STYLED WEDDING SHOOTS AND WHY I DON’T SHOW THEM

Wedding photography in the UK is a ferociously competitive field at the moment. The dominance of cameras on phones seems to make anyone with any kind of separate camera regard themselves as a league apart and ready to do weddings. Real wedding photographers – the ones with a good eye, back-up bodies and proper insurance – are practically swamped by inexperienced wannabes.

In a competitive market, the key is getting brides and grooms (especially brides!) to see great images. On Instagram and wedding photographers’ websites, really good wedding photos bring you clients. And one way to get really great images is by using styled wedding shoots.

A styled shoot is not a wedding.

A styled shoot uses models in wedding attire (bride, groom, bridesmaids and sometimes even a number of “guests”) to create posed images which can help to sell the dress, the jewellery, the shoes, the venue and the photographer. 

I was prompted to write on the subject of styled shoots by an anonymous post in an online group for British wedding photographers. The poster, himself a wedding photographer, had been approached by a friend who was very disappointed by her wedding photos – done by someone else. The disappointment stemmed from false expectations – false expectations raised by the use of styled wedding shoot photos on the photographer’s website. 

The text that follows comes from that Facebook post. The images on this page are all from styled shoots, they are NOT mine, NOR are they the images used by the photographer referred to in the post!

“A friend of mine asked me to look at her wedding images to ask what I thought – I said to her, “As long as you like them it doesn’t matter what I think”,  but she then responded with – “Well, to tell you the truth we feel we have been completely ripped off as its nothing like the wedding photographer’s website or Instagram.”

After some digging I looked up the photographer’s online material and all they had was styled shoot after styled shoot on their Instagram. My friend said, “We got nothing like what they advertised, not even close!””

“While the Instagram account does explain that it contains styled shoots, the very same images are also in the wedding portfolio gallery on the website without that explanation.

The difference between this wedding photographer’s Instagram and what they actually delivered is night and day. When my friend told me she paid £2,300 I did feel for her and thought –  yeah – I can see why you’re upset.

Is this not borderline fraud? I just think as a wedding photographer community we need to be transparent about what clients will get – it’s very easy to get wrapped into the world of doing what we can to get the wedding bookings but forgetting that this is also people’s biggest and most special day of their lives. I find as long as you’re transparent about your work people can’t complain about the quality you deliver. But this whole “fake it till you make it” syndrome needs to stop.”

I think that is very fairly put. Enthusiastic brides and grooms are wanting wonderful photographs. The realities of genuine weddings don’t always make that easy – and especially not easy to maintain THROUGHOUT the day. Some of my best bride and groom portrait shoots have come towards the end of a day which started with a cluttered mess during the bride’s preparations. The vagaries of the weather, of other people, and of the posing abilities of the bride and groom themselves – all have their effect. Total consistency is rarely achievable – and is so much easier to achieve when you are working with models on a styled shoot.

All images in this post culled from Pexels under a search for “styled wedding photos”. Pexels is a source for images for free use.  Individual photographers’ names can be seen in the alt text. Many thanks to Pexels for their invaluable service in providing great example images.

The only page on my website with “wedding photos” from styled shoots is this one – and none of the images here are mine!

All my wedding photographs on this site and on my Instagram account are of real people in real weddings. My wedding portfolio is all my work – or the work of second photographers working on real weddings with me.

That’s it. No styled shoots. I think they at least give people the wrong impression and may even be used to deliberately mislead brides and groms in what they can expect from their wedding photographer.

I am a Bromley-based wedding photographer offering great value and quality photography for real people at real weddings!

Photos © copyright various artists as seen on Pexels, with licence to use the works.