Friend as photographer

FutureMrs.U

Sorry, but this involves a bit of backstory...

My FI and I are just starting to plan. We want a really small wedding, around 40 guests. Mostly family with just a couple of out closest friends from college. I had a group of really close girlfriends growing up. We have since grown apart, but are all still Facebook friends and see each other if we happen to be in our hometown at the same time. One of these girls owns a wedding photography business local to where we are having the wedding. She posts a fair amount of her work on Facebook and they are beautiful photos and I genuinely love her work. She is the sort of person I would want to hire to shoot my wedding even if I didn't know her. Im trying to decide if it's a good idea to try and hire her or not. For me, since I know her, I might be more comfortable having her take my pictures and part of me thinks she might be pleased that I asked. The other side of this, is that I'm not planning on inviting any of the other girls from that group to the wedding. No ad blood or anything, it's just going to be too small to include them on the guest list. Is it too rude to include one of the girls, even though it's in a professional capacity, and not the others? Or should I just look into hiring someone else entirely?

Maggie0829

Well you aren't really including this girl as a guest because you are going to be hiring her as a vendor.  As long as you keep your relationship with her (in regards to  your wedding) professional I don't see how the others would be miffed at being left out.

bethsmiles

You aren't inviting her. You are hiring her as a professional. Since she wouldn't be a guests I don't see why the others would be upset at also not being guests.

MandyMost

We used a friend-of-the-family who had a fairly new wedding photography business. We didn't invite her siblings, or other people in her "circle", and it all seemed to be fine. She wasn't invited to the wedding, she was the photographer! 

Like you, I felt more comfortable having my photo taken by someone I knew, and also didn't have to worry about her never giving me the pictures or anything like that since I trust her. She gave us a good rate, but it was still a professional photographer rate, and we had a contract and all that. But, for example, she wanted to see the venue before the day, so the day she came to look at it we also hung out together for a little while that I wouldn't have done with a regular photographer!

holyguacamole79

Knottie1451331172 said:

Sorry, but this involves a bit of backstory...

My FI and I are just starting to plan. We want a really small wedding, around 40 guests. Mostly family with just a couple of out closest friends from college. I had a group of really close girlfriends growing up. We have since grown apart, but are all still Facebook friends and see each other if we happen to be in our hometown at the same time. One of these girls owns a wedding photography business local to where we are having the wedding. She posts a fair amount of her work on Facebook and they are beautiful photos and I genuinely love her work. She is the sort of person I would want to hire to shoot my wedding even if I didn't know her. Im trying to decide if it's a good idea to try and hire her or not. For me, since I know her, I might be more comfortable having her take my pictures and part of me thinks she might be pleased that I asked. The other side of this, is that I'm not planning on inviting any of the other girls from that group to the wedding. No ad blood or anything, it's just going to be too small to include them on the guest list. Is it too rude to include one of the girls, even though it's in a professional capacity, and not the others? Or should I just look into hiring someone else entirely?

If you're happy with her work and the price is right, then go ahead and hire her.

Fwiw, we hired a friend from church to be or photographer. We weren't able to invite all church friends to the wedding ... nobody said anything.

OliveOilsMom

MandyMost said:

We used a friend-of-the-family who had a fairly new wedding photography business. We didn't invite her siblings, or other people in her "circle", and it all seemed to be fine. She wasn't invited to the wedding, she was the photographer! 

Like you, I felt more comfortable having my photo taken by someone I knew, and also didn't have to worry about her never giving me the pictures or anything like that since I trust her. She gave us a good rate, but it was still a professional photographer rate, and we had a contract and all that. But, for example, she wanted to see the venue before the day, so the day she came to look at it we also hung out together for a little while that I wouldn't have done with a regular photographer!

It worked out for you, and this is more for the lurkers, but don't always assume the bolded.  A poster on this board hired her photographer friend to be the photographer for her very small wedding.  It turns out there were problems with her equipment and there were virtually no pictures to give the poster.  The photographer in question also kept putting off the poster because she didn't want to tell her that she had almost no pictures of the wedding.  It damaged their friendship, more due to the delay in telling the poster the truth, than anything else.

SP29

You are hiring her as a vendor, so there is nothing for anyone else to be offended about.

If you would hire her even if you didn't know her, go for it! 

thefanciestbeckler

I agree with PPs - go for it!

photokitty

As PPs have stated, she would be a vendor and not a guest. That said, I highly recommend against hiring a friend. If anything goes wrong, hopefully it won't, it can destroy your relationship. There have been many horror stories of this type on here, also many successes, but I always recommend not hiring a photog friend to be safe.

MandyMost

OliveOilsMom said:

MandyMost said:

We used a friend-of-the-family who had a fairly new wedding photography business. We didn't invite her siblings, or other people in her "circle", and it all seemed to be fine. She wasn't invited to the wedding, she was the photographer! 

Like you, I felt more comfortable having my photo taken by someone I knew, and also didn't have to worry about her never giving me the pictures or anything like that since I trust her. She gave us a good rate, but it was still a professional photographer rate, and we had a contract and all that. But, for example, she wanted to see the venue before the day, so the day she came to look at it we also hung out together for a little while that I wouldn't have done with a regular photographer!

It worked out for you, and this is more for the lurkers, but don't always assume the bolded.  A poster on this board hired her photographer friend to be the photographer for her very small wedding.  It turns out there were problems with her equipment and there were virtually no pictures to give the poster.  The photographer in question also kept putting off the poster because she didn't want to tell her that she had almost no pictures of the wedding.  It damaged their friendship, more due to the delay in telling the poster the truth, than anything else.

Good point, that would suck no matter who the photographer was. 

I know a friend who's photographer took plenty of photos, but then "went out of business" or something and the couple never got their wedding photos. They were asking all of their friends and family to send along snap shots so they would have some sort of wedding album. The situation was terrible, and they had lawyers involved and everything. This is what I knew wouldn't happen with the photographer I hired!

Knottie1432584397

As long as you like her company as a business separate from your friendship I would go ahead and hire her. She will be happy for the business I'm sure and as a professional there it's not the same as being invited so you shouldn't worry about including the rest of that circle. She's there to work not play.