Is having two wedding photographers better than having just one?"
As a husband and wife team who have been working together all this time, I guess you can guess what our answer to this question would be, but here are some of the reasons why we think that having 2 x wedding photographers with you on the day can make a real difference to the photographs you receive from your wedding.
Wedding day photography coverage
It seems such an obvious a point to make but off course if you have two wedding photographers you are going to receive more images from your wedding than you would expect to have with only one. Another obvious bonus to having two wedding photographers is that with one photographer they can only be in the one place at the one time.
For example, with ourselves during the ceremony, one of us stays around the front for the whole ceremony to ensure that nothing gets missed while the other will at various points move around the room to capture guests’ reactions and to get shots of the couple from the sides and back of the room. This will often include things that the couple themselves won’t be able to see otherwise, like kids playing up at the back of the room or guests shedding a few tears, which always make for great photos.
Wedding days move at a ridiculously fast pace, with two wedding photographers there is less chance that some parts of the day will be missed by your photographer and not captured.
Everything is quicker, so there is less stress around the wedding timeline
One of the best examples of this that we can think of is on the wedding morning when we arrive to photograph the bride getting ready. When we arrive, one of us will go find everything that needs to be photographed, the dress, the shoes, the flowers and jewellery etc. while the other gets the equipment needed set up and ready to go, this saves a huge amount of time. We have photographed weddings on our own as well and it would surprise you how long it takes to do this on your own, even with roping in a friendly bridesmaid to help. Also, while one of us finishes off photographing details, the other often goes and grabs a few photos of the bridesmaids and bride doing their thing. With one photographer they are tied up shooting details until they finish.
The same thing applies pretty much throughout the wedding day, having two photographers there will usually mean that it is easier to keep your wedding timeline running like clockwork.
Team work
Every wedding photographer in Northern Ireland will have different strengths and weaknesses. For us, one of us is more technical while the other is more creative, combining the two together for us is what makes the magic happen. We each have favourite parts of the wedding day, one of us loves the time we spend shooting portraits with our couples, while the other loves the emotional moments during the ceremony and would happily spend every moment at your wedding day chasing every kid there for photos. It is probably not hard to guess which is which.
While we both have different ways of doing things and different things that we love to photograph, we are so used to working together that all of our strengths combined have helped us create our own style. We feel that those differences between us as photographers and the combination of our strengths allows us to offer more to all our couples than a single wedding photographer could.
Husband & Wife team Vs A wedding photographer who hires a second photographer
For us, having photographed hundreds of weddings together everything has become seamless. We always know what the other one is doing without having to go look and we know our individual roles inside out and upside down. That experience of working together is a huge help at every wedding.
There are many wedding photographers out there that work on their own but offer the option of adding a second photographer to their package when you book with them. Often though the second photographer is chosen from a pool of available wedding photographers rather than being someone that they work with all the time. While that still gives couples some of the advantages of having two photographers, you are getting two individuals rather than a team. Sometimes that means they will never have worked together before and will likely have completely different styles and ways of doing things. While that may not be a problem for the most part as the main photographer will take lead, generally with wedding photography you want the same style and consistency throughout your images and with two people that don’t know how each other works very well, that can be more difficult.
There can be other practical issues as well if you have two individuals rather than a team photographing your wedding, stuff that most couples won’t even have thought about. Just as one example, consistency in images is always key when photographing a wedding. This is why the vast majority of wedding photographers only use equipment from one manufacturer. Every camera manufacturer has their own secret sauce formula for colours and tones using their cameras and lenses and there is quite a bit of difference between the different brands. If you have booked a photographer that is hiring a second photographer just for your wedding, they may not be able to find a second photographer that is available and that also uses the same equipment as them. Even with all the editing in the world it can be sometimes very difficult to get a set of images taken with different brands of camera equipment looking consistent.
What are the disadvantages of having two wedding photographers?
We struggled ourselves to answer this question, the only thing that we could come up with ourselves was for those who are booking a wedding photographer that normally works on their own. They will have to hire a second photographer on the day for you and there will be an additional fee you have to pay them to cover that cost.
If you are in the middle of planning your own wedding you might also find these articles helpful.
WHY WE DON’T PHOTOGRAPH THE GROOM GETTING READY
BEST NORTHERN IRELAND WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY 2021
BENEFITS OF A FIRST LOOK ON THE WEDDING DAY
TOP 10 NORTHERN IRELAND WEDDING VENUES
WHAT IS INCLUDED IN A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY PACKAGE?
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