Who feels like their photographer didn’t get enough shots???

• Whitanella
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: May 2011

Me me me me!! Okay…mine is a tiny bit different…I only got 244 photos of the 1000 or so she took! I didn’t get a photo of my grandmother and my new husband and I (my grandma raised me and paid for the wedding for us and the photographer knows all of this) I have no photos of us cutting our cake. We didn’t get any photos of our guests as every one was walking down the isle, alot of my family is missing from all of the photos (like no photos of them at all at the wedding) and we had a very small wedding probably 65 people showed up…Not a single photo of my wedding boquet unless I’m holding it(no close up shots and now my flowers are dried boo), or my bridesmaids…I hand made them all…my bridesmaids were hand  pearled and mine was amazing….so frustrating!! I’m so sorry to hear you are so unhappy with your photos compared to the others that photographer had taken! Are you going to say anything to him??

• mrsrangrang
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: January 2004

how much did you pay? i think that you should talk to him about it. has he edited any of them? is editing included? i think you should definetly talk to him about how you are feeling.. its a bit confrontational so perhaps have a few things written down so you dont forget what you want to say.. also perhaps ask for a refund of some money as you didnt get what you saw in others photo albums..

anywyas hopefully i dont hae this problem 🙁 it gets me worried when i think about this.. but you shouldnt have to micromanage with professionals.. grrr

• Mrs. Jaguar
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: June 2011 - Sydney, Australia

I completely understand your frustrations. I adore the shots I do have, but I received 550 – I was expecting a LOT more.

Because of time and weather, we didn’t capture shots of just me.. bridal ones. There were also none of me and the girls pre-wedding, and hardly any with family. I was also upset that there are hardly any close up shots – most of our wedding day shots are beautiful, but from a distance. I think it all comes down to making sure you ASK or having things written down – something which I ‘assumed’ I wouldn’t have to do, because of looking at past albums.

All that said – I LOVE my wedding pictures. And since there’s no way of going back and adding in the shots that we didn’t get, just focus on that – it gets better. 🙂

• photogestelle
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: February 2012

@yassim: Out of curiosity, did you tell him what shots you wanted? A pro should know these things anyway, but if some photos are really important it’s handy to tell the photog in advance.

I’d ask him if there are any more shots you can see. What does your contract say? Read over it and see if he’s breached any of his agreements.

• Miss Tattoo
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: September 2012

I’ve always read that you should tell your photographer about little things you want. They don’t know how long you spent on your paper projects and might not know that you want photos of menu’s, programs, invites, labels, ect. 

There are duh shots like “first kiss” and then there are shots you should ask for like “I want photos of me with each bridesmaid and photos of my husband with each groomsmen.” 

• calypso0712
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: July 2012

I’m really nervous about this happening so I’m going to be giving my photographer a detailed list of shots that I must have… and I’ve also been compiling a file of pictures I’ve come across as looking through wedding stuff online that I LOVE and would like something similar from my wedding.  I’m going to give my photographer the list of shots and also the file of pics so she can see what I want.  Hopefully that will avoid these problems =/

• BeeM
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: October 2012

@calypso0712: A list of shots is ok, but if you hired a professional you shouldn’t be too worried, and forcing a photographer to focus on an extensive shot list is going to affect the number of spontaneous, candid images you get if they have their nose in a piece of paper all day worried about missing one of them.

I think in general couples shouldn’t focus on the number of photos as much as the quality and content of their photos. Before you freak out, ask yourself if the photographer captured everything that happened. Maybe you don’t have two photos of each bridal party member walking down the aisle (maybe their eyes were closed or they were making weird faces in the others), but do you have images that represent the whole day? I think couples should be concerned if they feel like whole chunks of time are missing, not that they don’t have 4 shots of the same person at slightly different angles. Of course there are some cases, like one I just read about on the board this past week, when couples obviously didn’t get enough images to be representative of the day (200 photos from 8 hours coverage by 2 photographers) but I also can’t wrap my head around couples who get 1,000+ photos to choose from. In my mind that’s just bad editing. I average 50-60 edited images an hour – some action packed weddings are more and some really dull, uneventful weddings are less.

• kwynn
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: February 2009

As a photographer, it is so hard to get every single possible thing from every single possible angle with every single possible combination. I think over 1000 shots is plenty for almost any wedding.

In the past 6 months (including in this thread), I’ve seen the following vents by Bees:

1. Photographer got inside photos, sunset photos, and full length photos, but not a full-length, straight on, looking at the camera smiling shot of the bride and groom in the sunset.

2. Photographer got bridesmaids shots, but not on the beach where she wanted them.

3. Photographer got shots of the rings and shots of the ring pillow, but not shots of the ring ON the ring pillow.

4. No photos of guests while wedding party was walking down the aisle…as a photographer, I would never even consider taking photos of this; it simply never crossed my mind as I focus on the bride, her attendants, and the groom’s face. Now we need to be sure to get a variety of guests’ faces too, during a sometimes religious ceremony where people may not want to be photographed?

5. Photographer got photo of the bouquet, but only with bride holding it…that’s a photo of the bouquet! 🙂

6. Only one photo of each attendant down the aisle..why would you want more than one of these? It’s pretty basic, a person walking, oftentimes nervously. You’ll have them in prep photos, formals before, ceremony photos, processional, recessional, photos afterwards, and in photos at the reception. How many photos of the attendants do you need? Very few wedding party shots even make the album in my experience.

There are definitely some legitimate complaints, but there could *always* be more combinations or different things to do. For example, if you got the bouquet alone for a photo, the bride could come back and say, she has a photo of the bouquet alone, one holding it too, but she really wanted one of the bouquet and boutonierre together on the wooden floor of the church, for example.

At some point, you have to accept that there are endless combinations of photos and we can’t capture all of it. We try hard, but there are literally millions of combinations and it simply isn’t possible to get it all. You have to trust that we are taking the photo in the best lighting and working to make everything look its best rather than focus on quantity and “stuff.”

• MissTatas
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: December 2017

@kwynn: I haven’t gotten my pro pics back so maybe I will be singing a different tune when I do but as of right now I agree completely. I know we as brides have an emontional attachment to ALL of the elements of our wedding and it can be upsetting not to have every little thing documented. However, from what I have seen from my preview our photographer was able to capture the feel of our wedding and that is the most important thing.

 @yassim: I hope you are ablt to concentrate on all of the positives about what your photographer was able to capture (assuming you like the majority of your photos). I am sorry you are disappointed in what you received vs. other clients. Maybe it would help if you stopped comparing your album to any one elses and try to focus solely on how wonderful your wedding turned out!

• PitBulLover
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: August 2010

i TOTALLY agree. I got 2500+ photos but there are a lot of photos that I feel I’m missing or not enough photos of certain things. However, there are many photos that I LOVE and that’s what I try to remind myself. It’s not possible for any photographer to get every single detail/picture you wanted. It’s the same for me – there are no close up pics of table numbers/centerpieces, no pics of food, no pics of cocktail hour, didn’t get table shots or many pics of all the people at our reception….BUT there are still many beautiful photos that picture our day perfectly.Unfortunately, I think you just have to move on and try to focus on the positive. Maybe make an album of all your favorite photos and only look at your album because it will make the pictures seem better than they were.

• dynamic_duo
• 7 years ago

@yassim: i felt the same way when i got my photos back. i never said anything to my photographer because i didn’t blame her at all!  she got hundreds of amazing photos that i loved. and when i got them back, i got hung up on the FEW thing she didn’t get (like rings on ring pillow, full length BMs on beach – so yes, i am being referred to up there in kwynn‘s comment!!, and full view of table decor).  

one thing i can tell you that will hopefully make you feel better is that i am totally over it now. the little details that were missed were far less than all the amazing details that were not missed and over time, the little things matter less and less.  Also, the one thing i never “got over” was the lack of fun Bridesmaid or Best Man pics.  So what did i do? i organized another photo shoot!  I also used the excuse that i had 2 BMs who had bought their dresses but in the end couldn’t afford to come to my wedding in Jamaica – so they had dresses they had never worn!  So just this past weekend on the afternoon of my “at home BBQ reception”, me, Darling Husband, all the BMs went out by the lakeside to take pictures. i got to wear my actual dress again which was SOO fun let me tell you.  And since my real wedding photographer doesn’t live here and i could totally  not afford a second time, i just found someone on craigslist who could do it for cheap and edit the photos.  So everything kind of came together and we all had a lot of fun. I felt silly about it sometimes, but now that we did it – totally worth it.

Also, i have a friend who a few years ago was totally not happy with her wedding pics because there was not ONE single close up shot of her and her husband!! not one!  she was very upset and did what i did – orgaized another photo shoot, had a blast and is totally happy with her wedding pics.  

so ya, this is a bit of an expensive solution, but at the same time, i paid for one hour not a full day.  and from what you were saying, it sounds like the pics you are missing can not really be replicated so i think the best thing for you is just to focus on what you DO have.  And maybe you can replicate some things like your wedding bands pic?  I was also upset about my rings pic not primarily because of the ring pillow, but because my heart shaped e-ring was upside down in all of them. so i am planning to take my own pics at some point.

ETA:  another thing that helped me immensely was getting guest photos back!  at least half of all the detail shots i was upset about missing i now have!  another bee posted a while back too that her photographer film broke or something and they lost a ton of ceremony pics!! she was able to recuperate most through guest pictures.  so ask your guests for photos!

• dynamic_duo
• 7 years ago

oh and i wanted to add on, although too late for the OP, i completely second the “list” idea.  I didn’t do it. i intended to, but never got around to it and then regretted it later.  i basically put my photographer on a pedestal and expected her to read my mind in addition to being everywhere at once.  which obviously is not realistic!! so i learned and will be happy to pass onto future brides – even the most high end, awesome-ness photographer of all time cannot read your mind and know what is most important. So if i could go back in time i would DEFINITELY make a list and put less than 10 things on it – just those few things i wished i had and could have easily had if i had opend my mouth and said “take a pic of this!”  

In fact, what also made me like my photographer more and blame myself more for the stuff that was missed is that ALOT of my fave pics that i DID get were because i spoke up on the day of.  whatever crossed my mind, i DID say out loud and so then my photog took the pic and to this day they are some of the best! For example, photos i GOT because in the moment i asked my photog to take them where: veil over face, personalized napkins, close up of bouquet once i put in the bouquet jewelry, mini tiki torches, welcome bags, full length of me alone, me with each guest (although i wish i grabbed Darling Husband for those pics too!), and individual shots with each Bridesmaid or Best Man (my sister actually spoke up that she wanted one of me and her, and then i turned it into me and each Bridesmaid or Best Man, so i was happy she thought of it initially! – of course, this was after we left the beach…sigh..)

for my photo shoot this past weekend, i learned from my own mistakes and made a list, sent it to the photog in advance along with inspiration pics. she was really happy i did and had even printed it and brought it with her!  However, we didn’t get to do everything on the list, there was not enough time and in the momemt, i wanted to focus on what was most important – bridesmaids and family (basically people shots).  I had intended to bring my ring pillow and invitations but left them at home!  I did however get a few things extra that i had been disappointed about the first time around like “shoes on feet” and a close up of my earrings.

• MissTatas
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: December 2017

@dynamic_duo: great suggestions! I am glad that you had fun redoing some pics and I love that you were able to include BMs that weren’t able to go to Jamaica!

• calypso0712
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: July 2012

@BeeM:  I’m not going to make a list of each and every shot I want taken… just a few that aren’t the more obvious ones (mostly detail things and whole family shots).  And I’m not going to give the poor woman a file full of hundreds of inspiration shots!!  LOL I’ll weed through them and pick just a few shots that have stood out to me as WOW I would love something similar to this.  Many of them have actually come out of my own photographer’s blog =)  I promise I’m not going to be a super high maintenance bride!  I just feel like if I’m paying almost 4000, I should get the shots I want!!