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Complete wedding photography checklist for digital photographers

Been asked to photograph someone’s wedding? Congratulations! Do you have your wedding photography checklist ready?

You'll naturally want to do a good job, but you may be unsure on what you need to take and who you’re going to photograph. No problem! It’s why these pages were written!

Here you will find a useful checklist covering who to photograph. But this wedding photography checklist goes further!

You will find checklists covering the other essentials a digital wedding photographer needs too. After all, not much point arriving with your list of subjects if you’ve forgotten to pack the memory cards!

This wedding photography checklist is broken down into four sections:

For help and advice about posing the bride and groom, get the Posing Secrets eBook. It's aimed at general portrait photographers, but is absolutely fantastic for wedding photographers too.

Click here for a printable checklist that covers everything you will need - including a list of subjects - for digital wedding photography.
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Who's wedding is it?

An important wedding photography tip – when completing your wedding photography checklist make sure you talk to the bride and groom - in advance!

Always, always remember that it’s their wedding, not yours. This applies no matter how close you are to the happy couple.

The reason it is important to talk to them in advance is twofold.

First, they may well be friends or relatives of yours, but they will still expect a certain level of professionalism from you. Going through your wedding photography checklist with them in advance is an important part of that professionalism.

Second, it helps you to know exactly what is expected. This will come across on the wedding day itself. Especially to their guests, whom you probably don’t know too well – if at all.

Read on to find out what you need to ask the bride and groom before the wedding. Or use the links above to jump to other parts of the wedding photography checklist.

And finally, good luck!

It's those extra little personal touches

Wedding photography checklist – prior to the event
Arrange to meet the couple at least a week before the wedding. You need to go through your wedding photography checklist with them to get a good idea of what they expect of you on the day. Things to go through are:

The style of photography
Black and white? Formal? Reportage (sometimes called photojournalistic wedding photography).

Meet the guests!

digital wedding photography group photo

If possible, meet the really important family members beforehand.

Or maybe see some photos of them so that you recognize them on the day.

If you can wander up to the father of the bride with a confident “Hi, Bill isn’t it? You must be very proud. I’m your daughter’s photographer”.

Bill will be chuffed to bits that you did a little research prior to his daughter’s big day.

What will you wear? This is an important part of your wedding photography checklist. And it has nothing to do with actually taking photographs!

If your bride and groom are going for a really casual look then you might look a little out of place in a formal suit. And if they are going for the formal look themselves, then don’t overdo it! You not there to out-shine the bride and groom. Do what is necessary in order to fit in nicely.

NB:It is sometimes a good if you can stand out a little though. It marks you out as the photographer and people will know how to react to you. Of course, being weighed down like a pack-horse with camera equipment should mark you out to everyone, regardless of what you wear!

Payment
It can be a little awkward to raise this, but it should be on every wedding photography checklist.

If it’s friends or family you are photographing this can be even more tricky. You won’t want to rip them off, but equally, they won’t want to rip you off either!

Perhaps you only want to cover costs? Maybe your photos will be your gift to them? Whatever the situation it’s important to come to an agreement, no matter how large or small.

Make sure you have payment on your wedding photography checklist, because people feel more comfortable when they know where they stand.

Protecting your work

As a digital wedding photographer it is all too easy to see your work stolen. And with it, money that is rightfully yours.

It is therefore vital to copyright your work. It's easy to do.

The best services are online (so they are easy to manage), and can also act as a free backup service for your digital files too.

The one I use gives me a generous 10 year copyright protection on my photos. Even if I were to cease my subscription tomorrow the pictures I have already uploaded will remain protected for the full ten years.

Click to read how I copyright pictures

Finally, make sure you go through the other aspects of the wedding photography checklist.

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Sidebar . . .
One of the best things about digital photography is sharing the photos you take. However, because we end up taking so many of them, it’s easy to lose track of them all.

I recommend you give Google’s Picasa a try. It will not only organise your photos, but will perform minor edits too.

It’s all some photographers need, and best of all, it’s absolutely free!

Picasa comes as part of the Google Pack. If you don’t want the rest of the pack just de-select them when you get to the download screen.