No matter who you choose for your wedding photographer, I want you to know this, you need a signed contract.

With nearly 132,000 photographers in the United States according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2018 alone, that’s a LOT of professionals out there.

Now, not all of them offer and do wedding photography, but a lot do!

With all photographers in the marketplace that do offer weddings and most of them have different wedding contracts, it poses the question, what should be in a typical wedding contract, to begin with?

Today, Carole and I will go over that and help explore what we have and what your wedding creative should have too.

Contract Basics

First, all contracts should be signed by both parties, you and the wedding vendor.

If you don’t have a signed contract, chances are if something happens and you need to rely on legal action for whatever reason, you will lose in court.

I can’t emphasize this enough, always have a contract signed by both parties and make sure you have the original or at least the copy actually signed by the vendor.

Next, make sure the contract lists out exactly what products or services they will be performing for you and make sure it’s not just generic either.

If for example, the wedding photographer is going to be working for 8 hours, 10 or 12, it’s in writing.

You don’t want to hire a photographer for them to just leave halfway through the reception.

Being specific is a great key to a contract.

According to theKnot wedding website, there is a large list of items that should be in each contract.

Name and contact info for you and your photographer

This should include your name, a good mailing address if they are mailing you things like a USB drive, a good email address that you use regularly, a cell phone they can call or text, and the name of your spouse.

Also, make sure the contract has the name of the business, mailing address, and phone number too in case you need to reach them.

Details on who will be your photographer

One thing that you want to be sure of is who will be at the wedding.

Some photography companies have several shooters, they sometimes outsource and simply pass your wedding to another person.

An example of this would be Petit Four Films or Tolman Media, just a couple of popular examples.

It’s an online company that outsources their wedding filmmakers and when you book with them, you are not getting the person that you’re interacting with, you’re getting a subcontractor.

One thing you will want is to get to know the person whom you’ll be working with and make sure that’s stated in the contract.

Correct Timing

Make sure the contract states how long they will be at the wedding, what time they start when they leave, the specific coverage, and what type of coverage they will provide.

It’s important to have these types of details nailed down because you don’t want something to happen and the photographer or videographer miss the action.

I did a survey in 2019 and asked 115 photographers in Virginia how many hours did they include with a standard or most popular package.

What I found was that most photographers included an 8 hour day, followed by 10 then 12 hours.

A handful simply charged a flat rate in the survey.

What this tells us is that if you need them for more than 8 hours, you’ll have to work with them on the wedding day to extend the time.

While most weddings last 30 minutes, then an hour for photos and 4-5 hours for the wedding reception, you still have several hours beforehand of bridal and groom prep and photographers cover that too.

Just take that into consideration.

Cancellations, Reschedules, and Refunds

That is a bit of a touchy subject, but I will try to help give you some good information on that.

First, all contracts should have some guidelines about having to reschedule, if you get any type of refund, and the like.

Most wedding businesses are small mom-n-pop’s like ours, we rely on income to get us the gear we need and to stay afloat during the off-season.

That being said, most contracts you will find in the wedding industry are going to have non-refundable deposits or simply no refunds if you cancel.

Contracts vary from company to company but make sure there is verbiage in there.

Some companies will also have rescheduling fees, that’s something you can negotiate if need be.

But to help protect you, make sure there is verbiage about what would happen if they, the vendor had to cancel or reschedule.

Ours for example states that we’ll work with a could on a reschedule and if need be we will hire another professional out of our own pockets to cover your wedding.

From your point of view you will want the following in a standard contract:

• Information on having to reschedule if needed

• Information on refunds, refunds on deposits or related

• Information on having to cancel the wedding (although not as important as the other two)

Ironically, not all wedding contracts have all the information.

Ours for example talks about refunds and rescheduling but little about cancellations.