Warren writes articles for and is also the Wedding Photographer Expert on www.women24.com

So at long last he’s plucked up the courage and proposed to you with a: ‘My little Blossom-honey-suckle, I love you (I think), now please will you marry me so that we can have two incomes, buy an enormous house and not ever worry about having to ‘get lucky’ again?’ Actually, it hasn’t worked like that at all now has it? And choosing a wedding photographer also shouldn’t be as crass either. It’s actually a pretty serious exercise considering the amount of money you’re about to spend on your photographer. So it’s the one part of planning your wedding that you’re really going to have to put an extra bit of effort into. You see, you’re going to entrust your wedding photographer to shoot you, your partner, both sets of parents, red Uncle Alf, the dress, the car, the gifts, the crying, the laughter, the rings, first kiss, speeches, dances, bouquet, best-man shnogging bridesmaid, blah, blah, blah garter-throwing. Plus everything in between. So choosing your wedding photographer is a biggie. A very big biggie. So, how do you go about it?

Well, the first thing to realise is that there are a lot of wedding photographers out there! Some really are wedding photographers while others are people who have digital cameras and who call themselves wedding photographers. It can all be a bit scary really. So I’m going to try and help you here by giving you a few tips.

1. Do your homework. Grab a cup of tea, a beer, a glass of wine. Pull up two chairs and hit the better wedding websites together. Look at the photographers and their styles. Then look even more. Then look again. Ask around on facebook and twitter for recommendations. Find the photographers whose work you like and visit their websites. Ask your wedding planner who they recommend, ditto your venue. Draw up a shortlist of 5 or so photographers whose work you really like (choosing a shortlist of too many photographers will probably just confuse you even more).
2. Decide on your budget. While you’re deciding on your budget, e-mail or call the photographers you’ve selected and ask them for their rates. Good, quality wedding photographers are not cheap. They shouldn’t be cheap – they’re bloody good at what they do. See which photographers fit in with your budget. Remember, a lot of guests will give you cash as a gift which you can put towards getting a good photographer.
3. What do you need from your photographer? The first and most important thing that you will need is a photographer who can capture exactly what you want and then still delight you even more! Look at what your prospective photographers have on offer in terms of material. Are there prints, hi-res CD, coffee table album? I’ve heard some people say that they can get 250 jumbos, 50 album enlargements, 20 framing enlargements and a coffee table book all for R2 500-00! Uh-oh, I can see the tears already.
4. Short-list. Righto, the time has come to be brutal. Make up your shortlist – 3, 4, maybe 5 photographers at most. Meet them, chat to them, take samples of photographs you like with you. It’s vitally important that you and your photographer are comfortable with each other. You kind of need to be pretty cool together as you’re going to be together a lot over the course of your wedding day.
5. Attention-to-detail. Okay, so you’ve hired your photographer and on the day he pitches up, has a few drinks, eats some snacks, and takes a few consolation snaps. You end up in tears, the MC wants to knock him out and it all gets a touch nasty. So make sure beforehand that your photographer has a plan – it doesn’t need to be a military operation, but a plan is needed. In short, a relaxed, easy-going photographer who knows when to command a bit of attention and when not to is the way to go. Be sure to also have a contract between you and your photographer so that both parties are 100% clear on what is expected. There’s also the small matter of when you will receive your photographs – waiting 6 months is hardly acceptable now is it?

So there you have it! Be careful, good luck, and don’t say I didn’t warn you!