The most important thing to remember after all the months of organising is to relax and enjoy your wedding day. If there are things that need organising on the day, task a trusted friend or member of the family to take care of them for you.
The following 4 points may be helpful to you when planning your wedding and selecting a photographer.
1. Give yourself plenty of time to find a hairdresser and make-up artist.
2. Are you meeting the photographer when you make the booking?
3. Who owns the copyright in your wedding photographs?
4. Archiving your digital photographs for the future.
And finally a piece of advice from a bride “… if you are running late do not panic - the wedding cannot start without you. Enjoy being late.”
1. Give yourself plenty of time to find a hairdresser and make-up artist.
If you do not have a hairdresser that you go to on a regular basis, or you are getting married in a different town to where you live, begin your search for a hairdresser and make-up artist as soon as you can. Once you have selected a salon book a trial session with them at least a month before the wedding day. If you come away from the trial unhappy with the results you will still have time to find someone else.
2. Are you meeting the photographer when you make the booking?
When you are interviewing potential photographers check that you are meeting with the photographer who will be taking your photographs on your wedding day.
In some instances you may find yourself meeting with their assistant and the actual photographer only meets you for the first time on the day. If you are meeting with the principal photographer double check that they will be taking your photographs and not a junior or associate. If you are selecting a photographer based upon reputation or from a referral its is only fair to expect that they will be the one who will take your photographs.
You need to be comfortable with the photographer who will be with you both nearly all the time on your wedding day. Selecting the correct photographer is just as important as any of the other arrangements you make for the day and sometimes far more important in the long term.
3. Who owns the copyright in your wedding photographs?
The copyright in your wedding photographs is legally yours.
The Australian Copyright Council in their Information Sheet G11 – “Photographers and copyright January 2006” state that:
For photographs taken on or after 30 July 1998, the general rule on ownership depends on the purpose for which the photographs were taken:
• if the photographs were taken for “private or domestic purposes” (such as family portraits, or wedding photographs), the first owner of copyright in them is the client, unless the photographer and client agree otherwise;
It is important that when signing contracts with your wedding photographer that you check the fine print to ensure you are not giving or assigning the copyright in your wedding photographs to the photographer. Some photographers never discuss this issue with you and have you assign the copyright in your photographs to them when you sign their contract and pay their booking fee. This prevents you from copying and printing your own photographs. Some photographers as part of their packages offer to sell the copyright to you. You should not need to pay for the copyright in your images when the copyright was legally yours in the first place.
4. Archiving your digital photographs for the future.
Formats and technologies change, and are doing so at ever more rapid rates. Sadly, over time your digital photographs may become completely inaccessible unless you adopt an archival backup strategy.
If your photographer is taking digital photographs you should check that they are shooting using the camera raw file format. The camera raw file format is the equivalent of the film negative and offers far more control in printing your photographs than file formats such as JPEG that are used in many consumer quality cameras.
However, there are lots of different camera raw file formats with each camera manufacturer seeming to develop their own. The specifications for the manufacturers’ formats are not always publicly available so using a manufacturer’s raw format as an archival format carries the risk of not being able to open the images in years to come.
To ensure you can use your digital files in the future insist your photographer provides you with a copy of your files in the DNG or Digital Negative format. The Digital Negative is a publicly available archival format supported by companies such as Adobe for the archiving of raw files generated by digital cameras. You may have to pay a small fee to have the files converted to DNG and burnt to a CD or DVD but it is very important to do this if you wish to be able to access and print from your digital files in the future. Do not accept JPEG by itself. By all means accept a copy of your files in JPEG format so you can view and print the files. But to avoid discovering in years to come that your photographs cannot be printed make sure you have a copy in the DNG format that may be be converted to the common format of the day if you or your grandchildren want some new prints.
