CHOOSING YOUR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

GARETH AND KATHRYN WITH SOME OF THEIR CLOSEST FRIENDS OUTSIDE IN THE WARMTH LATE AT NIGHT AFTER THEIR AUTUMN WEDDING AT CRATHORNE HALL IN NORTH YORKSHIRE

ONE OF THE BRIDESMAIDS AT JAGDEEP'S SIKH WEDDING AT HARDWICK HALL HAD HER MAKE-UP FINISHED - PHOTOGRAPH BY DIRK VAN DER WERFF

BRIDESMAIDS DO, WHAT BRIDESMAIDS HAVE TO DO - PHOTOGRAPH BY DIRK VAN DER WERFF

I have a passion for photography - and a passion for weddings - the perfect match!
It's the hardest thing in the world choosing a wedding photographer, and you will probably NEVER commission another professional photographer again. That's why I'm here, to help you choose. Make the wrong cloice, and you live to regret it .... but make the right choice of wedding photographer and you will always cherish the photographs and remember your day as stress free, a joyful relaxed occasion surrounded by family and friends.

When I was married almost 25 years ago, weddings were a whole different ball game. Parents paid for the wedding and generally, everyone who ever slightly knew you was invited to YOUR wedding, even if you hardly had a memory of them!

Nowadays, thank goodness, it's a celebration, more than 'just' a wedding.

Couples get engaged and decide to make plans to marry at a much more mature age, late 20's or early thirties, often after a university education.

You have your own careers, you have your own home, you arrange and book your own holidays ... so you want to have the wedding YOU want to have - and often you both pay towards it as well!

You can invite the people YOU really want to invite. Your closest and best friends and your nearest and dearest relatives - and, hopefully, me!

Some couples are naturals in front of the camera.

Most are not.

So you need to feel confidence in your wedding photographer, and I will build that confidence with you through my website pages and my BLOG entries of the most recent weddings I cover, you will get a feel for my skills as a photographer, of my passion for YOUR wedding and for my love of photography and people.

I'm a people person, and in my career in magazines and newspapers before I set up my own business in 2003 I photographed royalty, celebrities, top rockstars and footballers and politicians and businessmen as well as the general public, children and all sorts of family occassions. I'm amiable, I'm nice. I smile a lot, and I'm very good with people.

I won't be bullying anyone, I won't be shouting at anyone, NOTHING is a problem and I ALWAYS remember that it's YOUR day, not the photographer's!

Building your confidence starts here, right now, by the way I present myself, my photography and my offers to help you along the way, every day if needs be for the next year, two years, maybe three years until your wedding.

I put my heart and soul into my weddings, I work very hard for six, eight, ten or twelve hours on the day of your celebration, maybe two days or longer for weekend weddings, Greek weddings, or Asian weddings. I'm available to meet you anytime, day, night, weekend, just give me a ring on my personal mobile, 0778 7150966.
You don't have to come to see me - and for the majority of my brides, who live all over the UK and abroad too, but who return to the north east, north Yorkshire or Cumbria to get married, I meet up with them on Facebook first often, and then when they visit the area before their wedding.

If we can meet at your chosen venue for coffee - that will be fine, otherwise I'll come to your home, and if you would like your parents to meet with me too (cause they're paying .... ) that's fine too. The more the merrier!
I cover weddings all across the north of England, but often travel elsewhere in Great Britain, Cheshire in September, Berkshire in October and Dumfries and Galloway in December this year ...... and more and more brides want to take their chosen photographers on their destination weddings across Europe and further afield. If that's what you would like, no problem!

I won't keep anyone hanging around and waiting for hours on end for photographs to be taken ... all my best photographs will come from you all chillin' out and having a great day of celebration.

Not that we will forget those groups needed by mums and dads and grandmas and grandads - it's just that generally I will do many of them AFTER the wedding breakfast, when folk have had a few drinks, they're more relaxed and amenable - and it will take just TEN MINUTES ! I will NOT take you away from your guests for ages .. maybe 15 minutes, usually after the wedding breakfast - just have a great day and I will record the fun!

I don't do 'production line' wedding photography ... every bride and groom and every wedding is SPECIAL to me, so I have limited dates available to cover weddings as most of my weddings from first meeting until the handover of an album take about 30-36 hours.
So I rarely take more than 30 - 35 bookings in a year.

That's to keep me fresh - and enthusiastic, so that you're NOT just ANOTHER bride. I come to your wedding keen and enthusiastic. I've come across sooo many wedding photographers over the last couple of decades who, when I ask how business is and how life is going, shock me and say: "I hate doing weddings ..."
That's because it's a production line .... scores and scores of weddings, sometimes hundreds or more and three weddings in a day using part-time photographers to fill in .....
I would hate that too.
After our initial meeting and you decide to go ahead with booking your wedding date, our next meeting will be the important - the pre-wedding portrait session. This usually takes place about 6-10 weeks before the wedding. We get to spend an hour or two at the beach, or at a country park or somewhere special to you.

Yes, you get a beautiful framed A4 portrait from out time together, or a signing board but the most important thing is that we get to spend an hour or more together, walking and chatting about your wedding, taking some photographs of the two of you interacting and having fun.
We may have first met two years ago .. so you will have forgotten what I look like (!) and I will have forgotten what you look like too .. so it's good to catch up so, come your BIG day, we're NOT strangers, you know the way I work and that 95% of your photographs are going to be natural and spontaneous.
There's no surprises, I'm there for you as well as for your parents and you can just get on and have a fantastic wedding, confident that I will capture all the fun and the ambiance and the details so that when you come back from your honeymoon you have a wonderful, relaxed record of the biggest day of your life!
My PRICES and PACKAGES are outlined HERE, but EVERYTHING  is FLEXIBLE.
Choosing a photographer and deciding on a budget to set aside is difficult, but if you want a full time professional photographer, with high quality images, great customer service and with whom you can build a relationship to feel comfortable on the day then expect to pay £1500.00 upwards.
You MIGHT find a friend or a student or a part-time wedding photographer (he's a heating engineer or a plasterer during the week ...) and they MIGHT do a good job, but is MIGHT good enough for the biggest day of your life?
All that emotional and financial investment in your day, with the possibility that the photographs may be poor, or may not turn out.
Hope this has helped .. if not, or you want to ask any more questions, just ring me, text me, Facebook me or e-mail me .. numbers are above.
After all, I've been to more weddings than most people!

DIRK VAN DER WERFF