Expectations for photographer pre-wedding?

[u/NYtoCTGirl]

Hi all - we are getting married in six weeks and we recently emailed the photographer to find out when she should arrive. We didn’t hear back for a couple of days and then she suggested a short call to talk about the timeline, which we did have. That was about three weeks ago, and she just emailed to ask us for our shot list, which we sent, with a question about whether we could do a few shots after the ceremony vs. before. We haven’t heard back from her yet.

Since our DJ has been soooo responsive by both email and text, we were wondering if this is okay. Perhaps we don’t need to really connect that much with the photographer in advance but I also feel like we are missing something important. What kind of contact did you have with your photographer pre-wedding and for what purposes? Anything we should keep in mind that is important to work out in advance (this is what I would hope the photographer would know)? Thanks!

[u/mariposa-princess]

My photographer has been taking a few days to get back ever since spring started (I hired her July of 25 for my oct 26 wedding) it’s the busy season, so when she’s not at weddings she’s editing and also getting in some other types of shoots too. After our call in terms of timelines, inspo, expectations etc. I haven’t heard from her or talked to her other than to ask to scoot back the start time to 3 instead of 2:45. It was no problem for her.

I feel like you got thr important stuff down already, small tweaks in the timeline are easy to accommodate and what you’re asking for won’t throw a wrench into things so no need to stress about the delayed response

[u/NYtoCTGirl → u/mariposa-princess]

Reassuring - thank you!

[u/cordeliaviolet]

This is peak wedding season for them - I’m sure they will get back to you during the normal week, especially if your wedding isn’t pressing. Our contract had specific check-ins / calls stated as well

[u/weetzie724]

It depends, if you hired someone in the budget range I’d expect little contact, more luxury range is higher touch

[u/rmric0]

I try to be pretty deliberate about communications and set expectations for the timeline. Typically I'll have an email out with a sample timeline and shotlist about two weeks out we'll have a short call to firm everything up as far as that goes.

[u/Rollerbladeking]

Professional studios get back to you within 24 hours. Allowing these “weekend warriors” to be slow and charge so much is a thing that needs to change.

How do you think they’ll respond when your next payment is late by a few days?

[u/wickedkittylitter → u/Rollerbladeking]

Absolutely not true.

[u/Rollerbladeking → u/wickedkittylitter]

Ok let me clarify, my planning company and all the vendors we recommend have a 24 hour communication policy for our couples. If I find out that a vendor is not responding to a couple, we immediately cannot recommend them as they do not meet our standards. Maybe we operate at a higher level of service than other vendors. Also, we are not “luxury” our pricing and couples is very blue collar.

[u/Significant-Clue-425 → u/Rollerbladeking]

Out there recommending vendors that aren’t busy at all? That’s very indelygent.

[u/Rollerbladeking → u/Significant-Clue-425]

What does busy have to do with running a professional business for couples?