Top 5 Reasons to Hire a professional wedding photographer | Bri Cibene

For this guest blog post series, Bri Cibene Photography is dishing out all of the amazing reasons why it is so important to hire a professional wedding photographer for your wedding day. We know how easy it is to look at the money you save when you ask Uncle Bob (yes, we all have one!) to take your pictures on his new camera. But trust me, friends! You’re going to want to read through all of these details that Bri goes over. There is so much more than goes into your wedding photography than someone with a camera. And after all, this is going to be one of the biggest days of your life and you are going to cherish these memories and photos for a lifetime, might as well make sure they’re good! 😉

Be sure to follow along with Bri over on her Instagram!

Jacob + Lindsay at The Ritz Carlton Amelia Island

A professional photographer knows how to skillfully capture the biggest moments of your wedding day, while also simultaneously looking for those small, meaningful moments that may have gone unnoticed.

Personally, I think this is BY FAR the most important reason to hire a professional wedding photographer.

When you think about your wedding, you probably day dream about big moments – your first kiss, your groom’s reaction to seeing you for the first time, your father walking you down the aisle.

    
Brett + Leigha at the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island

Of course you do! Because those moments will be so so special.

Your photographer will capture all of those moments! And as a professional, they should know how to do that beautifully.

But they’ll also capture the in between moments that you might not have even witnessed, or ones that happened so quickly that they may fade from your memory.

Like your mom and grandmother hugging and holding hands as they watch you and your husband-to-be exchange vows, or your mom wiping her happy tears as you walk down the aisle.

Or the look of pure joy on your mom’s face as she watches you and your dad dance during the reception.

    
Chris + Julie at Omni Amelia Island, Jeremiah + Emily at Walker’s Landing

Or your flower girl holding your train carefully and watching you in awe because you truly look like a princess to her!

David + Blair at The Farm at Eagles Ridge

Having a professional document your wedding day not only allows you to relive your own memories, but the final images may capture moments that you may never have seen or even heard about otherwise!

Your wedding day will be the source of some of your most cherished memories.

Unfortunately, our memories fade over time. What once was so vivid, can eventually become hard to remember as more and more time passes.

Photographs serve as amazing reminders of our favorite memories. They become storytellers – powerful ones at that! Professional photographers are able to capture moments in a way that bring individual images together to tell a cohesive story. You’ll be telling that story for years – maybe even to several generations!

Anthony + Nicole at Crosswater Hall

A professional brings more than fancy equipment on your wedding day – they bring their talent, experience, and expertise.

Cameras, lenses, and other gear are tools that help a professional wedding photographer deliver a high quality product (read: stunning images!), but they are not the ONLY things that help deliver that said product.

Most professionals:

Have spent hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours practicing and refining their craft

Have most likely invested in some form of education to grow their talent

Understand how to pose you in a flattering way and produce a variety of images in a short amount of time

Understand lighting and are able to produce beautiful images in any situation

Are able to adapt quickly to any unexpected change of plans on your wedding day

Have large amounts of knowledge that can only come from experience

    
Nasim + Mehria at Treasury on the Plaza

A professional wedding photographer takes care of the non-glamorous details.

Stick with me here! There is a lot more that goes into being a professional than the gear, talent, experience, and expertise mentioned above. In reality, there’s a lot of boring stuff too that as a client, you may not have thought about!  BUT that boring stuff is important – so professionals make sure it’s taken care of, even when they’d rather be behind the camera instead.

They will have a contract in place. Do NOT send money to a photographer that doesn’t ask you to sign a contract. Contracts protect both you and the photographer, and set expectations for both parties. The contract will state what the photographer is obligated to provide and when, and more. You want that assurance!

They invest in back up equipment. We all know technology can fail for any given reason (sometimes seemingly no reason at all!). Professionals have backups readily available incase such a thing should happen during your once in a lifetime event. You will probably never know if a photographer has to go to back up equipment.  But if you choose to hire a non-professional and their camera dies, you definitely WILL know – because you’ll be missing images from parts of your wedding day! Scary!

They know how to protect your images and do it well.  Most professionals should have several back ups of your images right away. Because like I mentioned above – technology fails. Most wedding photographers are using a camera that is recording each picture to two different memory cards at once, just in case one corrupts. They then should be backing up your files immediately following the wedding in several different places!  Personally, we don’t even clear our memory cards until the full gallery is delivered.

Charlie + Shelby at Hammock Dunes Club

Hiring a professional wedding photographer will give you peace of mind.

Your wedding is a live event and you experience it once! There are no do overs.

Hiring a professional allows you to fully live in those moments and take them all in.

Because while wedding planning may be a pretty new experience for you (and maybe even a little overwhelming!), wedding photographers have seen it all (well…maybe not ALL but a whole heck of a lot!!).

They know how long you need to get beautiful portraits, and what time will be best to capture them. They know how to quickly and efficiently gather your family members for timeless family formals.

And in case something doesn’t go according to plan (spoiler alert – there’s always SOMETHING), they will already have a plan B (and C…and D) to get everything back on track.

They’re the ones figuring things out so that you don’t have to.

Once the day is over – when the guests have gone home, the food has been eaten, the decorations put away…you’ll know that you can look back on beautiful images and relive it over and over again.

One final piece of advice – don’t just hire a professional.  Choose to work with someone whose style you love and whose personality yours can mesh well with!  Your photographer will be by your side almost the entire wedding day – so it’s extremely important that you get along well with them!