On the eve of Thanksgiving, a holiday whose main goal is to be thankful for those in your life eat until you go into a turkey coma, I thought a good topic for this week’s bridal business would a little bit of education on feeding your photographer (and videographer!) during the wedding reception.Nearly all photographers address their meal in some form in their contract. Requirements vary from:
– Simply requiring a meal, vendor or otherwise.
– Requiring a meal that is the same as all guests.
– Others don’t make it mandatory, but will leave the premise to acquire their own meal if one isn’t provided.

And truth be told, I’ve never heard of a bride having a problem with any of these. It makes sense that we are working, on average, 9 hour days and need a quick meal to refuel.What isn’t normally in the contract, but is usually discussed when developing the timeline is the importance of when your photographer eats. It’s pretty simple, no one wants pictures of themselves eating, so what better time than after you and your head table are served. I cannot stress enough… this is not because we think we are special or more important than your guests.  It is just more efficient as we are assured to not miss any big events — dancing, toasts, etc. — our main focus and most important goal of the day. We sit nearby for maybe 15 minutes and are still ready to go at the drop of a hat.

And again, I’ve never heard of a bride having a problem with this. So why even write this? Because there is one person who consistently does have a problem with this…

The caterer!!

They have their own rules which typically are that guests are fed table by table and that the staff, including photographers and videographers, eat when everyone is done. This is because, as mentioned above, your guests are much more important than your vendors. That being said, in our case it just doesn’t make sense given the timeline of events. If I was only able to grab my meal after everyone else had eaten, there is a chance that the dance floor would open and I would miss out on capturing all those hilarious moves!! So I would forgo my meal to ensure coverage, which really doesn’t benefit anyone (hangry, much?).