Frequently Asked Questions

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As with anything else in life, the sooner you have things planned, completed, and communicated, the higher chances for success.

This document is the "holy grail" for navigating specific information regarding your event. If possible, we would say no later than 30 days before your event date!  It is extremely important that you fill out your event detail document.  You are responsible for providing all the information that your photographer or videographer will need in order to know where to show up, when to be there, your vision for your big day, and any other possible special requests, restrictions, and notes.  The photographer will have all of this information available to them for your wedding day.  

Have fun and be as specific as you can!  

Every professional wedding photographer/videographer has a list of shots that should be captured at almost every single wedding. 

Only if you successfully and accurately maintain the customer event detail document sent to you by our team, have it finalized by your event date, and clearly communicate your desire to capture specially requested shots, will you be able to request shots that differ from the industry standard shot list every assignee uses. 

Remember that our shooting style (separate from the editing style you choose) is what's called "photojournalistic" whereas we may get your requested shots, but the rest of the day we attempt to capture candid shots to tell the story of your wedding day. This is the best way to portray your wedding day in an authentic (and not forced) way while maintaining professional integrity.

If all of the getting-ready, first look, ceremony, venue, formals, and reception is in one place you may only need 7 hours but 8-10 hours is probably best to cover your wedding with a peace-of-mind. 10 hours is on the higher side which may be required if you have multiple venues or have planned a lengthy and unique event schedule. Here are some examples of what to expect:

• Getting-ready pictures - 2+ hours before the wedding (every wedding is different - please plan your getting-ready shots carefully as wedding couples often get ready much earlier than their first look and/or ceremony)
• Ceremony pictures - approximately – a 1 hour
• Cocktail hour pictures - typically 1 hour– this is usually when formals with the wedding couple and their parties are done, in addition to tables and decorations in the reception venue prior to guests occupying or blocking them.
• Reception - 3-4 hours of the reception should be enough time to get you past the cake cutting. After the cake cutting the need for professional pictures decreases. If getting things like dancing matters to you, we highly suggest adding more time to your package.
• You can add hours to your package at any time leading up to your wedding day! Typically we strongly suggest doing this, and even incentivize adding hours before your wedding day by offering pre-wedding day overtime rate of $300/hr. Though, your photographer or videographer are not allowed to leave your wedding if the wedding couple requests them to stay. Overtime added on the day of the wedding are billed at $500 per hour and must be paid before the wedding images are released to the client; our team will automatically charge the card on file.

If getting-ready shots is either too complicated to plan for or not important to capture, and you don't need or want coverage for these shots, you may only need 4-5 hours of coverage.

The reason why we emphasize the importance of the Customer Event Detail Document so much is to make sure that we are prepared for your event. This includes our team's understanding whether or not you have the proper amount of coverage for your wedding. At the time of booking, which is often months/years in advance, clients typically don't have their wedding day timeline finalized, therefor they may need to add overtime to their wedding prior to their event date. That is completely normal, and that is also why we incentivize to add overtime at a discounted rate. 

We most certainly don't turn down same day overtime requests, but we do frown upon it. Not because we don't want to provide you more service (we'd be happy to), but because it typically indicates that the wedding timeline is not finalized, leaving the photographer/videographer less prepared to plan the successful execution of capturing your event. It may also put a scheduling strain on your photographer/videographer if they planned to be at your event for a certain amount of time. This is why it costs more if you add overtime on the same day of your wedding. Basically, we just really care about doing the best job we can for you.

If you are worried that you don't have enough coverage for any reason, it is always a good idea and a safe bet to add more time to your package prior to your wedding day.

If you need to add overtime to your event, please email team@picturethiswedding.com or call 1(833)PIC-THIS and speak to one of our team members today.

YES!

Currently we are only offering photo booth and event up-lighting in New England, and we are working on expanding those services to other areas. 

We have two photo booths to choose from. The first one is an open air photo booth, and the second one is the magic mirror photo booth. They are both unique in their own ways and take amazing photos. The props and back drops are the industry's latest and greatest. We also offer on site printing and scrapbooking!

With our up-lighting, we can illuminate any event with almost any color to match your theme!

What even is a wedding without a photo booth or up-lighting?

We understand this can seem frustrating as you have spent valuable time looking at portfolios and getting to know your photographer or videographer.  Sometimes life happens. There are many reasons why your original  photographer or videographer may not shoot your wedding such as becoming ill, getting injured, experiencing a life/family emergency, and possibly having to part ways with Picture This Wedding.

Rest assured that we will replace your photographer or videographer with someone of equal or greater quality. We are committed to providing you the best experience we can.

The important thing to know is this: all of our photographers have been carefully selected to work with Picture This Wedding and shoot in a photojournalistic style. Aside from the photographers artistic eye and style, the real magic happens in post production where our editing team will give everything its final touch according to your preferences.

Absolutely!

By utilizing professional independent wedding photographers and videographers, we enable freelancers to treat every event as if it were their own! 

After years of careful and calculated efforts to curate the best freelancers, specifically in the wedding industry across many local markets in the United States, we are uniquely positioned to offer customers superior quality at a rate that they wouldn't otherwise secure if they hired the freelancers directly. In exchange for providing freelancers with volumes of work they wouldn't otherwise book themselves, Picture This Wedding has secured rates that no one else can; allowing customers to possibly take advantage of the best talent in the industry for a fraction of the cost.

Every freelancer is comprehensively vetted in order to be added to Picture This Wedding's talent network. They are required to submit albums and channels of their work and prove how long they have been a professional wedding photographer/videographer before being added as a trusted vendor. They're also screened for and bound by their ability to provide you a pleasurable customer experience. Picture This Wedding has secured professional relationships with some of the best and most talented independent photographers/videographers and other studios in the country!

In doing this, we also enable our freelancers to focus on what they are great at by showing up to your event and be the best artist they can be without the worry and hassle of all the pre and post production constraints and stresses in planning, organizing, and executing your project; that's where we come in. 

Being a freelancer also allows individuals to take on their own projects or work with other studios or partners if they choose. We believe that cultivating leaders in the wedding industry through self-ownership will preserve the dignity of these artists, and the quality being delivered.

To add, all of our freelancers shoot in a photojournalistic, documentative, or cinematic shooting style. When shooting, their primary focus is to do what's called "shoot to edit" which means that when they shoot, they are doing so with a focus to make post-production seamless and meaningful. Although many of our freelancers know how to and are amazing editors, Picture This Wedding has their own teams of editors solely dedicated to editing and delivering project files; this enables us to uniformly provide a consistent quality product to every single customer. As most of the magic happens in post-production, this is the one effort we focus on the most.

We set a very high standard at Picture This Wedding, and our aim is to provide that to you.

DISCLAIMER: Inclement weather conditions can and may interrupt the process of, or delay, the success of capturing drone footage.

Drone coverage is only meant to capture general b-roll footage of the location/venue and surrounding areas. Drone coverage doesn't necessarily have to be captured on the day of the event either; in order for a videographer to best capture all of the important shots for your contract, the videographer may choose at their discretion to go to your event location a day early, a day late, or other times that differ from the accounted time for coverage on your contract in order to comply with capturing industry standard shots pertaining to weddings, with their regular camera. For example, in cases of cloudy skies or inclement weather, it may be in the videographer's best interest to modify the time of which they capture drone footage.

Special requests for drone coverage that differ from the aforementioned, are never guaranteed, and remain solely at the discretion of the videographer to capture certain requested shots. Even if you planned to capture specific shots other than general b-roll footage prior to your event date, most wedding's timelines and plans rarely go as planned, and may affect the ability to capture certain requested shots on the day of. If drone coverage is made apart of your package, be sure to clearly communicate with your videographer about your requests; both on your customer event detail document and verbally on the day of your event at the time you wish them to capture certain special requested shots. Regardless, Picture This Wedding is not responsible to capture non venue b-roll footage.

Picture This Wedding videographers shoot-to-edit, and understand that in order to assist in producing the best cinematic-style wedding video products, they understand that drone footage plays a small roll in the process of producing your recap and full-length wedding videos. Too much drone footage drowns out the important intimate close-up shots that render the best emotion-packed wedding videos.

Minimal drone footage looks beautiful and adds an amazing vantage point of your venue/s beautiful landscapes.

Second photographers or videographers, commonly referred to as "2nd shooters", are highly beneficial to have at your wedding. They are versatile professionals that provide multiple benefits for your event.

Although your lead photographer or videographer will be the person responsible to lead your photo/video production at your wedding, it's important to understand that 2nd shooters are not considered assistants to the lead shooter; both the lead and 2nd shooter may bring assistants at their discretion. Both the lead and 2nd shooter are professionals in their own respect, and collaborate with one another to create the best possible outcome for you.

First, having a 2nd shooter allows photographers or videographers to be in two places at once. For example, if your event includes capturing "getting ready" shots and both wedding partners are getting ready at the same time in two different locations, then it would be possible to have a shooter in each location capturing these shots.

Second, having a 2nd shooter allows you to capture multiple angles. For example, maybe your ceremony's venue has multiple angles worth shooting; in order to minimize too much movement during the ceremony and minimizing the amount of time it takes to achieve different vantage points in between shots, both the lead photographer and 2nd shooter station themselves strategically to get the same shots from different areas.

Third and most important, 2nd shooters act as insurance for your wedding. Unfortunately rare emergencies, accidents, and illnesses happen, and this may cause the anticipated lead photographer or videographer to fail to show up to your wedding; maybe an assignee gets Covid, or even worse, they get into a car accident on their way to your event. This would obviously be a very bad situation to happen, especially as your wedding is possibly an expensive one-time event. There would be nothing worse than if no one showed up. When you add a 2nd shooter to your package, you amplify your event's production and your peace-of-mind. For example, if something happens with your lead photographer whereas they can't make it, the 2nd shooter would step up and be ready to capture your event as the lead position, or maybe something happens with the videographer, and the versatility of the 2nd shooter's ability and equipment allows them to capture video. These are obviously not common scenarios, and would mean things didn't go exactly as planned, but nothing would be worse than getting no coverage at all in face of an emergency.

It's always smart to add a 2nd shooter to your wedding package.

All RAW images are estimated to be delivered within 30 days following the event date. All edited images are estimated to be delivered within 90 days following the event date.

All RAW video files are estimated to be delivered within 30 days following the event date. All edited video files, including both recap and full-length videos, are estimated to be delivered within 120 days following the event date. Fully edited video files with the customer's input are estimated to be delivered within 150 days based on a customer's timely input.

Albums can only be completed after all photos have been edited and delivered to customers; Customers will be required to pick out and submit their 50 favorite edited photos to Picture This Wedding. Albums are estimated to be delivered within 60 days after submitting the 50 edited photos by customer.

Your edited photos will be sent to you through your online gallery. Packages that only deliver RAW files will be delivered to you via a Drobox link (no account or subscription required). You may receive your RAW files prior to your edited files; please know that we will attempt to make delivery as each part of the project files become ready.

FINISHED PRODUCT DELIVERY TIMING. All time frames provided for delivery of project files, and/or other purchased products, are estimations only. Regardless, Picture This Wedding will work diligently to deliver project files, and other ordered products, to customers as expeditiously as possible. 

DISCLAIMER: The delivery times published here may differ from the longer delivery times in your 2020/2021 contract. Please know that we are constantly doing our best to optimize our systems and efficiency get your products to you as soon as possible. As we manage high volumes of quality production, delivery times may vary pending projects in the queue; some may get their files early, and some may get their files on time.

RAW image files contain minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. RAW files are named so because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor.

Straight out of the camera, a RAW image file hasn't had the processing done to it that a JPEG file has. Sometimes RAW files look blurry because they haven't been processed and edited yet; this is completely normal. Your finished edited photos and videos will be delivered to you in a high quality, will be super clear, and color corrected.

Believe it or not, most independent photographers will not give you your RAW files because of how they look when unedited. The other reason is because after culling and editing of photos is complete, the amount of edited photos delivered is much less than total photos captured at your event. 

So why does Picture This Wedding provide you your RAW files? First, we believe it's the fair thing to do, and we have nothing to hide. Second, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so there may be photos that you like in your RAW files that were not included in your edited deliverables, whereas you may request to have those photos added to be edited and delivered after initial delivery of edited project files. Third, maybe someday you want to have your pictures edited in a different editing style, so if you requested "light & airy" as part of your package, and years later you want to have them all edited as "dark & moody", you can provide those RAW files for re-editing if you so choose.

Our team tells everyone that the real magic happens in post production. To understand a little more about the processing of photo and video data files, please refer to the FAQ regarding RAW files.

Whenever you are viewing portfolios of photographer's work, you are always viewing their final edited product. At Picture This Wedding, we strictly control the entire editing process of your photos and video in order to deliver scalable high quality edited photo and video products to customers, no matter who their photographer or videographer was. (This is another reason independent photographers do not like providing customers their RAW files) 

For wedding photos, Picture This Wedding offers you to choose between two editing styles; light and airy, and dark and moody. For wedding videos, Picture This Wedding shoots and edits in a cinematic style.  To see portfolios of each, please reach out to team@picturethiswedding.com and our team will be happy to provide them to you.

With any of our packages that include photo editing, all culling and color/light correction are included in the price. For additional costs, we are also capable of some other common photo editing requests whereas you may request removal of skin defects, adjust skin tones, enhance textures, whiten teeth, remove wrinkles from clothing, remove or adjust stray or frizzy hair. Picture This Wedding is most proud of our ability to provide more complex photo editing such as  photo blending that involves exchanging backgrounds, and other advanced editing such as relocating people to different backgrounds, removing unwanted objects, creating or fixing makeup digitally, and almost anything else you can imagine. 

Simply put, this is a result of our thorough "culling" process. This is completely normal.

As discussed in our RAW files FAQ, we explained how a lot of those pictures come out. The photographer takes many photos at your event in attempt to capture the best shots they can. Sometimes guests blink their eyes, there are blurry photos, there are repeat or similar photos, or other undesirable details in a captured picture; before we begin editing your photos, our editing teams go through all of the files and edits the photos they believe are the better shots.

If you ever find RAW photos that weren't included in the edited photos, and you want them edited and included, just ask our team and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Although it is customary to provide gratuity to attendants and assignees of your event, you are not obligated to pay any gratuity. In the event that you do provide gratuity, assignees keep 100% of it.

Although our headquarters is located in the small beautiful town of Dover, NH, we have local professional wedding photographers all over the United States!