The questions to ask before you book a photographer

Once the shortlist is together, you face an hour that passes very pleasantly and after which nobody can remember what was actually agreed. That is not dishonesty. It happens because both sides spend the hour talking about pictures rather than about deliverables.

Here are the questions that make the difference, grouped by theme and ready to copy. Each block also names the answer that sounds harmless and is a warning sign anyway. How you get to a shortlist in the first place is under choosing a wedding photographer.

A quote can only be calculated once the basic facts are fixed. Settle five points between you beforehand, or every meeting takes twice as long and ends in an estimate rather than a price.

• Date and day of the week. Peak-season Saturdays are the scarcest thing on the list.
• The locations. Getting ready, ceremony, reception — one address or three? Every extra address costs travel time.
• The hours you want covered. From when, until when. “Until the dancing” is not a time.
• The rough guest count. It decides whether one photographer or two should be shooting.
• Your priorities. Family groups, reportage, couple portraits — if you rate three things equally, say so, and ask what that means for the schedule.

Those five facts are, incidentally, the same ones every other vendor needs; writing them down once cleanly saves you rounds of email across the whole of the planning. What an enquiry looks like when it can be answered without a follow-up question is under the wedding vendor enquiry.

The first block establishes who is there on the day and what that person does.

1. Who photographs our day — you, or somebody from your team? May we see that person's complete work?
2. Do you work alone or with a second photographer? What does the second person cost, and what changes about the pictures?
3. How many hours does the quote include, and how is an extension billed — by the started hour or the full hour?
4. Are travel and, if needed, overnight accommodation included, and beyond what distance does that change?
5. Do you shoot family and group portraits, and how much time do you allow for them?
6. Who makes sure on the day that the right people are actually in the right place for group shots?
7. Are you taking a second wedding on our date?
8. Do you know our locations, and if not: will you visit them beforehand?

Question 6 is routinely underrated. Group photographs rarely fail on the photography and almost always on the fact that an uncle and a godmother cannot be found. The usable answer is: we need a list of the groups from you, and one person who will call the names. Anyone who says it will sort itself out is budgeting for half an hour of nothing happening.

Question 7 has exactly one unproblematic answer, and that is no. Two weddings in a day means your time is hard-capped and that a delay at yours lands on the second reception — and the other way round.

No point causes more trouble after a wedding than this one, and the reason is a badly framed question. Most couples ask whether the pictures belong to them. Start instead with the practical question — what are we allowed to do with these images, and for how long? — because that one has an answer everywhere. The ownership question does not: copyright begins with the photographer in essentially every market, but whether it can then be handed to you differs. Some legal systems allow a full assignment in writing; others treat authorship as untransferable and let the photographer grant you a licence only, however broad. Find out which applies where you are booking, and ask the five practical questions regardless:

1. What may we do with the pictures — privately, on social media, in a newspaper, on a website of our own?
2. May our guests re-use the pictures, and under what conditions?
3. Is the permission limited in time or territory?
4. May we edit or crop the pictures, for a photo book for instance?
5. Will you use our pictures for your portfolio and advertising, and can we say no?

Question 5 runs in both directions. Many photographers price with portfolio use in mind; a complete opt-out is usually possible but often carries a surcharge. If one of you is in the public eye professionally, or if other people's children appear in the pictures, that is worth a conversation before anybody signs.

On raw files — the unedited camera files — the honest answer is normally no. That is not meanness. The editing is part of the signature you are booking, and an unedited file looks flat and unfinished in colour. If you still want access, negotiate for something else instead: a higher number of delivered images, extra black-and-white versions, or the uncropped version of individual frames.

Finally, ask about archiving: how long are your pictures kept, and how long does the download link stay live? Six weeks is short, twelve months is comfortable. Where you then put the pictures so everyone can reach them is a separate decision — the photo gallery with guest upload describes the version where guests add their own shots to the same place.

The second big flashpoint arrives three months after the wedding, when nothing has turned up. Four questions prevent it.

On delivery time, a yardstick rather than a claim: four to eight weeks counts as quick, eight to twelve as normal, and anything over six months is a problem whatever the reason — by then your memory of the day has long been shaped by the guests' phone pictures. Have the number written into the contract, not said in the meeting.

Ask as well whether there are revision rounds and how many. Documentary photographers often offer none, because the selection is meant as a whole; classic workflows frequently include one round of retouching on individual images. Both are fine, as long as you know in advance.

And keep the question of print products separate from the fee: albums, prints and canvases are their own line items with their own delivery times, and they are the most common reason a final bill comes out higher than the quote. How to make items like that visible is under comparing quotes.

The last block is the most awkward and the most important. It answers what happens when something goes wrong — on either side.

1. What happens if you fall ill? Is there a named stand-in or a network?
2. How are you protected against data loss — does the camera write to two cards during the day, and when does the first backup copy land on a second drive?
3. Do you carry liability insurance, and does our venue require proof of it?
4. How large is the deposit, and when is the balance due?
5. How is the cancellation scale staged, and what applies if we postpone the date rather than cancel?

On questions 4 and 5: deposits, payment terms, cancellation fees and postponement are contract matters, governed by the law of the country you book in. There is no universal figure, and anyone who quotes you one is describing their own market. As a labelled example, in the US market wedding vendors commonly take 25 to 50 per cent to hold a date, with the balance due somewhere between a month and ten days before the event, and a staged cancellation scale that rises as the date gets closer. Get all of it in writing, and read what it says about postponement — that case is missing from a great many contracts, and it is precisely the one that has occurred most often in recent years.

Question 3 sounds like a formality but is occasionally a venue condition. Ask your venue once what proof it demands from suppliers, and pass the answer on — it saves an unpleasant surprise the week before the wedding.

Once you have all the answers, write them into the same table you used for the other vendors, and only then decide. And keep the facts every supplier needs in one place you can both reach — on a wedding website the addresses and times are there anyway, so you never have to dig them out of an old email again.