Finding a Wedding Photographer in St. Louis

Sigh…

He may not be shooting a wedding in St. Louis, but this dude is DEDICATED to his craft.

Lindsey and I have our venue picked for both the ceremony and the reception (details coming soon). We have chosen and met with our officiant. Our wedding party has been identified, but not yet conscripted. We’re getting pretty close here to having a real picture of our wedding. Lindsey, of course, still needs to find a dress and our color theme for the day is still undecided, but for the most part our wedding is taking shape. The only BIG thing that we need to do is find a photographer. Editor’s Note: Remember that I’m a dude. So for me, BIG things are venues and vendors. We all know that the real BIG thing is The Dress, which as I already alluded to is yet to be discovered.

Wedding photographers are a populous bunch here in St. Louis. A Google search for “wedding photographer st louis” will return about a half million results. This does not mean, of course, that there are 500,000 wedding photographers in St. Louis, but it sure feels like it! As with any profession that has so many practitioners in a single area, wedding photographers in St. Louis range from really good to really bad. I’ve found that there are some instantly identifiable traits of a “good” wedding photographer here in STL. If you’ve read any of my other blog posts, then you’ll know that I love my lists.

So…

Five Telltale Signs of a Good Wedding Photographer in St. Louis

1. A good wedding photographer in St. Louis is going to have a fairly fancy Web site. They’ll have an artsy look to them, lots of Flash, some obscure navigation elements, and a general look and fell that will remind you of a band Web site. Why? Because a good photographer is an artist, and artists like obtuse Web sites.
2. The “say hello” price for a St. Louis wedding photographer that is truly an artiste is about $2,500. You can find photographers cheaper, but everyone I’ve looked at that has that magic “something” is going to cost about $2,500 and it does nothing but go up from there. If you do know of an awesome wedding photographer here in St. Louis that is under two grand, please let me know.
3. I’m sorry, but I think it is totally lame to not include a DVD-R of the photos with print release rights in your base package. Making people pay extra for the print release rights to the pictures is, in my mind, bush league. Most of the good photographers I’ve seen in this town include this for free.
4. It seems, at least at this point in my search, that the truly good photographers do more than just weddings. If a photographer “just” does weddings, than they are probably going to use a lot of the same poses and shots with all their clients. I want my wedding to feel like its the only one that ever happened, and that illusion is shattered as soon as I see the same ten photos in each wedding in a portfolio.
5. A good photographer is also a good business person. Every photographer that I’ve found and considered “good” will email me back or call me within one day of my request. The crappy ones seem to be a little more lackadaisical with getting back to people. Coincidence? I think not.

So there you go, my little list of signs of a good wedding photographer here in St. Louis. I’m eventually going to put up a list of all the photographers that Lindsey and I have considered as well as some links to their sites. In the meantime, this post will have to do. If you have any other tips that you’d like to share, please do so! If you can recommend a good photographer, please leave their sites in the comments. If you are a photographer, then please let yourself be known!