When it comes to your wedding day, you have a lot of choices when it comes to various Roanoke VA Wedding Photographers.

From low-end budget photographers to luxury photographers, there is a whole range of us to choose from and today Carole and I will give you a guide on what to look for in a wedding photographer, what things to ask and how to choose the one right for your wedding day.

How Many wedding photographers are in the Roanoke Valley?

Why are there so many price ranges of wedding photographers?

What should I look for in a good wedding photographer?

What should I ask when meeting with a wedding photographer?

Is the type of gear important for Wedding Photographers?

Are wedding reviews important with booking wedding photographers?

Are there any ‘Red-Flags’ to be aware of when booking a local wedding photographer?

Roanoke, Virginia and the surrounding Roanoke Valley has approximately 112 wedding photographers in the around the immediate Roanoke Valley according to the business licenses at Roanoke County and Roanoke City combined.

Within SWVA to the Richmond area, there are 597 wedding photographers according to Wedding Wire and more than 1,379 just in Northern Virginia alone!

There are technically four price categories for wedding photographers:

• Budget/Entry Level Photographers

• Mid-range Photographers (sometimes called moderate)

• High-End Photographers (sometimes called upscale)

• Luxury Photographers

The reason why there are four types is for the various budgets couples have for the wedding itself, they serve the spectrum of clients within our marketplace.

In the Roanoke region, pricing of a wedding photographer ranges from roughly $300 to $10,000 with more couples spending an average of $1,250-$2,200 for an average range. While the ranges vary on the different classification of professionals, we’ve come up with general guideline pricing based on national averages from WeddingWire.

Not every wedding photographer is going to fit your budget and your needs, thus why there are different categories if you will of us professionals.

“It’s a common mistake to ask what other couples are paying for their wedding photography and use what others pay.”

In fact you need to look to your wedding budget in order to get your answer. If you don’t know what range you fall into, use this tool below that we creates.

There are four elements that you need to look for in a great wedding photographer.

First, you want to make sure that you ‘click’ with the person who will be taking your images (or video). What we mean by ‘click’ is do you get along with them and do they have a great personality?

That’s important because you’ll be working with them for several hours during your wedding day and you don’t want someone that does work well with you.

The other three elements to look for in a good wedding photo pro that fits your needs are:

• Price

• Experience

• Value

You’ll typically see that the more experience they have, the more expensive they are, although that’s not always the case, it’s more of a general rule of thumb.

Value on the other hand, is what they bring to the table that isn’t price or the amount of weddings they’ve done, think of it as things they include with their services, album’s, second shooters, types of camera gear, warranties or gifts.

You will at a very minimum want to have a phone chat with the photographer in question, although we recommend that you have a video chat (like Zoom, Skype or Google) or meet in person at a location like Starbucks or Panera Bread if they do not have a studio (many do not).

You’ll want to ask good questions during your meeting with them. Some sample questions to ask include:

• Are you available on our wedding day?

• What is included in your packages?

• How many hours are included at the wedding?

• How many hours are included in post-production?

• What style (or styles) do you shoot?

  • Think ‘light and airy’, ‘dark and moody’ or ‘photojournalistic’ style, those are the most popular

• Will you have a second shooter?

  • Do You offer a second shooter and if so, how much?

• How do you interact with couples?

• Do you pose couples or get them in the moment or both?

• How long is the typical turnaround time for getting my images back?

• Can we request a specific list of images or give you samples for inspiration that we like?

• Will we have the rights to the images and do what we want with them?

  • What’s the difference in a copyright and print release?

• Will you photograph any other weddings that weekend?

• Do you have recent galleries we can see?

• Have you ever shot at our venue before?

  • If not, will do you a site scope before the wedding to visit it?

• Do you get along with videographers?

• Do you have any add-ons we can purchase like engagement sessions or live streaming?

• Do you edit the images?

  • Do you process your images?

• Is there a warranty or guarantee with your service?

• How does the contract work?

  • How much is the deposit and when does the balance need to be paid?

That’s a hard questions to answer, but to an extent, yes.

Professional camera gear comes in different categories and depending on the camera type, it will help or hurt the types of images that you are looking for with weddings.

Here’s what we mean.

Most popular brands such as Canon, Nikon, Sony and Panasonic for example have entry level cameras, mid-range and high-end cameras.

Entry level models are designed for learning, mastering the craft and building your skills. Entry level systems are also limited in their ability, so they’re not the best for low-light situations, fast motion, like your first kiss, dancing and the like, something to think about.

High-end cameras on the other hand are designed for more specific things like billboard images, sports, fast-moving objects and portraits.

“You wouldn’t take a $500 entry level camera to a $50,000 wedding and expect to grab large amounts of shutter burst images at important things like your first kiss.

You’re also not going to take a medium format $25,000 camera to a $5,000 wedding either.”

Most wedding photographers exist in that mid-range region and most have mid-range camera systems, $2,000-$10,000 bodies not including the glass and other gear. Most of those systems are designed for events such as weddings and should be capable for your day.

Entry Level Camera Pros:

• They are affordable

• Great for learning

• Good for a backup

Entry Level Camera Cons:

• They are slow to operate (think fast shutter speed)

• They have cheaper lenses (less light or F-stop; think grainy images in low light)

Mid-Range Camera Pros:

• Best performance for the price

• They are fast for weddings

• Great low-light lens options

Mid-Range Camera Cons:

• They are costly for professionals

High-End Camera Pros:

• Best image quality with medium format and large megapixel (100mp+)

High-End Camera Cons:

• They are extremely expensive

• They have limited lens options (because of the high cost)

• Very few people have them for weddings

Generally, yes.

Wedding reviews should provide you an insight into what it’s like to work with that vendor and should give you good feedback on what to expect if you do book with them.

Reviews shouldn’t be the main reason why you should book them however, think of them as a guide to what it’s truly like to work with that person or business within the wedding industry.

Sometimes reviews can be doctored to make them appear better than they are, so, we suggest that you ask the photographer for samples form that specific reviewers wedding in order to show them some work if you don’t believe the reviews.

Google, WeddingWire and theKnot tend to have the best reviews for wedding vendors.

Yes, there are a couple of those ‘red-flags’ to consider.

Some wedding photographers can sometimes be pushy, rude, or just plain bored and uncreative.

You want to see how open the photographer is to your ideas, how friendly they seem to be on the phone, on video chat or in person.

A wedding photographer should be fun to work with, however they don’t need to act like they’re your best friend either, after all, they’re hired to do a job.

Another red-flag is if they don’t have duplicate gear. Having at least one backup camera in their bag, even if its a somewhat older model suggests they are more experienced and can pull out the backup if something happens to their main camera.

For example, Carole, my wife and wedding photographer has three systems, two Sony-a7iii bodies and an older Sony-a7ii.

I have two Panasonic S1’s and a Panasonic g85 as my third backup system for wedding films and videos.

A long delivery time could be another red-flag to look out for with professionals.

There’s really no excuse to wait for images for 6 or 8 months.

2 weeks to 3 months is average because all of the organizing and editing from a 10-hour wedding day takes quite a long time. Still, no one wants to wait a year to see wedding photos!

You might speak with a former customer first, look at the contract, or ask how long it will take to get your final images.

There are a few tips that you should do with regards to booking a professional.

First, NEVER pay more than 50% in a deposit or retainer.

Why?

Because the truth of the matter is this, you truly don’t know the person whom you’re hiring and they in turn, truly don’t know you.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. We tell clients in our own business not to pay more than 50%, in fact we won’t accept more than 50%.

Think about it like this, what if the company you hired went out of business in 6 months and you paid them 100% of the bill upfront? You’d have to go through a small claims court trial which costs more time and money and there’s a good chance you wouldn’t get anything back too.

Second, make sure your contract is solid and benefits both parties involved.

A good contract will allow provisions for both parties to walk away if needed and should list out what, if any refunds you should get depending on who walks away.

I recently chatted with a bride who hired a wedding planner and they had to change the date because of COVID-19.

After she notified the vendor, they basically stopped talking to her and wouldn’t connect back with her.

Well, a closer look at the contract, the bride found that when they asked for a reschedule, it basically allowed the vendor to keep all the money (close to $3,000) and the vendor simply walked away and didn’t rebook them for the new date.

Finally, make sure you have a signed copy of your contract. You want to make sure that the contract has the following information on it.

• Signed by both parties

• An address and phone number of the vendor

It’s important to have this for legal reasons should you ever need to take a company to court.

Chances are very slim that you will here in the Roanoke Valley, but it’s been know to happen in various parts of the wedding industry. I recently talked about a wedding venue in Radford, VA that suddenly closed it doors and many couples were left out in the cold.