So just how do you decide which wedding photographer to choose for your wedding day? Its hard enough and stressful enough planning the rest of your your wedding and now you need to decide what package, what photographer and what price! Well we've tried to make things a little easier for you, hopefully after reading this page things will become a little clearer and some of our points may sink in and help you decide who to choose.

Ok, so lets start of with your budget. They say that you should spend around ten percent of your total wedding cost on your wedding photography. This is a great starting point as you will most probably have a figure in your head of how much you want to / and are able to spend on your entire wedding costs. This is a great guideline as you will now know how much roughly your prepared to spend on photography. Use this figure and you can start looking for photographers within this price range and cross off those photographers who are way way above this figure.

The second thing to ask yourself is how long do you want the photographer to be at your wedding? Do you want just the ceremony and speeches? or do you want the photographer there all day? from early in the morning taking the all important bride getting ready shots right up until the evening and capturing photography of the first dance.

By this point you may have seen quite a few websites and prices, been to several wedding fairs and have a heap of wedding photography flyers that are on your coffee table right? and you probably love all of the photos that you have seen, they are all good! but where do you go from here? just how do you decide which one to go with?! Well in our book wedding photography is as much about excellent planning and preperation as it is about excellent photography skills, you can be the best photographer in world, but if you have no people skills, are untidy and have no personality then this could seriously affect your wedding day. So many times we have heard stories that the photographer was great on the day but late in producing the album. So meet the photographer before you make any decision, judge for yourself the photographers personality and presentation. Ask to view an album or photobook and have a long chat with the photographer before making any decision. Ultimatley go with your gut instinct. You'll know who you feel most comfortable in dealing with and its this person who will make you feel relaxed and at ease on your big day. Getting on well with the photographer and having one that is smartly dressed, clean and tidy is a big plus.

Don't be afraid to ask the photographer about his or hers experience, and ask them to run through a typical wedding day with you of what happens and the planning and preperation the photographer does. Do they check out the venue before hand? do they have an assistant? are they willing to work from a checklist that you give them for any particular shots you want? Are they willing to do test shots of you before the wedding and run through any poses you may require so you will not feel nervous on the day? and does that come as part fof the package? Any good photographer should do or have most of these.

What do you get for the overall package price and do you understand the package and what you get? you may see a list on a website, but go through this with the photographer and double check everything. A key question is does the photographer retain copyright over the images after the wedding? Some do and some don't. This will be reflected in the price, You will need to think about the costs of printing extra photographs and albums after the wedding if this is the case.

Don't be afraid to ask for references and check out those references. A lot of wedding photographers are recommended from a friend or from word of mouth.

Find out how soon after the wedding your photos will be ready, usually this is done within a week or two weeks.

Now weigh up all of the above; the package, the price, value for money and the personality and presentation of the photographer and you should have your answer!