Is professional photography really necessary?!

View Quoted Comment Hi Makayla, thanks for sharing your insight.

View Quoted Comment 😂 I worked behind the scene, as a photo critique, and editors, and tutoring a few people how to take pictures. I do have tons of snapshots, so not only professional photographs. I won’t say never, but I don’t really like working full time with other people. I prefer scenery and product commercial 😉

My best friend has a super high end camera and she loves photography so she took my engagement photos and they came out perfectly! so no, in that sense i don't think there needs to be "professional" photos.

View Quoted Comment I couldn't agree more, Melle. Thanks for sharing an opinion against the grain.

For us - particularly my fiancé - photography is the most important part, second only to the ceremony. We are doing a micro wedding/elopement. Our total expenditures are currently right at $6800 - with $5000 of that being for photography. Our total predicted budget is $****, so photography is a huge chunk of that. Our photographer is insanely talented and is well worth the money, in our opinion.

My grandma has had one of her wedding portraits hung up ever since I can remember, and it always comes to mind when I think of her. It made such an impression on me that I knew I wanted to have something just as beautiful to share with my children and grandchildren.


Photography was a top priority, but so was guest experience, so we didn’t sacrifice one for the other.

View Quoted Comment Hi Eri, that's a great story! Thanks for your comment

View Quoted Comment Whew! That's more than my entire budget. Those pics better be thee best Damn pics you've ever had. Can't wait to see them 💓

View Quoted Comment It is a lot of money, BUT because we are having the micro wedding we are NOT doing a lot of other traditional things: no DJ, no venue, no rentals, no bar, no decor, etc. So we were able to reallocate money to the few things we are doing, and make sure we are doing them exactly how we want. And we still came in waaaaaaay under our original “normal wedding” budget.

As someone who dabbles in photography and would've been perfectly happy taking amazing pictures with her iphone, I still wanted the special feeling that comes with looking back at our professional pictures. I understand utilizing this as an area to cut costs but for us we didn't mind paying a good amount for someone local and talented. Our engagement photos were the first professional pictures we've ever taken as a couple and our wedding will be the second (or third depending). I also don't have a lot of professional pictures with my parents and family and the chance to capture it all on one special day is enough for me to open my wallet.

View Quoted Comment Hi Milada, thanks for sharing your experience with this.

View Quoted Comment Okay, Samantha! Good for you!

Photography was our biggest ticket item after the venue.

Just because people couldn't have pictures, doesn't mean they didn't want them - they just weren't available.

I'm so glad we did splurge, because it's been over a year and I still love to look at them!

Nope, nope, nope...this article is far from the truth. Photos are the one thing you will keep and pass down to look back on your wedding day. It is of the utmost importance.

View Quoted Comment Thanks for commenting! That may be true for you and several others, but it's not the upmost importance for everyone. If you read the article, the writer mentions only having $1500 for a wedding while a great professional photographer costed double that amount!

View Quoted Comment It’s all a matter of what you value. For us it is the top priority. We skipped and skimped on some things to make up for the photography budget. And yes a lot of people agree with that, while others such as yourself do not. I was sharing my opinion and take on it as you asked “What are your thoughts on this?”
At the end of the day, I want to feel good looking back on our photography experience and the photos from that experience. I don’t want to have to consult or seek advice for what to do if my photographer took bad photos, or were a pain to work with, or worse...took a long time or even lost our images...and it does happen. So these are things to consider when budgeting and hiring a professional versus am amateur.

View Quoted Comment Hi Marisa,
I did want everyone's opinion! Thank you for that. What I was referring to was how you wrote "this article is far from the truth..." The writer was explaining her situation, but wasn't telling others to change their priorities about photography.

It's perfectly fine if photography is your number one priority. It's your wedding and money. The bigger take away I gathered from the article was how society influences our priorities and one (or a couple) must be true to themselves and prioritize what's GENUINLY important to them without outside influence or going into debt in this situation.
Thanks again for commenting.

Good photography is a priority for me. I may not remember every single detail but I will have the pictures to trigger my memories. I want to be able to look back at my photos and remember the best day of my life.

View Quoted Comment Hi Jessica, Thanks for commenting

It wasn't a priority. We had a small budget wedding so I honestly thought that it wasn't going to be able to be worked in. Lucky for us I cam across a photographer building her portfolio and we were able to score lovely photos for really cheap. I wanted to capture the day "as it happened." Lots of candid and some formals. Nothing overly photoshopped or dramatic. Just authentic feeling images and she was able to do just that.