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Wedding Photography e-Book - The Aftermath of a Wedding

After a long hard day of wedding photography, the day does not quite end for you. You have to pack up all your gear into the cases and load up the car for the trip home. If you got off early you can unpack and clean the equipment, but if you got stuck late then best to just crash and clean up the next day.

Once you’re rested and able to clear your head of the wedding then you can sort the film and prepare to drop off at the lab. If you’re really keen you can snag a bunch of envelopes used by the lab of your choice for writing down the order and any special instructions you have for the roll of film and then drop off the envelopes at the lab’s drop-in window – on the assumption that you’ve done a weekend wedding and the lab is closed, or that you were so keen that you had to drop off the rolls right after the wedding.

For digital, you download the image files and begin the editing process with your workflow of choice. Obviously, the film photographer has less work to do at this point because he/she lets the lab sweat out the details.

Whether film or digital, once the images have been returned, editing and sorting is the next big step. Editing means tossing your duds and yes, every photographer is going to have some whether it be missed focus shots, inadvertent shutter release shots of someone’s shoes, etc. Best to toss the prints and never let the client see the flubs.

Editing also means tossing the shots that make the couple look bad or unattractive. It may have been an honest shot of something happening at the wedding, but if the facial expression changed just as you released the shutter and instead of a great expression you get a mad grimace, best to toss those photos too. Be especially wary of the mothers J

The idea is that your edit is to put your photographs in their best light and you’re not going to do that by including duds. If you come across a shot that seems borderline or questionable, ask for a second opinion or else just toss it. Better safe than sorry.

After the editing has been completed then you have to sort – usually done hand in hand with proof prints. You stack the photos in time order, so that when inserted into the proof album, there is a seamless flow of photos showing the events as they happened.

I often find that I have a roll of film loaded that because of what it is, or because of the lens I have mounted, might span several hours of a day from the beginning of the day to the ceremony whereas the other camera gets worked much more. I might have a few of these rolls depending on how much I’m shooting and so obviously if you went roll by roll there would be a discontinuity in the presentation of the photos.

You need to devise a system to keep track of which print came from which roll for easy reprint or enlargement ordering. The roll by roll presentation is easiest to keep track of, but potentially, not in time sequence. Since most of my personal shoots include the negatives, I just sort the proofs in time sequence and let the client figure it out, but I do clue them into the index numbers on the back of the print so that they can easily match print to negative roll number. Most pro labs print such indexes on the back of the print to match a stapled index number on the film leader. If your proofs are from a digital process like a Fuji Frontier, you can also obtain index prints that provide small thumbnails of all the images on a 4x6 print.

Once the proofs have been first through the first round of edits and then sorted, do another final round of editing as you start the album creation process. Proof albums are generally four up per sheet, which limits you to how you can present the photos. Knowing this in advance you should give some thought as to how you want to structure an album, ensuring that you have plenty of portrait and landscape oriented proofs. It would be ideal if you could layout an album so that you end up with four portrait mode shots and four landscape mode shots on one sheet rather than having to mix and match portraits and landscapes on one sheet. Unfortunately, sometimes you just have no choice, but try to minimize this disparity in formats on one page. That’s the beauty with the digital process that allows you to avoid this type of mismatch depending on how you do the album presentation.

Some photographers only put in a specified number of prints into an album, but a true proof album is one that comprises all the (edited) photos you’ve taken. The point is that you want the couple to easily choose which shots to reprint and/or enlarge. I do this for any wedding I do as the primary photographer.

My general layout is a time-ordered layout with the 35mm proofs followed by the medium format proofs at the back if the album is large enough to accommodate them. If not then I purchase a separate small album for the 5x5-sized prints. If I do put medium format prints into a 4x6 proof album then I crop the 5x5 print into 4x5. Other photographers request that the lab print to 4x4 size paper. I didn’t think that there was such paper until I saw them with my own eyes and while effective I prefer the original 5x5 and doing my own custom crop if required. There are also 5x5 archival sleeves available from Printfile to fit into standard three-ring albums.

Most times, if I am the primary photographer I shoot through enough film to create two and sometimes three proof albums. One for the daytime getting ready and ceremony photos, another for the reception/banquet photos and the third for medium format formals and group shots, depending on number of photos taken.

If I’m photographing by myself, I tend to work through about 15 rolls of 35mm for a full day, and about 5 rolls of 120 format film, depending on how many formals there are. If I were to hire a second photographer to work with me, I would expect the number of rolls to increase from 15 rolls to 25 to 30 rolls of 35mm format. Given the potential for large amounts of film to be used, you must ensure that your package pricing reflects this reality.

When you are first starting out in the wedding photography business, you are going to need to order duplicate prints from the lab in order to create your own albums to show to future prospective clients. This is a business cost that while it would nice to pass along to the clients, is more likely a cost you’ll have to take up yourself from the profits. It is best to order duplicate sets of photos at the same time as the original order as you will save more money than going back at another time and requesting reprints.

You will also want to review the proofs for your own enlargement needs, either in a large format album or for framing on the wall. You want to have a few framed prints available for review so that couples can see the quality of your work. An enlargement is definitely higher impact than a tiny 4x6 proof or even in a large print in an album.

Once your proof album is complete, it’s time to meet with the clients again and let them review your work. Unless you’ve encountered some kind of disaster with the film, or you were so completely off that Mr. Magoo could outshoot you, you should expect the clients to be satisfied with your work and be paid for your efforts. And best of all, that you will receive good recommendations from them for their friends and family and you will begin to build up your reputation and earn even more money down the road.

This is where all that hard work, sweat, toil, blood…yes, I’ve bled on weddings, as mentioned earlier on…pays off, with a satisfied customer walking out the door proudly clutching their cherished albums of their wedding day.

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