How do you choose a wedding photographer?

One complete wedding, not the best thirty frames

A portfolio is the best thirty frames from three hundred weddings. What you want to see is the wedding in between: the waiting, the corridor at the registry office, the dark hall at eleven at night. So ask to see a single wedding from start to finish, and watch whether the pictures hold together across the whole day — if the style changes from frame to frame, a few selected images have usually been worked on at length and the rest have not.

A conversation before you sign

Meet the person beforehand, or at least speak on video. On the day you will spend more hours with them than with most of your guests, and whether you can relax around them shapes the pictures more than the equipment does. What should come out of that conversation in writing: what happens if the photographer falls ill, when the images are delivered, the minimum number of edited pictures you receive, what you are allowed to do with them, and how long the files are kept.

When to look more closely

• No written contract, only a promise in a message.
• No clear answer to how the files are backed up.
• A price far below everyone else — ask which hours and which work are not included.
• Only small, phone-sized images online; you cannot tell from those how a file holds up in print.
• Not one complete wedding they can show you.