Why Does It Take So Long To Get My Wedding Pictures?

One of the questions I’m asked most about the weddings around North Wales and Chester I shoot is, “When will I get the photographs?”

The thing is, there isn’t one specific answer. It depends on many factors, for instance, if your celebration takes place during the height of the season when I am out shooting back to back weddings, it can take up to 9 weeks to get your photographs. Couples often wonder why, so here’s my short guide to what happens to your photographs after the Big Day.

I shoot literally thousands of pictures of your wedding. That may sound excessive but remember, one photograph captures a tiny moment of the day.

Once I get back to the office I then have to download and view the pictures. I look at each frame in great detail and this can take hours. Imagine looking at 1000 pictures and you take 30 seconds to look at one image, that’s 8 hours of work alone! Once I’ve looked through all the pictures it can take another few days to decide which will make the final cut of around 600 photographs. This is often tricky as there are so many good shots.

Once I’ve chosen those 600, it’s now time to start editing them. Because I am so passionate about delivering each couple with stunning memories of their day, I don’t like to rush this process. I would never want to compromise on quality!

So, what does editing involve? And why does it take so long to do?

Editing photographs is a creative process that brings out the very best of the images taken. This can include things like:

• Cloning – removing exit signs or the odd wine glass that’s been left lying around. At one wedding I had a beautiful picture on the Menai Straits but had a tree coming out of the groom’s head! It was such a good shot I really wanted to use it, so I spent a few hours editing that one image. It was totally worth it.
• Dealing with colours – this is a bit difficult to explain but as an example, church colours can be quite yellow and difficult to work with as it can make everything washed out. It takes lots of time to reduce the yellow tones, so everyone looks a more natural colour.
• Cropping – I may decide after looking at certain shots that are quite wide and include lots of background that they might actually look better as a close-up. Getting the right composition is really important on any photograph.
• Black and white or colour? – should a photo be colour or black and white? It may seem like a simple decision, but believe me, it isn’t!
• Saving a gallery – once all the photographs are edited and I’m happy with them I put them into a digital gallery for you to see. Each photograph is a big file and so this process takes hours.
• Backing up images – I like to have 3 backups, one on my iMac, one on a hard drive and one on the cloud. This in itself can take a long time, a good 3-4 hours per back up.

I think we are so used to taking photos on our smartphone and instantly uploading them to our social media pages we expect that it will be the same with wedding pictures. Editing your wedding photographs is truly a labour of love – and you can’t hurry love!

Below, you can find some before and afters to see what I’m talking about.