Wedding Photography Styles
How Your Wedding Photographers Style Effects Planning your Wedding Day
Wedding photographers come in a variety of styles, temperaments, and shooting ability. Understanding the type of photographer you are looking for or have, as well as what that means towards planning your overall day will make your wedding day go as smoothly as possible. First we’ll cover the various styles of photographers.
Traditional (portrait or formal)
These photographers will capture your day in a very formal sense, they will pose you and your family throughout the day, before or after the ceremony and group your family and friends at the reception together for planned formal shots. They may take some action shots of the reception happening but this is generally not the focus. The focus is on capturing the likeness of the guests.
Traditional photographers are generally more time intensive because of the types of photos that they are capturing. These photos can be great for large families with many relatives. Weddings are one of the few times where the entire family comes together for your wedding day. In planning budget extra time for each of the shots, this style generally will mean less time with family and friends at the reception.
Your best bet is to hire these photographers to cover the ceremony, through the beginning of dancing. As dancing starts the shots generally don’t come out as well.
Hybrid
Photographers in this category are a hybrid between to traditional/formal photo style and a photojournalistic style. They will pose many of the photos generally earlier in the night. When working with them they will put guests in the places that they believe will make the best photo, they will often guide guests into posed shots. They will also take on a mixed photojournalistic style photographer role where they will capture the event as it happens. 
Many photographers fit into this category. We’ve found with our couples this is often a popular style of photography they hire for their wedding day. Generally these photographers adapt their style to the schedule so it can be great to have this style when on a tight schedule, or you know what posed shots you want as well as having a more artistic style of photography as well.
Photojournalistic
By far these photographers are the most popular style right now. Yourphotojournalistic style photographer will capture the event as it happens without interruption. You may work out a few shots of family but the majority ofthe photos and the best work of these photographers is capturing the day as it happens. They work to tell you story through their pictures, often at the end creating an artistic representation through photos of your day.
The best photographers in this style will want to get to know you and your fiancée, learn about your story, and then work to represent that through their photography. This style really lends itself to having a more stress free wedding day. Your photographer will often have more than one person with them shooting to capture two different perspectives and the combination will truly represent your day.
When planning time wise for this style of photography, you can place more of an emphasis on the events of the day and the reception as opposed to holding up events for posed or staged photos. 
- Black and White
- Sepia
- Hand tinted
- Color
- Special Shots or Detail Shots
Bottom Line
Ultimately you need to comfortable with your photographer, you should meet with them ahead of time and get to know them. This will absolutely make the biggest impact on your photos for the day because you will feel comfortable. Many people have never been photographed for an entire day before, knowing the look that you want, planning ahead for the styles of shots that you like and then trusting your photographer will deliver the stunning photographs and capture the day as you will always remember it and share with your family for years to come.
Photography Resources
Our recommended photographers in the DC area.
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