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The photographer is the only supplier whose work stays with you for fifty years. The catering is eaten, the flowers dry out, the music ends: the photographs become the official memory of the day. Choosing badly is a mistake that cannot be corrected.
This guide is not a list of compliments to my own work: these are the questions I would ask if I had to hire a photographer for my own wedding.
In this guide
Ask to see an entire wedding, not a portfolio
A portfolio is a selection of the best twenty images from ten years: it tells you little. A complete wedding tells you everything — how the photographer handles a dark church, a flat-lit lunch, family groups, rain, the night party.
If a photographer has no whole wedding to show you, the next question asks itself.
Check consistency of style across weddings
Look at three different jobs: if the style changes radically, the photographer is following trends or requests rather than a vision. Adapting to the venue is fine; changing language at every wedding is not. In your photographs you want to recognise a hand, not a catalogue.
Ask who will actually turn up on your day
In larger operations the person who sells the service is not always the one who shoots it. Get the name of the lead photographer, and of any second shooter, written into the contract. It is the most important clause and the most forgotten.
Talk about post-production and delivery times
Images must be developed one by one: colour, exposure, cleanup. Ask how many images are delivered developed and how long it takes. One month and six months are not the same service, and the timing belongs in the contract.
Ask how the files are protected
The biggest risk at a wedding is not a bad frame: it is a lost file. Backup must happen the same day, to at least two separate drives, and the archive must be kept for years. If this question makes a photographer uncomfortable, that is a signal.
Have a video call before signing
You will spend more time with this person than with any other supplier: twelve, fourteen hours side by side. If nothing clicks on a call, nothing will click in the church. Human compatibility is not a romantic detail, it is a technical requirement: people open up in front of someone who puts them at ease.
Red flags
No written contract. No complete wedding to show. Prices far below market with no explanation. Refusal to state delivery times. A portfolio made only of posed portraits with not one real moment. Reviews that are all identical and all from the same month.
What the contract must say
Date, times, places, photographers' names, hours of coverage, minimum number of developed images, delivery times and method, deposit and balance, postponement terms, image usage rights and model release. If something is missing, ask for it before signing, not after.
Frequently asked
How far in advance should we book a photographer?
In Calabria, twelve to eighteen months ahead for Saturdays in July and August. Off season, six months can be enough.
Reportage or traditional style?
It depends on you. Reportage returns the truth of the day; traditional guarantees the family-group album. I work in reportage, but I do shoot the family groups: they are the memory of people who will not always be there.
Is an engagement session necessary?
Not compulsory, but it helps a great deal: it gets you used to the lens and lets me understand how you move together before the day that counts.
Can I ask for the unedited files?
Generally no, and that is normal: raw files do not represent the finished work, just as dough does not represent bread.
If after these questions you want to ask me some directly, write to me: I reply within 24 hours.
