Having someone you don’t know roam around your big day taking pictures and videos of you, your partner, your closest friends and relatives is somewhat odd as all of your guests will be really conscious with their presence. This feeling of
awkwardness can be resolved with a few tweaks here and there, and by making sure that you’ll find the right team for you. But singling a team among hundreds of others can be a big job, so here are a few easy steps to help you how.
Pick one that which suits your style 1.
Most soon-to-wed couples have been browsing through magazines and attending bridal fairs scouting the right suppliers for them. You would be printing materials and addresses you’ve gathered online and collecting brochures and leaflets that were handed out on fairs.
Before even deciding on the right
photographer and videographer for you, the first thing to do is assess yourself. In browsing photo albums (online and those leather-bound displays), which style do you prefer?
Do you want the classic romantic pictures of you and your partner ogling each other like you’re the only people in the world in your pre-nuptial shots, and that portrait shot at the altar of the whole family with the groom and bride in between?
Perhaps you prefer those black-and-white action and candid shots in your friend’s wedding album; with the decisive moments captured in every shot that hasn’t escaped the keen eye of your photographer and videographer’s, just like a photojournalist on an assignment.
Or, maybe you want both classical and journalistic pictures harmoniously blending in your leather-bound album; a perfect keepsake of the actions and happenings of your special day.
Be it classically romantic or candidly photojournalistic (or even both), you must first choose which style you prefer to easily narrow down the list of potential photographers and videographers you want wandering around your wedding day. Don’t choose the most sought-after and the most popular style. Remember, photography and videography is like fashion, it has trends and will present styles that are only good for the moment and will be engulfed by another
new style. Choose the style that you think will BEST suit you, that will make you feel nostalgic and you think you’ll never get tired of staring at fifty or sixty years from now.
Research, research, research!
2.
Nothing beats good old research! People may have discovered fire, gravity, and electricity accidentally but these things were improved through intensive research.
You too, may stumble upon a truly good wedding photographer and videographer when you were out socializing in a benefit concert or in browsing rigorously online but this will take up a big piece of your time.
You don’t have all day to spend it online and you don’t go out on concerts all night and neither will a photographer or videographer.
Researching may eat up a lot of your time but this will be of value because you’ve dedicated in on reading and finding out which team are recommended by recently wed couples and wedding-based organizations.
Browse Locally 3.
If you’re looking for the perfect supplier, the best thing to do is to browse locally. Find wedding photographers and videographers that are in your area first before venturing out because this will save you time and money for initial meetings and eventually in briefing them when you have finally chosen the right team.
If you are from Cebu, you must first collate all wedding photographers and videographers from your area before looking out for suppliers that are Manila-based.
Most TV features, wedding magazines and internet directories advertise Manila-based studios so make sure that what you have in your list of possible suppliers are within your area to easily come and screen them, who knows you might rub it off better with them?
Unless you really are convinced and firm in the decision that you want a specific team who is not based in your area to handle
your wedding coverage, then you better start looking for local photographers and videographers who have mastered their crafts.
Be Smart 4.
Good wedding pictures and cinematic wedding videos are mostly displayed on photographers and videographers’ websites and on wedding fairs and exhibits. In this industry, to be able to gain more sales you have to put your best foot forward.
You have to be smart in choosing your team.
Review references and view their portfolios, ask them a lot of questions on how they work. Tip to those who are doubtful: Ask a photographer or a videographer if you can see some samples of their work that are still raw and unedited and compare how much difference the two has. A good wedding photographer is going to need a little tweaking from the original photos, while a good videographer can turn a boring wedding video into a cinematic masterpiece.
Do not be afraid to ask them a lot of questions, it is part of your probing. But avoid asking them in an accusatory tone, it won’t do you good and these people work on a very small world, you might gain a reputation you wouldn’t like.
Look for the Connection 5.
As I have mentioned earlier, looking for the right team to cover your wedding is like looking for a clique that you will hang out with throughout your high school life. Though you wouldn’t be trying one photographer and videographer to another (because that would seem silly), you have to learn to trust your instinct. How did you find your best friend in high school?
She may not be the one you’ve first talked to, and she might have even become your enemy because she was so brutally honest that it irritated you. But when she became your lab partner, you learned that she is well afraid of rats and cockroaches too. You hit it off and you’ve learned that you have a lot of things is common and you became inseparable since then.
Just like how you’ve come to know your best friend, you also have to do the same with the team that will cover your wedding. You have to find that connection, the common thing that you and your chosen wedding photographer and videographer has. Be it adoration for rock music or the love to travel, having this common thing will become that catalyst that will ignite your bond with them during the briefing period, easing the feeling of awkwardness during the wedding day.
Talk to the right person 6.
Wedding coverage has become a lucrative career for most people because it has become a necessity (if not a requirement) that you’ll have a wedding album for everyone to see.
While Manong Pedro has been the only person you’ve remember to see that covered your aunt’s wedding twenty years ago, that isn’t the case for most wedding coverage
companies today. It isn’t a one-man team anymore, even for those who are just starting in the field.
Big wedding coverage companies hire different photographers to cover their bookings of more than 100 weddings per month. And if a wedding coverage company has more than 100 bookings per month but is named on a certain head photographer it will be most likely that Mr.
Head Photographer won’t be covering your wedding, especially if you got the budget package.
That is understandable, but be sure that during one of your meetings and briefing you are talking to the person who will cover your wedding. If his staff will say that he’s busy with other assignments, re-schedule the meeting and make sure that you’ve met and talked to him at least twice before the wedding day.
Photo-Video Package or Not?
Ask your local wedding photographers and videographers and they will show you that (for your convenience) they have both wedding photo and video coverage in one package that will surely fit your budget.
While this might be convenient, it could be that your chosen photographer isn’t an effective wedding videographer, or you just like the style of the other videographer you’ve seen in a wedding exhibit.
Wedding photographers and videographers have different styles that may or may not suite your taste, so getting a photo and video package isn’t much of a convenience.
But before you decide to drop of that photo-video package contract you’re about to sign, let us first compare each.
PHOTO & VIDEO PACKAGE SEPARATE
You conveniently get a photo and video coverage in one package
You have the change to pick out the best
photographer and the videographer of your choice
You’ll be working with one team from the same company who knows each other well and are familiar with each other’s working style
These wedding photographers and wedding videographers have worked together, too.
And some have been partners and friends The price is cheaper than getting separate people
to cover the wedding photographer and videographer
The price might be a bit high, but you are assured of photographers and videographers who have specialized their fields
You’ll be meeting with one team working for the same company so you’ll save time and money coordinating with them and to brief them of what you exactly want
Coordinating with photographers and videographers who are from different companies can be a little tasky and time consuming and will depend on their availability
You’ll be working with a team which will compose of 3-5 people who will cover your wedding day so you’ll only have to provide food and accommodation (for out-of-town weddings) for one team
You’ll be working with two teams, one team of photographers and one team of videographers, they will usually be 2-4 people in a team for each so you’ll have to provide food and accommodation (for out-of-town weddings) for two instead of one
Basically, it boils down to the price and how much time it will consume in meeting and coordinating with each team, especially for the budget-conscious couple. But if you really do want to hire a separate team for each then you might want to save up and allot more budget for the wedding photo and video coverage.
What are the different parts of wedding photography & videography?
Twenty years ago, when they say wedding photography they are talking about a hired photographer who is taking pictures at someone’s wedding. These photographers are usually found in the church as they take a snap shot of everyone who walked the aisle from the entourage to the bride herself.
Upon browsing my parent’s wedding album—an old maroon-colored photo album filled with their wedding pictures—I have noticed that most of the pictures in the album are the ones from the church, taken by photographers in their film cameras.
Pictures of the wedding reception, which was held at my mother’s parent’s house, were mostly taken by a drunken uncle or an aunt who is busy talking to her kumare than take pictures of what’s going on in the reception.
But in this generation, the wedding coverage industry has evolved into different forms. The wedding photography section itself has more than three forms, while wedding videography has had its time of experimentation. Listed below are categorized types of the wedding coverage industry based on what is popular and mostly seen.
Familiarizing yourself with the different types of Wedding Photography
These are the types of wedding photography that are popular today among soon-to-wed couples and promoted by wedding photographers themselves:
Pre-Nuptial Photo Shoot
Pre-nuptial photo shoots is basically you and your partner trying to be rock stars or supermodels in a photo session with a professional photographer where you showcase yourselves as the soon-to-wed couple. This may have evolved from those pre-nuptial photo shoot where a couple would hire a photographer to take their photos so that these pictures can be used on invitations, souvenirs and other printed things to be used in the wedding day. From a photographer’s studio, the setting has changed outdoors to fill in the sense of reality and informality which shows a human’s emotion well.
Photographers, being the business-minded that they
are, may have
Necessity-wise, a pre-nuptial photo shoot is important for soon-to-wed couples because it is where you can get ideas and prints for the invitation and save-the-date cards and the souvenirs instead of those candid shots taken at a party where you both don’t look that presentable.
Price range for such service may vary from one photographer to another; while some may include a pre-nuptial photo shoot in the package, others offer this as a stand-alone service which will cost you at about P35,000 on the average, complete with the editing and the album.
A pre-nuptial photo shoot gives a very wide room for creativity. From the classic studio shots and stroll-around-the-park shots, this has evolved into the more surrealistic and avant-garde approach.
Photography studios who have mastered these dream-like, fantasy pre-nups are MangoRED, Mimi+Karl, Cherry Blocks, Dino Lara, and Pat Dy among others.
Boudoir Photography
Boudoir Photography is one of the newest concepts of the wedding photography industry. It is the answer of photographers to artistic nude paintings.
This can be a pre- or a post-nuptial shoot FHM style! Clad in a sexy lingerie (for the bride-to-be) or half-naked (for the much more adventurous groom-to-be), or for those bold enough to bare everything, the bride (or the groom), poses sensually, showing their sexy and wild side. While this is mostly
popular for bride-to-be, your adventurous partner may try it, too!
The purpose of Boudoir Photography is to showcase the bride’s femininity and sensuality. It is printed on a customized album given as a gift to the groom, giving him a glimpse of what he will have come the honeymoon.
While it may be a unique wedding gift to your groom, boudoir photography isn’t so much necessary because you can get it even after the wedding ceremony is over. Practically speaking, this will not do any good to your budget, so you might want to wait until your first or fifth wedding anniversary after getting this service to rekindle the flame. Just be sure to take care of your body though, you don’t want to wear a lingerie with bulges hanging from left and right of your used-to-be-sexy abs, right?
For a service as such, it is a bit pricey as it is unnecessary especially for couples on a limited budget.
Boudoir Photography is creative and unique in its own way, but you can hardly apply other creative styles because the “traditional” outfit in a Boudoir Photography is the different styles of sexy lingerie;
unless, of course, you want to dress-up and go as much as design your own photography set.
Photographers who offer this service in Metro Manila are: (list names).
On-the-Day Wedding Coverage
Perhaps this is the most important keepsake that you will be treasuring long after the last love song has been played in your wedding reception. Your wedding album is as much important as your wedding ring, because every time you will look at it you will always remember that great day where your choose to live with the one person you love for the rest of your life. In this album, you will be seeing the happy faces of everyone who celebrated that fateful day with you.
For decades we have been recording this important little event of our lives, from the one-shot-too-expensive wedding pictures of the 1900s, to the 36-shots-per-roll instamatic film cameras of the 20th century, up to the point-and-shoot-until-you-consumed-your-memory digital cameras of our generation. It is important and a necessity because
you will be keeping this souvenir of your wedding day, and look at it with great joy and nostalgia 50 years from now. You grandchildren and their grandchildren will surely enjoy looking at them, poking fun at how “cool” Lolo and Lola was when they were young.
The price range for such service will depend on who you will hire to cover your wedding. A package of the country’s tried-and-tested wedding photographers starts at P40,000 complete with raw pictures in a DVD and the customized leather-bound album.
Your creativity in this section will depend on what kind of wedding photographer you will hire.
Should you hire a traditional photographer who happens to be great at classically-romantic-but-may-look-scripted shots of the whole celebration, then the creativity that you crave for may not be there.
If you happen to hire the journalistic photographer who happens to capture all the right moment and is great at taking candid-and-creative-but-too-informal pictures, then you’ll be getting creatively unique pictures. Be sure to hire a team who are good at both styles if you want each style (the classic and journalistic) to be captured and included in your album.
Photographers who have mastered this craft are Dino Lara, Wally Gonzales, Edwin Tuyay, and Jun Valbuena among others.
Post-Nuptial Photo Shoot
A Post-Nuptial Photo Shoot is just like a Pre-Nup but is reversed. While a pre-nuptial’s pictures are used to decorate the invitation and souvenirs, the post-nuptial pictures can be used in the Thank You cards that you are going to be sending out to your principal sponsors and guests. This can either be done right after the wedding ceremony before the couple goes to the reception, or can be scheduled for
Pre-nuptial photos tend to be creative and depends heavily on the couple’s personality.
another date.
A post-nuptial shoot right after the wedding is part the wedding photography package, so scheduling for a post-nuptial on another date after the wedding is a little too impractical especially if you already have a pre-nup album.
It is as much pricier as getting a pre-nup, so that’s another reason for it to be tagged as impractical.
This can be recommended though for couples who has not had a pre-nup photo shoot, an additional to their keepsake albums. This can also be done a year after the wedding, or together with the new additional to the family so that you’ll not only have a post-nup album but a family album as well.
Let your creativity run wild during the shoot, may
Let your creativity run wild during the shoot, may