A wedding is one of the most significant events in someone's life. As a wedding photographer, your job is to preserve the memories of that day so it can be enjoyed for decades to come.

Your photography skills are critical, but so is the relationship with the client. From the moment you first meet them all the way through to their photo selections, how you relate to a client can greatly influence the images you produce. The client-photographer relationship can also impact business referrals.

Needless to say, managing your relationship with your clients is critical. Answers to their questions can set you up for success - or failure. Don't hesitate to ask questions yourself! Having more information can sometimes help you to better address a client's questions.

Here are some typical frequently-asked questions (FAQs) you might expect, along with our ideas or tips for answering.

What is your style?

Most clients will have viewed your website before they meet with you. Even so, many of them will ask you about your photography style or aesthetic. This is an important question to be treated very seriously.

They want to know if you're a good match for what they envision for their wedding pictures. They want to be certain that you can deliver what they want. If they don't have a vision, they'll probably ask you about your vision for their wedding.

How you answer the question of your photography style could determine whether you land the job. Answer as honestly and transparently as possible. Explain your process for shooting weddings. That process can be as important as talking about your style. (Process can influence photography style.)

Listen to the potential client's vision for their wedding pictures and understand what they want from you. Today's wedding photography tends to be more casual and candid than years ago, which was formal portrait-style shots mostly indoors. Does your style match that? Even if it does not, can you deliver that or whatever style the client wants?

Most clients want to hear is that you can deliver their vision using a process with which they are comfortable. But you should never mislead a client on what you can do for them.

Can I see your portfolio?

The answer is always yes to this question! Potential clients want to see your past work. While they've likely seen your website, many clients will ask to see more work. You should be prepared to provide more images of past projects and have a portfolio ready to show.

If you already know their vision or style, you'll likely want to show past work that matches what they want. However, we suggest including other work as well. You never know when someone might change their mind about the wedding photography they want!

In the digital world we live in, your portfolio no longer has to be printed images or an actual album. You can share and show your images digitally. You'll want to preselect some of your best work, of course.

Will you edit my pictures?

This question tends to come up more often with clients who know more about photography and post-processing. Even so, it might still come up with the average client wondering how much clean-up you might do to their images.

Overall, this is a fair question. How you answer might depend on the client's understanding of post-processing. Either way, though, you'll want to be forthright and provide, at a minimum, the basic process you employ for editing and assessing which images to edit. Some photographers opt to show a potential client some before and after images to demonstrate typical edits they make.

Given how presets work, the editing question might help you better identify a client's vision for photography, if you haven't already. Presets can help you make edits or enhancements to achieve certain styles.

We don't recommend getting into too much (if any) technical detail about the editing process.

When will my photos be ready?

This is probably the most common question! Everyone wants to know when their pictures will be delivered after their happy event. Needless to say, most want them as quickly as possible.

The answer to this could be complicated and very dependent on various factors, including how busy you are with other projects and the number of edits needed for their project.

To estimate how quickly you can deliver pictures:

consider how many pictures you might take
how many and how much post-processing
how many do you plan on showing them
how many they might want to purchase.

See? It's not an easy answer. If you're an experienced wedding photographer, you probably already have an idea of how long it usually takes you to deliver a project. It's typically three to four weeks for most photographers.

Some photographers like to deliver a few images within a few days following the event to give their clients something to have and share.

Whatever timeline you give to a client when answering this question, be fair to yourself and be honest. Some photographers like to under-promise and over-deliver.

In other words, they pad the timeline a little in case it takes them longer than they anticipated if they finish early, great! The client will be, please. What you never want to do is over-promise and under-deliver.

Do you offer customized packages, and what do they include?

It can be challenging to offer standard packages without customization. Not everyone wants or needs the same type of photography package. As with most photo packages, wedding photo packages aren't always a one-size-fits-all, which is why clients will often ask for custom packages.

Questions about your pricing and custom packages must be answered carefully and clearly. Be sure that everything is in writing and distinctly itemized to avoid issues later about what they received and pricing.

Walk the clients through the itemized pricing for the package they want and ensure they understand what they'd be getting and how much it costs. For example, we suggest detailing how many hours of your time they will get and what that includes (bride dressing, church, wedding reception, etc.).

Are there two photographers?

If it's a large wedding, you might need a freelance photographer for better coverage. A large wedding with hundreds of guests in a large venue can be too much for one photographer to cover effectively. In that case, you will need to use a second photographer and charge the client accordingly. Be sure to discuss that with your client well ahead of the wedding, ideally in your first client meeting when discussing the project.

Be prepared to explain the process of having two photographers, the coverage, and which photographer might cover which part of the wedding event. For example, one photographer might take pictures of the bride getting ready, while the other photographer captures the grooms' party.

Conclusion

The more work you do as a wedding photographer, the better prepared you will be to answer clients' questions. We suggest creating a running list of questions you receive to create your own common FAQs. Once you have those, add them to your website. However, you should still be prepared to answer these and other questions at your first client meeting.

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