By now, you should be equipped with quite a few important questions that you can ask your potential wedding photographer. All of these questions cover scenarios that would affect your wedding day so don’t hesitate to ask before committing to hiring your wedding photographer. Here are a few more questions you can ask.
Contracts and Rights:
- Is there a written contract outlining all terms and conditions?
Any photographer you consider should provide a contract. Contracts protect all parties involved and outline what you can expect throughout the whole wedding process with them. In your contract, a few of the things you should see included are your wedding date, your agreed upon photography fee, when you can expect your photos, what you are going to receive in your package, and a cancellation policy, among other things. - Who owns the rights to the photos?
Usually, the photographer maintains rights to the photos but will issue you private usage and printing rights. By law, if any photo is captured by a photographer, then the rights to that image belongs to that photographer unless they sign legal documentation relinquishing their rights to the image.
Cancellation and Refund Policy:
- What is your policy if you need to cancel or reschedule the wedding?
This varies by photographer. Most photographers require non-refundable retainers to secure your wedding date. Should you decide to cancel, your retainer would not be refunded. Any amount you’ve paid over the retainer would be refunded. If you choose to reschedule, some photographers, would apply your retainer to your new date if they are available for it. Some photographers may also charge a rescheduling fee and the fee of your wedding coverage may be changed to reflect any changes in price if your photographer had raised their prices since you signed your initial contract. - What happens if you can’t fulfill your commitment?
If we can’t fulfill our commitment to you and are unable to find a suitable replacement for our services, we would refund the your retainer.
Insurance:
- Do you have liability insurance in case of accidents or damages?
Your photographer should absolutely have liability insurance. In case an accident happens while shooting your wedding, they would need to make sure they are covered. Many venues require all of their vendors to have liability insurance anyway.
Timeline and Schedule:
- How do you plan to coordinate with the wedding schedule and events?
We would assist with your wedding day timeline, communicating with you and your planner weeks (and sometimes, months) prior to the wedding. - Will you help create a photography timeline?
Our assistance with the wedding day time is centered around photography. While coordinating with your planner and knowing what events you have planned on your wedding day, we help to create a timeline that will make sure all of your important moments are captured and all of your events happen in a timely and organized manner.
Backup Storage:
- How do you ensure the safety and backup of our wedding photos?
We back up all images in multiple places immediately following your wedding–cloud storage, external hard drives, etc. As soon as the wedding is over with, we are backing up all of your images so that they will be safe as we begin our edits. Different photographers have different ways that they ensure the safety and backup for your wedding images, and they would be able to give you more insight into how they do that.
Stay tuned for Part 4! In the meantime, you can read What You Need to Know: Questions to Ask Your Photographer, Part 1 and What You Need to Know: Questions to Ask Your Photographer, Part 2 for more ideas of questions to ask.
