Unless you have been living under a rock, you may have heard of "sepia gate". For those who are not aware, let me give you a short version of the story. The short version of the story (which you should still find on TikTok) is that a bride hired a photographer only to end up not liking the photos a month in. The boiling point was when the bride wanted the raw photos and the photographer (rightfully so) put a price on the raw photos (those photos are our intellectual property after all). It's safe to assume the bride never received all the raw photos because she went on TikTok and began a 20 plus video odyssey explaining her situation.
Before I get into how you can mitigate the chances of this happening to you, I do want to say that it is unfortunate when these things happen. At the end of the day, what we as photographers provide is a service and we want to make sure the clients are happy with what they paid for. While I think 20 videos is excessive, the bride was well within her right to talk about her negative experience.
The videos did bring out several conversations that I wanted to talk about such as Raw Photos and Presets but for this post, I want to talk to the engaged couples about things you can do today to help reduce the chances of the same thing happening to you.
While I would be honored to capture your special day, chances are we are not a perfect fit and I want to help you find your perfect fit for a photographer, whether it be myself or someone else. As mentioned, these steps wont 100 percent save you from a headache of a situation like "Sepia Gate", but the more you can do the prep work on your end, the better. Lets get to some actionable steps.
One more thing I'm keeping in mind is that not everyone have the same budget so I am going to speak as if you do not have a wedding planner in place. That alone would knock out a lot of the work you have to do. Lets get to these steps.
Have an idea in place – Figure out if you want your pictures to be light and airy, dark and moody, true to color or even the golden hour look? Also make sure the look is the kind you will be happy with about ten years from now.
Vet the Photographer(s) – Request galleries. Make sure the photographer(s) can show examples of the work that they have done. Make sure they have consistency and that their style fits your desires.
Have multiple meetings – Have multiple meetings with the photographer whether it be in person, over the phone or even zoom. The idea here is to make sure come your wedding day you know who’s taking your pictures and that you have no worries. Also take advantage of the engagement session if possible. Some photographers run it for free and that serves to get a final confirmation of what the edits will look like come wedding day. Also, you learn how the photographer operates, they learn about you, so you build chemistry that way.
Understand all the terms of engagement – Make sure you know the contract. Make sure you agree to every detail in the contract. If there is something in the contract that brings any hesitation, alert the photographer as soon as possible so that the issue can be addressed immediately before the contract is signed.
A reminder that following these steps will at the very least, mitigate potential issues that will happen if you are not careful in your selection process. Weddings cost a lot of money and I personally do not want to see people spend it on something they hate if I can help it so hopefully this helps you out a bit. If this resonate with you, share this to someone who you know is engaged so they can also get ahead of potential issues. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you come back for more of this content.
