You want to be able to trust your photographer to send you only the best files.  But, have you ever experienced a situation where you wish you could see what else was shot?

Do you always like every shot that you see of yourself? 

Does it make sense to you to be able to choose the absolute best shot of you to put on your wall or in your album?

Not every photographer will deliver as many photos as we do.  And we understand both sides.  You want us to use our professional judgement to get rid of a lot of the extras you don’t need to see, but also you want to see all the options where you might have a preference.

We shoot at about a 75% success rate on your wedding day!

On a typical wedding day, we shoot on average of 400 shots per hour per photographer.  Fully 300 of those we consider just fine.  But culling the way we describe below results in about 40-50% of the shots we take making it to you.  For an 8h wedding day that adds up to about 3000 photos

We recognize this is a lot of photos!

But it really gives you the opportunity to see ALL of the good shots that turned out, and not have to ask us if there was one a bit different from what we chose for you.  But we do still cull a lot!

We cull where it makes sense – and leave lots where it doesn’t!

Some situations where it makes sense to cull a lot:

  • Décor/details shots – we often take 2, 3, or 10 shots of a given thing to make sure it’s well composed and in focus.  We work the scene to get the best shots.  Here you can trust our judgement.
  • Reception Venue Photos – very similar situation to the décor/detail shots
  • Family Formal Photos – If we take 10 photos of a family group with kids, just one might be perfect!
  • Cocktail Hour Group Photos
  • Bride and Groom, and Bridal Party, posed shots looking at the camera – we may take a few frames to avoid any blinking. A lot of the time we only need one shot!

In these scenarios, we may cull up to 90% of the shots we take.

Situations where we leave a lot

  • Bride and Groom and Bridal Party candid photos
  • Anything that is a live event/journalistic coverage
    • Getting ready photos
    • Ceremony photos
    • Bride and Groom and Bridal Party candid photos
    • Reception candid and speech photos

In these situations, we may cull only 15-25% of the shots we take.  Things change by the second, and what might seem to us like a subtle difference between two shots could be huge to you.

Your photos should be printed and displayed to remind you of your big day.

The bulk of your shots will never be seen by anyone but you.  That is true for any modern wedding photographer!  To capture live events the way we do, we MUST take a lot of shots.  But in our view (and hopefully yours too) the point of taking beautiful photos is to share them and view them often.

And while every photo we deliver is great for use online or for sending 4x6s to your guests, there is no way we can edit all of these shots to be ‘print-ready’ – nor does it make sense to do so.

You aren’t paying for detailed editing you will never use

Even if we were to cull down to 10% of all the shots and made them all print-ready, for an 8-hour day, you would still get 320 photos, which is more than you would ever want to print or put in an album!  So why do a whole bunch of work that you will never need?  On the other hand, sifting through all those shots can be a challenge.

How do we help you choose your favourite shots?

It starts with the online galleries all your images will be on, as long as we’re in business. We show you in your USB delivery meeting how to:

  • View all your images organized by part of your day
  • Create several lists of favourites for different purposes (like prints for mom and dad, album candidates)
  • How to add and remove images from those lists
  • How to add comments to particular images you would like to have retouched and printed

You are entitled to print your shots however and wherever you want. But…

While we can’t compete on price with doing it yourself, what we can offer is:

  • High quality archival prints
  • Detailed and artistic retouching, and professionally colour-corrected printing process
  • An accountability buddy to actually get it done in a timely way
  • Save you the time of figuring out how and where to print on your own, and make those shots just perfect to see forever.

If you are wondering which print files to choose for your walls or for family and friends, we can give you some basic guidance, or you can upgrade to our detailed wall layout process. For albums, selection of images is included in our collaborative process.

So there you have it – how many photos we give you, why we do that, and how you benefit.