Meeting the client should be one of the most important parts of the wedding preparation process for a professional. It should be on the bride’s wedding checklist. And, for the bridal couple, if you’re paying someone to capture your precious memories then it’s essential that you’ve met the person you’re hiring if they’re going to be present and sharing your day! This seems quite obvious but I’d like to outline the benefits it has for me, the wedding photographer.
Being photographed, for some people, can be a real challenge; I know it is for me. I’m not camera shy, but I must admit I’m quite vain. I don’t mind being photographed, but I rarely enjoy the result. I think this is true of a lot of people and when you’re the bride and groom, you will be photographed several hundreds, possibly thousands, of times throughout your day. Therefore, it is important to try and feel more comfortable than usual, a good photographer knows this and that’s one of the primary parts of the job, to relax the clients.
By meeting beforehand, you and your photographer can start building a bond on a personal level. The photographer might visit your home, or the venue (I usually do both), or even just meet in a local cafe, sit down for an hour and get to know each other by asking questions about each other. It’s usually based on the client finding out more about the photographer, in order to decide upon hiring the individual, but there’s more to it than that.
It is about the photographer getting to know the client as well, through casual banter; finding out what they do, what type of people they are, where they live, finding something that you have in common, etc… The point is that meeting for just an hour allows for a client relationship to flourish into a small friendship which makes a huge difference in the flow of the day and the final photo product.
So when you meet your photographer, bring the parents, the kids or even a friend, allow them to meet more of your family and see how they are with the children. It will help you both get to know each other and feel relaxed with one another. It also helps your photographer enjoy the day as they will know more people already, which in turn always helps get better photographs!
My client included this photo of me in her album book, which made me feel like a guest as well as her photographer!
