Dear bride and groom,

I know your problem. I know it very well. You are looking for the perfect wedding photographer and perhaps you are a little bit overwhelmed. Why? Because there are just so many wedding photographers out there. In the confusion of the mass of wedding photographers, you quickly lose track of your own overview. And even more difficult is the fact that the question is not only who and what suits me, but who or what suits us. And now we have the big dilemma. One is lost in the large oversupply of wedding photography. So my appeal to you: Take your time, keep a cool head! Be guided by your gut feeling, as you may have done, where you both have met. But please do not make the mistake of comparing wedding photographers to their offer. Choosing a suitable wedding photographer just does not work like a casting for a shared flat. It’s a much more personal process.

But what selection criteria should you have for choosing your wedding photographer?

• Trust & Sympathy
  The perfect wedding photographer just has to fit you. It’s a bit like dating. There are situations when you just realize that you do not fit together, because the conversation stucks. You sit there and do not know what to talk about. Time goes by incredibly slowly, creating a mutually embarrassing situation where one does not feel well. Sure, I can pretend to be the right wedding photographer for the couple and nodding with the head like a bobblehead. But we are all human and sympathy for each other is the basis for trust. And trust is again essential for photography that is close to humans. As a photographer, at a wedding, we often go beyond a certain level of intimacy that often does not even crossed by your own friends. That is why it is so important that wedding couple and wedding photographer are on the same wavelength. And that’s why I take so much time to find out who you really are and have no secrets from you. These are the conversations where you can speak freely about God and the world. Sometimes a preliminary talk is just under half an hour and I feel like the conversation has come to nothing. And then there are those conversations that are as rich as a river, I experience so many things about the wedding couple, where I let my pants down and give so much of me price. Where you feel like you just fit together. And this feeling is important!

• Picture Style & Storytelling
  You’ve probably noticed that there are so many photographic styles out there when it comes to wedding photography. Whether light, pastel, earthy, warm, dark or timeless neutral colors. And then there are also a variety of photographic philosophies. There are photographers who pompously stage the bridal couple as if they were part a glossy magazine cover and show glamor, beauty and wealth in the pictures. Then there are those wedding photographers who see their roots more in classic photojournalism and intervene for honest storytelling as little as possible. Where the human being is in the foreground. And even with the couple photos that are always staged images in a certain way, there are so many different approaches. There are photographers who play the role of an animator with bengalos, clouds of smoke and balloons. These shootings are then party pure, loud, shrill and expressive. And there are photographers who consider such a couple photo shoot as something completely quiet, as a moment of pausing – almost meditative. Where the concentration is only between the wedding couple and you totally withdraw as a photographer to achieve a high degree of intimacy. But what is right? What is right for you? I can not say it, because every bride and groom, every wedding couple is different. I have my photographic approach, but it does not fit with all couples. If you want to be completely sure, a joint introductory shootings is the ideal way to find out. Because it is absolutely not commonplace for most people to be photographed as a couple. It is unfamiliar and different. So go inside and see what suits your inner gut feeling best.

• Offer & Price
  Once you’ve built trust and sympathy with your photographer, you like the picture style and style of storytelling, then you should first look at their offer and price. I know that such a wedding photographer is a great post in the wedding box office. It first appears this large sum of X and you consider quite economically if its all worth it?
  But consider this question in the future when looking back at your wedding. The wedding photos are a kind of time journey into your own past, into the here and now and the future together. These are historical documents that are more and more valuable in old age & amp; gain importance. They ripen like a good red wine or whiskey. In all the flood of images that exists today, we almost forgot to focus on moments. Every day we are struck down by photos but there are pictures that burn into our personal or collective memory. What do I want to say with that? It does not matter if you get 500 or 600 pictures from your photographer. In the end, it is much more important if these pictures as a coherent work give a complete picture of your wedding day. Whether the images give you the feeling of reliving the day again. Whether you get back the mood, the emotions, the moments. Now, ask yourself if 100 images are more or less relevant for this? I believe in the concept of quality over quantity. There is no point in giving the bride and groom more to inflate the offer. In the end, inevitably the quality of the whole suffers. You always have to consider wedding photography as a reportage, as a complete story. They are not just beautiful single photos. It is rather individual moments that have to harmonize with each other – which form a unity. Reduction, focus on the essential, the important. So do not make your decision for the right wedding photographer depending on the number of images you get, because a good photographer will know when a wedding reportage is enumerated. Even things like number of printed photos are not a criterion for the right photographer. Pictures can be easily reproduced nowadays. We photographers give the order only to a printing company. But in my opinion, wedding photos should always be printed. The medium of photography gets its appeal only through the feel, the grace of the surface, the depth of the blackness and the richness of the colors in printed form. In order to give the pictures the necessary respect, one should let out of own experience only a high-quality album print. These albums are not cheap, but they are definitely worth it. These are high quality books made of high quality materials, created according to artistic bookbinding art. Cheap is simply not possible, as it is a unique piece of work. I have already handbound books myself and know how much work there is in it. Many photobooks offered by wedding photographers are small formats of cheap discount printers that can not match the quality of a fine art wedding album. So in the end, you may have an inferior album on offer and annoy you after a few years, when the individual pages dissolve or the colors fade away. Quality simply has its price, but it pays to invest this price in the long term.

I hope I could help you a bit with your decision-making. And even if you decide in the end for another wedding photographer, I’m glad about it. Because maybe this one suits you better than me. And that’s what it’s all about in the end.