{"id":4690,"date":"2026-09-05T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/how-to-choose-a-wedding-photographer\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T03:00:00","slug":"how-to-choose-a-wedding-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/how-to-choose-a-wedding-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Choose a Wedding Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Choosing a wedding photographer splits into two different tasks, and most couples only do the first. The first is finding a few names whose photos you like. The second is checking whether you want to spend a dozen or so hours of the most nerve-racking day of your life with this particular person, and whether what you agreed is written down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everything about the first task is already online. This article is about the second: the meeting and the contract. I&#8217;m writing it from the other side of the table, so I know which questions make a difference and which ones couples ask out of politeness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;re at an earlier stage and mostly thinking about budget, start with <a href=\"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wedding-photographer-cost-warsaw\/\">what the price is made of<\/a>, and come back here once you have a shortlist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why meet at all<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can sign a contract by email, and sometimes that&#8217;s what happens, especially with couples who are getting married in Poland but live somewhere else. But if you have the chance, meet in person, or at least talk on a video call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reason is practical, not social. The photographer is the only supplier who is with you through the whole day, from the morning preparations to the bouquet and veil ceremony around midnight. The band plays at the venue, someone drops off the flowers in the morning, the cake arrives at three. The photographer stands in your bedroom while Mum does up your dress, and is still with you eight hours later when you&#8217;re dancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After an hour of conversation you know whether that presence will feel like nothing to you or whether it will weigh on you. That&#8217;s information you can&#8217;t read from a portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Fourteen questions worth asking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You don&#8217;t have to ask all of them. I&#8217;ve marked with an asterisk the ones that, in my view, settle the most, and you can ask the rest if something worries you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About the work on your day<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>1. Will you be posing us?<\/strong> * This is a question about working style, and the answer should be specific, not &#8220;natural and documentary&#8221;. Ask directly how many times during the day the photographer stops the wedding to set something up, and at which moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>2. What time do you start and what time do you finish?<\/strong> * Check whether that&#8217;s a time on the clock or a point in the programme. The difference between &#8220;until the bouquet and veil ceremony&#8221; and &#8220;eight hours&#8221; can be big, and it shows up in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>3. What happens if the wedding runs late?<\/strong> Is there an extra charge per hour, or does the photographer stay until the end? Ask now, not at two in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>4. Do you work alone or with someone?<\/strong> And if alone, what&#8217;s the plan for a moment when two things are happening at once?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>5. Have you worked at our venue before?<\/strong> It isn&#8217;t a requirement. But a photographer who knows the venue knows where the light is at six in the evening and which way people walk through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>6. How many photos will we get and when?<\/strong> * &#8220;Lots&#8221; isn&#8217;t an answer. You should hear a minimum number and a deadline, and both should then go into the contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About what happens after the wedding<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>7. Who edits the photos?<\/strong> * Is it the same person who takes them, or an outside company? This isn&#8217;t a question out of curiosity: it decides whether the photos will look like the ones in the portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>8. Will we get all the photos or a selection?<\/strong> And what happens to the rest? Also ask what this photographer means by the word selection, because it means different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>9. In what form will we get the photos, and how long will they be available?<\/strong> An online gallery can expire after a few months. It&#8217;s worth knowing in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>10. Can we print them and post them wherever we like?<\/strong> * This is a question about the rights to the photos, and I write about it separately below, because this is where couples most often assume something nobody agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>11. Will our photos go into your portfolio, and do we have a say in that?<\/strong> * Some couples very much want that, others very much don&#8217;t. Both answers are fine, but they need to be given before the wedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About what can go wrong<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>12. What happens if you fall ill?<\/strong> * Anyone can wake up on a Saturday with a temperature of forty degrees. The question is whether the photographer has thought it through, or whether you&#8217;ll hear &#8220;it&#8217;ll work out somehow&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>13. What about backups of the photos?<\/strong> * A memory card can fail. Ask whether the camera records to two cards at once, and where the material is kept before you receive it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>14. What if the equipment fails during the day?<\/strong> In other words: is there a second camera and a second lens, or just one set?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Photo rights: where couples assume the most<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m coming back to questions 10 and 11, because this is the most common misunderstanding in the industry and at the same time the one least often put in writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The photos from your wedding are taken by the photographer, and the photographer is their author. What you can do with them follows from the contract, not from the fact that your faces are in them and that you paid. This gets arranged in very different ways, and none of the options is dishonest in itself, as long as it&#8217;s written down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things worth having agreed in writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>whether you can print the photos, and in what quantity,<\/li>\n\n\n<li>whether you can post them on social media, and whether you have to credit the author,<\/li>\n\n\n<li>whether you can edit them, add filters, crop them,<\/li>\n\n\n<li>whether the photographer can show your wedding in the portfolio, on the website and in competitions,<\/li>\n\n\n<li>whether there are photos you want excluded from that, for example ones with children in them.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That last point often matters more to couples than they expect, and it almost never comes up at the meeting. Mention it early. It isn&#8217;t an awkward request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the contract must include<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A contract with a wedding photographer doesn&#8217;t have to be long. It does have to include these things, because they&#8217;re what every later dispute is about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th>what<\/th><th>why it has to be in writing<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>date, place and working hours<\/td><td>&#8220;the whole day&#8221; means something different to each side<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>minimum number of photos<\/td><td>otherwise there&#8217;s nothing to hold anyone to<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>delivery deadline<\/td><td>a specific number of days or a date, not &#8220;after the season&#8221;<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>form of delivery<\/td><td>gallery, drive, prints, and how long they stay available<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>price, deposit and when the balance is due<\/td><td>along with what happens to the deposit if you cancel<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>rights to the photos<\/td><td>the scope of your use and consent for the portfolio<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>what happens if the photographer is ill<\/td><td>a replacement or a refund, stated explicitly<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>who exactly will turn up<\/td><td>important with companies that employ several people<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The last row is about situations where you talk to the person who runs the business, but someone else does the photographing. That&#8217;s a normal way of working, but you want to know whose portfolio you were looking at and who will be standing in your bedroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Deposit: check what happens if you cancel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A deposit reserves the date, and that&#8217;s its only purpose. The moment it&#8217;s paid, the photographer turns down other couples for the same day, so it&#8217;s non-refundable in most contracts, and that&#8217;s fair to both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Something worth reading before you sign: what happens if you postpone the wedding rather than cancel it. Many contracts written since 2020 have a separate clause for this. If yours doesn&#8217;t, ask how the photographer sees it and ask for one sentence to be added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My deposit is 1 000 PLN, or 2 000 PLN if the package includes film. The rest is paid after the wedding, not before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How it works with me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I won&#8217;t pretend to be objective, so I&#8217;ll tell you straight how I answer these questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I work alone and I&#8217;m with you the whole day, from the morning preparations to the bouquet and veil ceremony, usually until one in the morning. I don&#8217;t pose anyone apart from the group photos with the family. I shoot on two cameras, and every photo is saved straight away to two cards, so if one fails, nothing is lost. After the wedding the material is kept on drives and in a cloud backup, long after the gallery is delivered. In case I fall ill myself, I have arrangements with fellow photographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I edit the photos myself, and every single one goes through my hands. I deliver within 90 days, usually sooner, and we write the specific deadline into the contract. The minimum is 500, 650 or 850 photos, depending on the package, and there are usually more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve been taking photos since 2012, and weddings since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Exactly what&#8217;s included in <a href=\"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/offer\/\">wedding documentary coverage<\/a> is on the offer page. If you want to see all the work from one day rather than selected shots, the portfolio has <a href=\"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/portfolio\/wedding-reception-at-hotel-mansor\/\">a whole wedding from the morning preparations to the bouquet and veil ceremony<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How many photographers should we look at before deciding?<\/strong> Enough to see the difference in style, and no more. After the tenth portfolio you start choosing on price, because the photos all blur into one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>When is the best time to get in touch?<\/strong> Once you have a date and a venue. Saturdays in the season get booked a year ahead, but there are also couples who ask three months before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Do we have to meet in person?<\/strong> No, a video call is enough. The point is for you to hear how this person talks, not just read what they write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Can I ask for a full gallery from one wedding?<\/strong> You can, and you should. It&#8217;s one of the few questions that really sets photographers apart, because a portfolio shows the best shots and a gallery shows the whole day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What if we&#8217;ve already paid the deposit and something doesn&#8217;t feel right?<\/strong> Get in touch straight away, not in June. Most things can be sorted out while there&#8217;s still time, and the deposit is rarely the biggest problem in that situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Choosing a wedding photographer splits into two different tasks, and most couples only do the first. The first is finding a few names whose photos you like. The second is checking whether you want to spend a dozen or so hours of the most nerve-racking day of your life with this particular person, and whether &#8230; <a title=\"How to Choose a Wedding Photographer\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/how-to-choose-a-wedding-photographer\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about How to Choose a Wedding Photographer\">Zobacz wi\u0119cej<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wedding-planning","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weddings.marcinkrokowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}