Alternatives to photographer

It may not be covid because that kind of situation has always happened. Not saying that this has happened here but -sometimes new starters have a very low price to get bookings but if things take off for them then they cancel the low price bookings in favour of high price ones.

When you said you will be having a baby 3 months before the wedding I thought that you were going to say that you want a photographer even more now. Is it a home made booth or are you hiring one ? - could you save money there.

Also do not bother with disposable cameras as 90% of the photos that you get back will be too dark, out of focus or otherwise useless and cost a lot to buy and develop the prints, peoples phones can take much better quality photos than the disposable cameras.

We didn’t have a photographer. We asked all guests to be snap happy and take photos of everything. We then set up an email address which they’ve been emailed too. We also have been whatsapped them and they’ve been added to Facebook too.
The easier it is for guests to get them to you means you get more photos.

We also had a family friend who has a decent camera act as an unofficial photographer. He took all the ‘official shots’ like me entering, the first kiss etc. Cause he had a proper camera everyone thought he was the photographer so stayed out of his way when he was shooting. He’s just then put all the photos on a usb.
I just made sure everyone knew that there wasn’t an official photographer so could they all take lots of photos. We also had our baby at our wedding, we attached a go pro to her pram so it filmed the day. It’s hilarious to watch as it was the first time most people met the baby too so it’s a lot of oohing and ahhing into the camera and then when baby went to sleep the camera was taken off and attached to a drunken bridesmaid 😂😂

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"when baby went to sleep the camera was taken off and attached to a drunken bridesmaid" That is flippin brilliant !!

Just some advice on whatsapp images, if there are any that you perticually like and want to print out then get the original file from the persons phone as watsapp reduces the file size of the image that you received.

View quoted message Oohh thank you, I didn’t know that about WhatsApp. I’ll get those photos emailed over instead ☺️

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Some email systems will also reduce the size too. Some people may have pre set conditions for sending which read something like "reduce file size before sending to save data".

Look at an image on your phone that you have watsapped some one and check "properties" find its dimensions stated in px or pixels, you will see that it is in the 3000px to 6000px size range but if you look at the same properties of a watsapp image in your watsapp image folder you will see that they are somthing like 1900px by 1200px

Have a look at Scripin Weddings, it is an app that you can get your guests to download and then on the day upload the pictures/videos throughout the day, so may be a good alternative. Also, maybe approach college in the area to see if they have any photography/videography students looking to build their portfolio as often they will do it for free and then you pay a small fee for the images on a USB, so you could still have some professional type shots?

If you're trying to save money then ditch the disposable cameras - even if you only have half a dozen, by the time you've paid for printing, you'll be out of pocket by at least £60 or so, and you'll be lucky to get one or two usable photos out of it. Every wedding I've been to, it's the drunk and/or silly ones that play around with the disposables, so you'll get lots of whited out or blurry silly faces and not much else. People who are keen hobby photographers tend to use their own cameras or phones instead of disposables.

You've got a few options - if you have a friend who is a keen amateur photographer, I'd ask them to take some photos. Or ask a local college if any of their photography students would be interested in taking it on to build their portfolio. Or look at cutting out something else so that you can afford to get a good photographer. It's a good idea to ask friends to email any good photos they get but I would recommend having one designated person to take your 'must have' shots or you may find that some people/moments get missed out completely.

Whatever you do, I'd avoid the real 'bargain basement' photographers. I've been to more than one wedding where I've ended up having to send the bride & groom my own pictures to make up for ones that their 'super cheap' photographer either failed to take or took blurry! If you can't afford to buy quality, don't buy at all.

View quoted message That’s a good point. If we were one of her first early bookings then she may have accepted a higher priced booking.
Good point with the disposables! I guess they’d cost a bit of money to get developed too!
Pregnancy was a bit of a surprise, a happy one 😃, but we’re a bit more focused on money saving now.

View quoted message Ooh that’s a great idea with the go pro! 😃 it’s likely to be the first time a lot of my guests will have met baby too!

View quoted message Thanks for the tip! 😃

View quoted message Yes that’s a good idea, thank you.

View quoted message You are welcome, have a great day

View quoted message Thanks for the advice 😃

View quoted message We’re making our own photo booth. 😃