take to it and even less make a success of it so the one time amateur is really very unlikely to make a go of it and you stand to lose all those treasured memories from your big day! Is it worth the risk?

On the other hand, of course, you might just strike lucky and Fred, Bill or Ted might just be the world's next great wedding photographer - it might happen! Good luck!

Adam Szczepanski - Reportage Wedding Photographer  | London Wedding Photographer