Your day. Your story. Captured !

	Great detailed questions from a recent client . . . and our response.
The questions	Hi Bob, I'm getting married on July 31, 2011. My fiancee and I have looked through your website and we like what we saw. However, before asking to meet with you, we have several questions. I suppose first and foremost, we should ask whether you are indeed available on our wedding date? Now a bit about our wedding. Our ceremony is taking place at Queen Elizabeth Celebration Pavilion, Vancouver. Our reception is taking place at the Old Orchard Hall, Port Moody. We'd like to have a photographer all day -- getting ready, ceremony, wedding party/parents, photos outside somewhere, and then the reception -- so the photographer would have to also be available all day (though not necessarily throughout the entire reception as that part could last awhile). We are expecting to have about 100-110 guests at the wedding with only a handful of children. Now for the questions: 1) How many years experience do you have in photography, and specifically wedding photography? 2) How would you describe your style of photography? What sets you apart from other photographers? 3) Your website mentions that you work with a second photographer/shooter. What kind of experience/training does this person have? Will we get to meet them during our consultation appointment? 4) How many (approximately) photos do you usually take? (I realize this depends on the kinds of shots that the couple is looking for and other factors, but an estimate is appreciated.) 5) Do you hand over the photo files and allow us to print our photos wherever we want or do we have to order prints/wedding album through you? If we must order prints/wedding album through you, what are the costs associated with doing so? 6) How long after the wedding will we receive proofs? When you hand over the digital negatives and is this unconditional? 7) Do you provide us with ALL the high resolution digital negatives? 8) What type of equipment do you use and do you bring external lighting / flashes / umbrellas? What type of lenses do you use (ie. regular, widelens, fisheye...)? 9) Would you please provide an estimate of the cost to have you photograph all day? Please provide the most complete estimate possible (e.g. are taxes on top of the estimate price, etc) 10) Do you discuss the kinds of shots we are looking for before the wedding or is this something you prefer to do the day of? (Our preference is to get an idea of "must-have" shots before the wedding day, and then the rest we can play by ear.) 11) Do you discuss a back-up plan in the event of bad weather? 12) In the event of equipment/camera failure, how long would it take for you to fix the equipment/camera? 13) What is your cancellation policy (refunds, notice, etc) if WE had to cancel? What about if YOU had to cancel? We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks so much! Sincerely,
Our Response	Hi, Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. We are available for your wedding date next year. First let me say that your extensive list of questions are the best I have ever encountered from a prospective client. . . you have definitely done your homework. Let's see if I can make out as well answering them. :-) I personally have over 30 years for experience photographing weddings. My wife Pat, who also shoots at many of our weddings, has been shooting with me for about 9 years. My first 20 years in the business were primarily in a studio setting where I learned traditional lighting and posing. I still apply those styles today, but on location instead of the confines of the studio.  Several years as a photographic journalist for a major newspaper gave me my start on "following and catching the action" that add the photojournalistic edge to my style of shooting. As you can appreciate, the rapid changes of the past decade have required us to attend many workshops to keep up with all the new artistic and funky trends of today's demands. We've done it all, and apply it all to every wedding event that we cover. This is probably what makes us stand out from most photographers whose expertise lies in one area or another. My wife, with only 9 years shooting, has not been influenced by the "old" traditional styles and has a totally different perspective on every subject and situation. Makes for a great mix of styles and images. There is no limit to the number of images that we take, it really depends on the hours we spend on the shoot and what is happening. The end result is usually about 600 colour corrected, professionally cropped proofs which you would receive in a hard covered proof book, on an optional, private, on-line gallery (no extra charge), and high resolution images on a DVD or CDs so that you can have them printed whenever and where ever you prefer. We also do custom printing and retouching at very reasonable rates so you may want to consider that for any prints that you want for framing. You would receive these in approximately 4 to 6 weeks after the wedding. You asked if we turn over ALL of the digital negatives to you . . . no. In an event like a wedding we take multiple shots of the same thing to assure that we get the expressions that we are looking for . . . group pictures require multiple shots to assure everyone has their eyes open or are not looking off into the wild blue yonder, etc. Many pictures are taken with action moving very quickly and many shots are test shots to establish exposure and "test" the light. These extra shots are discarded, but you do get all the "good shots, which are in the hundreds. We don't give you "bad" images. Equipment . . . we use professional equipment only. Our lenses are all Canon "L" lenses that run from $1,600.00 to $3,600.00 each. We use zoom lenses that take us from a wide angle of 24mm to telephoto of 200mm focal lengths. These allow us to take in all the action and get "in-close" without being in your face. Depending on the light situations we use shoot-through scrims, shoot-though umbrellas, reflectors, off camera lighting with multiple speedlights, pocket wizard remote flash triggers and chromakey backgrounds for special effects. We always carry back-up camera, speedlights and lenses, so a breakdown of equipment would cause us a delay of only minutes. Bad weather back-up? Oh yes . . we are in the Vancouver area . . it rains here. We have a beautiful spot in Port Moody for rainy days. If you click on the following link it will take you to a gallery that shows a wedding that we did in the pouring rain at that location. http://www.weddingguy.ca/matsumi/gallery-album/index.html We definitely discuss the kind of shots you would like and add those to all our standard coverage as much as possible. It's YOUR day and we will cover it the way you prefer. We always attend the rehearsal so that we know what is going on and when, and we also get a chance to meet with most of the important people of the day so everyone feels more comfortable with us on the big day. This is more for us than you so that we are better prepared to cover the event confidently. We do not charge for that attendance. Our cancelation policy is part of our agreement, which you can view by clicking on this link. http://www.weddingguy.ca/contract.html Our prices are based on an hourly rate, with special considerations with longer bookings. Taxes are extra. Packages are available, but it really depends on your interest in extras like albums, wall prints, slide show, etc. There are many variables that we can discuss and create a package to your desires. An example would be . . .  Silver package: 8 hours coverage by one photographer - unlimited photos taken - minimum 500 proofs in hard covered book - all images on CD and on-line gallery - free rehearsal attendance - 30 page 8x12 Graphi coffee table book album from Italy (value $690.00) - 100 4x3 prints to insert in your thank you cards. $1,995.00 plus HST. There are other packages available, both smaller and larger, which we would be happy to discuss with you. I hope I have successfully answered all of your questions . . . but if not, please don't hesitate to ask again. I would suggest that the next best step would be for the four of us to get together so that you could see some real live albums and prints. If you would like to do that, please call me at your convenience at 604-649-8210. Thanks for your interest. Best regards, Bob Foot note: We did book this wedding and the bride and groom were thrilled with their resulting photographs. They took a smaller package with two photographers.