Hiring A Family Friend To Be Your Wedding Photographer
or, “The Road To Shitty Photos Is Paved With Good Intentions.”
It’s tempting, we know. You’re engaged and planning your wedding. It’s an exciting but stressful time! Where to spend your money and how, trying to be smart about it, not getting sucked into the lore of the Wedding-Industrial-Complex. Someone comes up with the idea to have a family friend act as the wedding photographer. Maybe it’s a budding photography student. Maybe it’s someone who is passionate about their photography hobby and “knows what they’re doing” with a camera. Maybe it’s the person who photographed all the family weddings over the past 20 years. Before you decide to commit to using your friend, read on to figure out of this is the right path for you.
Scenario 1: Your friend is a professional wedding photographer. This is what they do for a living. It’s their main source of income. They have a website and active social media presence. You can ask them to send a few full galleries to you so you can get a sense of their style.
Answer: If you like what you see on their website and in those galleries, gods yes, hire them! It’s nice to work with someone you know you get along with and who you can trust. Don’t ask for a discount on their services. This is how they keep food on the table, and shooting a wedding at a discount means they aren’t shooting a wedding that day at their normal rate. Ask to see their packages, and if they want to give you a discount, they’ll offer it.
Scenario 2: Your friend wants to break into the wedding photography industry. They recently bought a camera that costs a couple of hundred dollars and they have been taking photos of friends and family when they can to build their portfolio. They say they’ll shoot your wedding for free if they can use the images for their portfolio.
Answer: Nope, nope, nope. You’re spending thousands of dollars on your wedding day. The photos will be the only thing you have left after the day is over. You deserve to have great photos to remember candid moments, a person who knows how to help you look your best through careful use of lighting and structure to an image, and the help and support of someone who has been through hundreds of weddings. If you want to help your friend, ask the wedding photographer you eventually hire if your friend can shadow them on the wedding day. They’ll get to have their portfolio images, you get to feel good for helping them, and you still get awesome photos for yourself.
Actual photo from the author’s wedding from a guest who believed in themselves enough to stand in front of the hired videographer to take a photo.
Scenario 3: Your friend loves photography. They’ve been doing photography for years, and post often to their social media with landscapes, street photography, flowers, whathaveyou. There’s no question that they know their way around a camera. They’ve offered to shoot your wedding for you as a gift, and they think it’ll be fun.
Answer: Probably not the super best idea ever. It’s one thing to understand how to use a camera. It’s another to understand how to pose human beings (even many of our candid looking photos have some element of structure to them because of specific angles we take or how we light the moments), how to consider lighting for portraits of humans, and how to photograph receptions in darker spaces. Professional wedding photographers also have the knowledge of years and years in the industry. We can quickly think on our feet to problem solve on a wedding day because we’ve been through so much already. We’re not a substitute for a day-of wedding coordinator, but we are pretty damn close. Graciously thank your friend for the offer, maybe suggest doing an engagement session instead, but hire someone who specializes in weddings for your day.
Bonus reason why a personal friend / coworker / family member shouldn’t be your wedding photograper:
What if you aren’t happy with the photos? Will you be comfortable talking with them about that and looking for a remedy? Will you be okay sitting with them on holidays? Will your friendship be the same? Just some food for thought there.
