Article by Roman Grinev

We know that you have lots of options when it come to wedding photography. At the end of the day, it’s a collection of great images that will remind you of all the joy, spontaneity and excitement of your wedding day.

With digital cameras more readily available to consumers, lots of people have become “photographers,” including family members. Having a good camera is only a small piece of the puzzle and is not a substitute for photographic skill. A skilled photographer will know about composition, lighting and other various elements that go into telling a story through photos and then making the most of those images through strong post-processing and much more.

A wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event that should be documented by an experienced photographer. Weddings are unique events that often move quickly. An inexperienced “photographer” will not be able to capture all the moments of your special day without stopping and posing you and your guests. There are no do-overs at a wedding and the moments are best captured as they happen.

Yes, you can find lower-priced photographers, but they may cut corners on equipment and on the processing of your images. Less-expensive studios typically over promise and under deliver. They often show great general studio portfolios and then may send out a less-experienced photographer to your event. We show individual portfolios with the work of each of our photographers and give you the opportunity to select your favorite. You also have the opportunity to meet your photographer ahead of time. Among our six photographers, we each have five to 12 years of experience documenting weddings professionally.

Lower-priced studios also typically shoot photos in the JPEG format and don’t do any work — or post-processing — on the images after the wedding. They take the digital files straight out of the camera and don’t bother with time-consuming but often-necessary tasks like color-correcting, exposure enhancements and black and white conversions. We all shoot in the RAW format, which creates digital files that produce more vibrant colors and may be enlarged to a bigger size. We process each image to color-correct and, when necessary, touch-up the photo. We also give you a mix of color, black & white, sepia and digitally enhanced images.

Some studios pad their packages with albums and extras to overcompensate for the lower quality of their work. While albums are important, they are secondary to a strong collection of beautiful, clean photographs that recount the story of your wedding day. It’s much more important to pick the best photographer rather than the best package. Albums can always be purchased after the wedding, but you can never improve upon a poor collection of images.

Are two photographers better than one? Not necessarily. For the majority of weddings, one good photographer is enough. There are, of course large weddings — those with more than 150 people — that call for two photographers. The same considerations of portfolio and experience that go into selecting the primary photographer should be applied to the second photographer. Some studios send a less experienced second photographer to learn on the job at your wedding. With us, when you book two photographers, you get two experienced photographers. As with the primary shooter, you get to see the work of the second photographer and choose who you’d like to work with. Our second photographers also shoot weddings by themselves.

Unlike most solo photographers, we also have an extensive back-up system in place to assure that an emergency doesn’t ruin your wedding day. Because there are six of us, you can be assured that your wedding will be covered if your chosen photographer becomes severely ill or has an accident.

Because of our outstanding photography and customer service, we have been voted One of the Area’s Best Wedding Photographers by the Washingtonian Magazine. You can also check out our wedding vendor reviews on www.weddingwire.com , which is a great source for reading reviews by recently married couples.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with additional questions or to set up a time to meet and view more of our work.