So you need a wedding photographer?
Apart from finding your ideal partner, finding a suitable bestman, a venue and organising the big day, one of the most important decisions is choosing the right photographer to record the wedding. This section may seem as if it is trying to put you off, however when many people contact about covering their wedding, it is preferred if couples do some homework and make a list of requirements to make communication that much easier.
Matthew does not operate with a price list as such. Each wedding is different. Some couples simply want a few shots taken outside the church with no fuss, others require a full day of the bride's preparations to the last dance. Then there is the questions of what prints are required? Are you after a conventional wedding album or a more modern coffee table book? And do you want lots of prints to make your own album, huge pictures in canvas to go above the fireplace or simply a CD/DVD so you can print your own images?
The next important question to answer is what type of photographer you actually want. Do you want to someone with mobile studio lights to produce a wedding folio like something out of OK magazine or do you want to save on your budget and get a friend or someone with a camera but run the risk of having the bridesmaids looking like they are about to be shot by the firing squad standing in front of a boring church wall?!
As you can see from this website, Matthew Ashton is a photographer with vast photojournalistic experience in sport capturing the winning goal in a world cup final, having covered the civil war in Croatia to many many press conferences you can be assured that memorable moments will be captured in a split second. The last thing Matthew wants is for the big day to become a big photoshoot. Working quickly as if he has to go and do another job for a newspaper, set up shots are done in minutes and you will hardly notice that he is there.
Costs - shop around after deciding what your budget will be. Some photographers are cheap however pile on their profit when it comes to ordering prints. Packages can be catered for to include prints and coffee table books so that you will know the total price before the big day.
Matthew does not charge per picture taken or on the amount of images edited working on the philosophy of 200 great shots are better than 500 not go great shots! After the wedding, a gallery is available online should friends and guests want to look and choose pictures for themselves - again at no extra cost. Some photographers have confusing Gold, Silver and Bronze packages, the only package Matthew is interested in is taking great shots and making the happy couple go WOW when they see their pictures!
Honesty is everything - Matthew 'specialises' in week-day weddings using his reportage skills but does not tout himself around as a wedding photographer, more of a photograper who does weddings - mainly because of his day job in shooting football - Saturdays are usually out of the question. However without putting you off you may be lucky! Also distance is not a problem, Matthew usually covers over 50,000 miles a year and a few more miles to come to your big day will not make a difference.
Matthew has photographed many happy couples on their big day and they admitted that they did not really give much attention to what they actually want before they started contacting photographers and all agreed that thinking about this saved them money and gave them a wider choice. In order to help and in the nicest possible way, to avoid four emails going back and forth, please discuss with your partner about coverage on the day and just as important what you require from it before getting in touch.
