Over the last couple of weeks, I have detailed what happens behind-the-scenes before your wedding day, the day of your wedding day and today I will discuss what happens behind-the-scenes after your wedding day. A professional wedding photographer puts so much work into being successful on your special day. There’s literally one chance to get it right and it’s not just a matter of showing up and pressing a button. It’s not nearly that simple. I wish it were. I really wish it were. If I could tackle weddings with that frame of mind, I could shoot two or three of these every week. But I can’t. I try to shoot no more than two weddings per month, because the demands are so incredibly high. 

[Tweet “Behind-the-Scenes of my Wedding Day Services”]

Behind-the-Scenes of my Wedding Day Services

The Day After:

1. Download all Images: Even though my camera bodies shoot to two memory cards simultaneously and that allows me to make an instant backup of all my images on site, I download the images to my external hard drives the day after the wedding—sometimes the night of, but it all depends what time I get home. Within hours, the first external hard drive is backed up to a second external hard drive. Until the camera’s memory cards are formatted (usually the next wedding or session), I have four copies of your images should anything go wrong or need to be recovered.
2. Take a Peek: I am usually so excited to have completed someone’s big day, I take a big ol’ peek at all their images! I scroll through all the images from beginning to end to see how my team and I performed!
3. Start Preparing a Sneak Peek: Within 48 hours of the wedding, I get a Facebook peek prepared. This will consist of anywhere from 40-80 post-processed images that strike me as share-worthy. I’ll tag the wedding couple and as many of the guests as I am friends with in the post. I usually save some of the best images for the big reveal and don’t include them in their Facebook peek.

Over the Next Few Weeks:

1. Cull the Images: Culling is the process of going through each and every image and determining if it’s a keeper or not. Are people’s eyes open? Is it in focus? What is a misfire from my camera? Is someone doing something really weird or awful in the background? It the image impactful and does it contain a lot of emotion? This can be a tedious task to perform, but it’s a necessary one. If I didn’t do my job and curate the images properly, you would be overwhelmed when you looked at them. Believe me, when I say you don’t want every image I take, you don’t!
2. Post-Processing: This is where the images which were kept are then corrected for color, highlights and shadows are enhanced, they are straightened and cropped, and lens corrections will be applied. They will be complemented with vibrancy, contrast, tone and other color enhancements. Portrait images are also taken into Photoshop® to have skin corrections made, certain elements sharpened, cloned, and/or filters applied.  
3. Image Delivery: I used to guarantee wedding images delivered within 21 days of the event, but have recently started writing a ten-day turnaround into my contracts. When I do deliver them, I deliver them through the cloud where the images will be stored for ten years!! That way, my clients will have access to them no matter what happens… if I go out of business, if their computer crashes, if they lose the thumb drive they store them on, if technology changes!! The best part is that if they choose, they can instantly share the images with any family or friends in any part of the world and they can instantly download and print the images. I convey a personal, infinite limited print release when clients purchase the digital negatives!!
4. Slide Show & Blog Post: Each wedding I cover gets a blog post and a slideshow of images!! My couples enjoy sharing these with family and friends who weren’t able to attend the wedding in person.
5. Share Images with Other Vendors: When I can, I try to share any images of the other vendors’ work with them. They like to have professional images to help promote themselves and I like to share!

A Year later:

1. Anniversary Card: A lot of photographers choose to blast a “happy anniversary” post on Facebook. I don’t do that. I prefer to send my couples a private note through the mail. Who doesn’t love receiving mail? 

There are also lots of other things I do that I won’t detail in these blog posts! I am constantly trying to stand out among the 100’s of wedding photographers you have to choose from. I’m always looking for ways to be different and to provide a unique, boutique-style experience. I think I do a good job! But to find out what it is to work with me, you have to first have a consultation with me and then you have to hire me!

The post, Behind-the-Scenes of my Wedding Day Services (Part 3), first appeared on Ata-Girl Photography Co.’s website and blog. Please feel free to comment here, or share this post with your friends via Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Please email me if you have any questions about this article or want to share a neat idea for a future blog post with me.