How Hiring a Professional Wedding Photographer Can Save Your Wedding Day: You Get What You Pay For

A popular online wedding forum recently ran an article under the guise of being helpful and guiding engaged couples to money saving in their wedding planning. Their advice? Professional photography is not a necessary expense. Instead ask a friend or friends to capture your big day's memories. Their logic: you save money and end up with the negatives.

Negatives? Who deals in negatives anymore? Many professional photographers offer a package whereby you can receive a CD of your proofs along with your package. Just as in the days before digital photography you could find a reputable professional photographer to give you your negatives for a price.

The article argued that that price is not worthwhile. Have you ever heard the old cliché "you get what you pay for?" Clichés become clichés because they are true. And none is more true than the adage "you get what you pay for" We all know someone that decided to skimp on a car or home repair and ended up paying hundreds or even thousands to then undo what the amateur did in order to get the job done right by a professional.

If you hire an amateur electrician to install your ceiling fan and that amateur's methods then short out your entire kitchen; well you can hire a professional to redo the ceiling fan installation properly. The same does not hold true for your wedding photography.

You cannot undo bad photography once your wedding is over. When the wedding is over, it is over; there is no calling out of a professional to re-shoot the event. If you trust your wedding photography to amateurs, you are taking a big risk. I'd go so far as to say that in 99% of cases, if you hire an amateur, if you leave your photography to friends, you will be seriously disappointed.

Ask any former bride or groom, your wedding day will speed by and you will find yourself with a hazy memory of it. Why would you skimp on the photographs that immortalize your special day? In addition to good lighting, flattering poses and the wonder that is Photoshop; certified professional wedding photographers know what shots to get, what points of your special day to document. Are you sure your amateur photographer friend is going to remember to remind you to get a shot of you with your godmother? With your college roommate? With your sorority sisters or fraternity brothers?

When you pay a professional, you are getting professional service. Neither you nor your amateur photographer friend will remember everything. Your job is to be the bride or groom and to enjoy your day. Let the professional photographer make sure all the important points and people and moments are recorded for all time. Let them take the pictures that will remind you of how special and beautiful your wedding was.

We all have friends who are good amateur photographers. Ask them to snap pictures for a more candid look at your wedding day. Put disposable cameras on the tables or in their gift bags. Create a flikr/shutterfly/ofoto account where guests can upload the pictures they've taken for you to review. Do not have them be your main shutterbug. Not only are you depriving yourself of photographs that are lit well and in focus and have made sure to include all that are important to you, but you are depriving your friend of being a true active guest of your wedding. Use your friends' pictures to enhance your photo album, not to make it.

You are inevitably setting yourself up for disappointment if you do this.