So last week I had a couple of brides reach out who were, at best, lukewarm about my work. I’ve been doing this long enough to reach that perfect balance between being confident in my ability to produce great work and recognizing that my work won’t be to everyone’s taste so I didn’t take this personally.

After exploring their thinking a bit, one of them asked me, “Do you even need a professional photographer these days? I mean cell phone cameras are so good.”

I smiled my simple, polite smile and tried to explain to them why I think professional photography is absolutely necessary.

Stress Less and Celebrate More

The main thing you get with professional wedding photography is expertise. It's someone to help you with a time line, to connect you to other great vendors. It's someone who sees your venue before your wedding day and gives you a report on how to get ready for your wedding. You aren’t just getting a photographer, especially when you hire us. You are getting a team member that is invested in you getting your dream date.

Expertise is always worth every penny you pay for it.

Superior Images

Just comparing the equipment available, the best cell phone camera is roughly equivalent to a low- to mid-grade consumer camera. A professional camera blows a cell phone out of the water. At first glance this might not be true. But trying blowing up a bridal portrait taken on a cell phone to, say, 24x36 so you can hang it over your mantle, and then see how great you think it is.

That’s just the equipment comparison. Now think about the skill involved. How do you over power the sun to get to a blue sky? How do you get a closeup from a first dance without getting close enough to hear their conversation? How do you get the pictures that no one noticed? You do this job for two decades and you pick up a couple of things at weddings.

No Do Overs

A wedding is a fast paced, high stress environment. If you trust recording your day to nonprofessionals, the chances are low that it will end well. You want someone with experience managing this, because if your photos turn out poorly you can’t really hold your friends and family responsible as they aren’t professionals. You also can’t get these 200 people together again next weekend for a do over.

Premium Print and Album Availability

Not only does the work of a professional lend itself more easily to quality prints, most professionals can handle processing, printing, and delivering these goods to you. Sure, you can order prints at Walmart that will be faded in six months’ time, or I could provide you with an archival quality print that will hold its color for 70 years.

Do You Want To Gamble With Your Memories?

You can absolutely enlist your wedding guests to pull out their phones and go to work. It’s possible they are all brilliant at it. However, it’s much more likely they are all pretty poor at it and also have no interest in doing it. Do you really want to trust the pictures that come from the most important day of your life to chance?

Please reach out to schedule a consultation on how we can best cater to your wedding wishes.