Wedding Photography question......

Question

Would you let a novice photographer do your wedding photos if he/she had a great portfolio and lots of references? But he/she had not done a wedding yet? And it would be at a fraction of the "professional" cost. Including proofs and touch ups?

And how much would you pay for such?

Answer 1

My wife and I hired a novice photographer, and sort of regretted it.

The plus side: Novice photographers work cheap.  They need experience, and so they'll often work for low margins.  Ours did the work for the cost of materials.  Saved probably $1500.

The minus side: Novice photographers require more involement by you.  You should make a list of the pictures you know you're going to want.  (You should do this anyway, but it's more critical with the newbies.)  Even then, you put at risk a set of memories you will want forever.

Our story: We hired the new guy, and gave him the list of all the photos we wanted.  Also, my bride's sister is into photography, so we got a nice camera in her hands and told her to go crazy.  We paid her costs, too.  It was a steal!  Until we got the prints a month later.  During some down-time I had taken shots with my groomsmen, with 7 shots of me and my best man.  Yet there were only 2 shots of me and my bride.  One was fuzzy, and the other had our heads partially cut off from the frame.  If it weren't for the new sister-in-law, we would have had ZERO pictures of just the two of us.  Needless to say, my wife cried all evening.  But her sister's shots were great, and we took from both sources to build our own wedding album, which we love.

In conclusion, PROCEED WITH CAUTION.  I am all for throwing a bone to the new guy, but I strongly advise having a back-up plan in place.  Congratulations on your wedding, and I wish you the best!

Answer 2

I'm using a 17 year old photographer... a lot of folks have recommended her and she did my friend's wedding last year and the pictures were great....and is a lot less than going with someone with 30 years experience.

Answer 3

Personally, I would be a little afraid.  I know someone who used photographer whom was a professional but not a wedding photographer- and the women canceled last min on her.  She really didn't understand the importance of her duties and just didn't feel like driving through the snow that day.  The bride ended getting some guy from the phone book- up paying three times as much plus emergency fees since she needed them that day!  

With that in mind- I found a professional wedding photographer that was cheaper that still had back up in case she got sick- which actually worked out.  Because as horrible as this is- my photographer's father died the morning of my wedding!  Just have a "backup plan" in-case something happens- does she know someone else who can step in a replace her if she brakes her leg the night before?  Sounds strange but I know lots of people who photographer backed out on them last min for emergency's!  Can you believe my photographer's Dad, passed away that morning?  Crazy!

Answer 4

Someone has to give him/her a chance, right? Just make sure you have a friend or family member with a digital camera as a backup taking plenty of pics in case yours don't turn out how you want them to.

My bro and SiL paid $200 for their novice photographers. My SiL is a photographer by trade and spent most of the wedding day instruction the photographers on how to pose people, where the light was best, etc. Some of the pics came out really nice and it was probably worth it for $200 but it was obnoxious that she was doing all the work except actually taking the pics.

Good luck!

Answer 5

If you are talking about a student, and you've seen his/her portfolio and are impressed, you should consider hiring them. After all, experience has to come from somewhere. However, you should not be paying very much especially if it is a student. If formal portraits are important to you, then hire the professional. But if fun and what an amateur or no one other than a professional could tell was a little less than the $1000 photographer's work, hire the student. Depending on the number of photos and time, I would pay around $500. That's if he's not printing them though (my wedding photographer is going to just give me all the digital prints on a disk). I would draw up a contract though and be very thorough of what pictures you definitely want.