STEP 1. INFORMAL CHAT ABOUT WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
After you guys have dropped me a text, email, WhatsApp message and you have let Let me know a little bit about you, the wedding day and the date, I will respond as soon as I can and will send you a link to my Wedding Chat calendar where you can pick a date that works for you.
The chat can be done over Zoom or phone and is just a great way for us to have a chat about the day and what plans you have; I can cover what happens from a photographic point of view and cover any questions you have.
STEP 2. THE BOOKING AND MONEY
Some couples miss out step one and go straight to the booking; seeing the website, seeing my socials and my videos are enough to say ‘Yep – he’s the one for us’.
To get the booking confirmed, I will drop you a link to a secure booking form and once completed; I will send you over a wedding contract. The wedding contract can be digitally signed, after which you will be taken to a payments page where I ask for a £300 booking fee to secure the date for UK weddings and £500 booking fee for destination weddings (final balance due six weeks before the wedding).
Only once the contract is signed, the booking fee paid is the date confirmed and not marketed to other couples.
STEP 3. PRE WEDDING CATCHUP
Around about 6-8 weeks before the wedding, I will get in touch to get a date in the diary for a quick chat to go over the final details of the wedding day, the timings, the locations, and cover the small list of formals (if needed).
Only after this catch-up do I ask for the final balance to be paid for the wedding photography coverage.
STEP 4. THE WEDDING DAY
Enjoy the day as much as you can; it will go quickly! But, I will be there, capturing all the things happening on your wedding day in a relaxed and simple way.
It’s important to me that you buy into the way I work. I’m not going to come into your wedding day and boss people around, I’m not going to make people do things to create a picture, and I’m certainly not going to touch the wedding dress (I have nightmares about moving the wedding dress and it falling apart in my hands!)
I’m there on a wedding day to capture the day you planned and not a day interrupted or ruined by a bossy photographer; I capture your wedding from the viewpoint of a guest, so you get to feel what it was like at that moment in time when I took the picture, I specialise in relaxed wedding photography, and that’s how I will photograph your wedding!
STEP 5. DELIVERING THE WEDDING PICTURES
I deliver all my wedding images via a secure online gallery system, which allows you to download, share, print, create your own favourites list and even create your own wedding album.
I deliver the wedding images within four weeks, I don’t put an upper limit, or lower limit on the number of images I deliver from a wedding as every wedding is different. All my images are full resolution and are not watermarked in any way.
To see more about the galleries and the features of the gallery, head over to this recent blog post – SaywellHQ Online Wedding Photography Galleries.
For all my full day coverage weddings, the images are delivered in colour and Black & white.
All the images are split into smaller galleries, helping you to navigate to a specific part of the wedding day.
For example – morning, pre-ceremony, post-ceremony, ceremony, B&W; as shown below.
As standard, I create a ‘SaywellHQ Picks’ gallery which contains the images which I think tell the story of your day.
The ‘SaywellHQ Picks’ gallery will be a mixture of colour and black & white images.
All my full day wedding packages have a wedding slideshow included, this slideshow sits at the very top of the wedding gallery.
If you have upgraded the slideshow to a full photofilm that mixes the sounds from the ceremony, speeches along with the images from the day, all set to music; this will be placed at the top of the gallery instead of the wedding slideshow.
To see examples of the Wedding Photofilm, please click HERE
Your online wedding gallery which allows you to download, favourite, share, print and view all your wedding images stays up for 12 months.
After 12 months you have the option to extend the gallery for another 12 months giving you peace of mind that you have a secure copy of your wedding photos.
As part of the 12-month extension, an ‘offline’ back-up of your wedding images will also be kept at either the SaywellHQ studio (and) or a cloud-based provider.
You will receive an email reminding you about the expiry of your wedding gallery around 11 months after the wedding and a further email 12 months after the delivery of your wedding images.
To purchase the gallery extension, head over to the online store accessed via your online gallery and search for ‘Gallery Back-up’. If you decide against the gallery extension for a further 12 months, please make sure you have plenty of copies of your wedding images just in case!
I love putting together a wedding book for my couples; it’s fantastic to see the wedding images printed and told as a story.
I like my couples to pick the images that they want to be included in their book (where possible), this is easy and is done by creating a favourites list in the secure VIP secure wedding gallery and sharing that selection with me.
But, I do have a lot of couples that prefer me to make the photo selections as they struggle to pick their favourites, I tend to find this is the best way for busy couples – let me select the images, design the book and you guys can make any revisions after I have done the first draft.
If my couples are making the photo selection, I always suggest being very strict with the choices, be harsh, be quick and decisive as this will help to keep the number of images to a workable amount. Once the selection is shared with me, I start the process of putting together the story by layout out the photos using my SaywellHQ book designer. I do sometimes have to add in additional images which help the story flow; it might be a simple image that pulls two parts of the wedding story together, and I always let people know which images I have added in and why.
I like working with what I call ‘Islands of colour’ or ‘islands of black & white’ and what that means; I do not like a page or a spread of pages where it is a mixture of colour and black & white on the same page or across the pages. I typically move between colour and black & white images only when moving to a different part of the wedding story.
When the wedding book design is complete, the first draft of the wedding book is emailed over and is viewable as a 3D model wedding book. Any change requests are done on the 3D model wedding book. The change requests are shared with me; I will make the changes and issue a new 3D wedding book copy for final approval which is done within the 3D book viewer.
Following the approval of the wedding book, I will send through colour examples of the box, spine and ribbon. Once this final step is approved the remaining balance on the wedding book is due and once paid, the wedding book will then be submitted for print and binding – exciting!!
Depending on the time of year, wedding book deliveries can range between a few weeks to a few months; with the summer months particularly busy for my wedding book print company in Italy.
I like to keep things simple and clear, the wedding book you see below in A4-ish size (30x20cm) with around 80-100 wedding photos selected by me and with the wedding book designed by me – is £375 all in; £150 is due before the wedding and must be paid before the wedding.
The remaining balance is due once you guys have signed off the design, around 3-4 weeks after the delivery of wedding images.
Optional parent and gift books are available to order at the same time as the main wedding book. These are exact copies of the main book and come as a hardback book and is available in two sizes – I can show you these when we meet up before the wedding.
These make great gifts for parents, grandparents who will love looking through your wedding photos. Prices for the smaller book (20x15cm) are £200 for a pair or £150 per book for the larger one, which is the same size as the main book (30x20cm).
If you have any questions regarding the wedding book, the process, the costs or anything relating to wedding albums – please get in touch!
Andy
SaywellHQ Print BoxesReally excited that I can now offer these awesome USB and Print Boxes to all my wedding couples, it has taken me some time to find the right type of wooden USB boxes, some I have found were just not good enough and felt very cheap, some were made from different types of wood, but thankfully I can now offer these two different styles of wooden print USB boxes.
Currently, I deliver all my wedding files via my SaywellHQ secure online gallery system, which is excellent for some of my wedding couples, but I get a lot of requests for something physical which contains all the wedding images and some prints.
The two different styles of USB and print box contains all the wedding images safely stored on a USB (either wood or glass) and space to have up to 100 printed images ready to be shown off to family and friends. Below are two galleries, one showing the SaywellHQ Keepsake Box and one showing the SaywellHQ Slide Box.
The SaywellHQ Keepsake Box is a handmade hinged box, with its lid held in place by a tiny magnet, the USB is made of the same matching coloured wood.
The SaywellHQ Slide Box is a handmade slide lid box made from Alderwood with a choice of USB styles, matching wood, or the fancy glass bottle design.
So all you have to do now is pick your favourite style of box and the prints!
The price for the SaywellHQ Slide Box including 30 6*4 prints of your choice is £150.
Light Oak Colour With Matching Wood USB
Dark Oak Colour With Matching Wood USB
Walnut Colour With Matching Wood USB
Ebony Colour With Matching Wood USB
Natural Colour With USB Glass Bottle
Light Oak Colour With USB Glass Bottle
Dark Oak Colour With USB Glass Bottle
Walnut Colour With USB Glass Bottle
Ebony Colour With USB Glass Bottle
The price for the SaywellHQ Keepsake Box including 30 6*4 prints of your choice is £150.
Natural Colour With Matching Wood USB
Light Oak Colour With Matching Wood USB
Dark Oak Colour With Matching Wood USB
Walnut Colour With Matching Wood USB
Ebony Colour With Matching Wood USB
A few of you guys have spotted that you can now purchase prints directly from your saywellhq secure online wedding gallery.
I would suggest you create a favourites list within your wedding gallery, this allows you to shortlist the pictures you would like to print.
All you need to do is click on the heart item within your login; it will ask you for your email and a name for your favourite pictures.
Simply browse your pictures and add any pictures you would like to print to your favourites.
To order prints any of the pictures – click on the buy button as shown in the picture (love this Sofie picture!). You will then be asked what size you would like to print and the cost.
I have for the time being limited the number of sizes, I have added print sizes for the most common sizes (6×4, 5×7 A4 and A3). You also have the option of glossy or non glossy (matte) finishes.
I will be adding more items over the course of the next month, these include A4 boxed frame prints, A4 and A3 foam-backed prints and A2 prints.
I’m also offering 20% off any prints purchased in February and March 2017 – if you would like a code – drop me a quick email and I will generate a code for you.
Andy
07764 200556
Andy Saywell Nottingham wedding photographer who specialises in candid, natural, relaxed and unposed documentary wedding photography