This is the page for you if you’re wanting to know more info about how we work and to address any concerns or worries you may have about any aspect of your wedding photography!
“We love your photos and your photography style, but we’re worried that we won’t be able to be comfortable in front of the camera and that this will show and ruin our photos!”:
Fear not friends! We have bags of experience in directing photographs to get them to look just how we want. We’re psychologists as well as photographers don’t ya know 😉 Ok so maybe were not qualified psychologists or anything but we do know the tips and tricks to get you to look natural and at ease in your photos. We also like to think of ourselves as friendly and approachable folk and do our upmost to make you forget the cameras is even there! We have never failed in making even the most shy couples produce some fab images so far! Just check out some of our ‘reviews’ on our Love Letters page for confirmation of this! –
e.g. ‘Me and Ben just got back from honeymoon yesterday (back to reality now!) and just wanted to say a big thank you to you, Amanda and Bekka for being so lovely on our wedding day. You all really put myself and Ben at ease and made us feel comfortable (especially Ben who doesn’t really like having his picture taken!) you were so right that it felt so unobtrusive and you hardly noticed that you were having your picture taken! Thanks again xxx’ The lovely Ben & Katherine.“Our Wedding budget is being stretched to the limits, but we really want to book you! Help!!”:
If you do find yourself having any problems regarding budgeting we’d be happy to help come up with a kind of payment plan and some advice to ease the pressure. We know how super expensive weddings can be, and though we’re certainly not the cheapest option photography wise- & to be totally honest we don’t want to be aswe believe our work has a definite quality and uniqueness about it! We believe that the personal, professional and reliable service we offer is worth the investmentand is worth what we charge (and more!) as we inject so much personality (ours and yours, too!), passion, energy and commitment into our work 100% of the time 🙂 We can guarantee that we will produce images from your wedding day that you will love and cherish and that will last a lifetime!
Investing in a good, professional photographer whose work you feel passionate and excited about is probably the most important decision to make when organising your wedding. I mean, of course we’re going to say this right? But we truly believe what we’re saying in this case and strongly recommend doing the following when booking any wedding photographer, not just us:
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1. Arrange a meeting! It’s important for you to put a face to a name and to ensure that you feel compatible and comfortable around your potential photographer(s).
After all, you’ll be spending pretty much your whole day with them in most instances- Who knows, you might even make some new friends! Meeting with your
photographers (even if it’s just over Skype!) can really give an indication how they are with people and how they will work on the day, as well as allowing you to
discuss your ideas and details in person.
Here is a lovely email we received from a super nice couple just a few days after their wedding, & before they’d even received their images! : “Hi Tim and Bekka!
We just wanted to say a huge thank you from both of us!! We loved having you both at our wedding and you helped make everything run so smoothly!! So many
of our guests have mentioned you, and how you seemed to be everywhere you needed to be but they never spotted you til they were looking!!! And you really
seemed to bring out the best in our camera shy little ones. Tim – I think Emily was really quite taken with you!!!We both had lots of fun doing our ‘couple’ photos
too – which is never something I thought we’d say. Especially John!! Thank you both so, so much! We had a wonderful day and we’re so glad we asked you to record
it for us. I don’t even need to see the photos to know they will
be wonderful!! Many thanks, Gen & John Adams xx”
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2. Check that the images you’re seeing on the photographers website are from REAL weddings and are not all set-up, planned shoots.
Obviously it’s totally cool for there to be some images in a photographer’s portfolio of planned shoots as this allows the photographer to really show off their skills and creativity with no restrictions. However, you also need to make sure they can come up with the goods on the day! Look our for blogs like ours which you can find here. All of the weddings you see here are the genuine real life weddings of couples just like yourselves. A lot of these couples you wouldn’t believe were really apprehensive about having their photo taking, claiming their afraid that they’re un-photogenic. As you can see, we’ve proved them all wrong!
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3. Save, save, save…. Invest, invest, invest!
Yes we want you to book us, and yes we’re not ‘cheap’. However, as we’ve already delved into, your photography is so so important and we believe that we can give you the best images. In fact, we are so confident that we can provide you with amazing images that we offer a 100% Money back guarantee! Meaning that, if when you get your photos back from us, if you hate them and they are not as we’ve promised you, you will get your money back!
We live and breathe photography rather than it being a ‘hobby’ or ‘something we just do for money’. It’s not just our job, it’s literally our life! We run a busy photography studio & gallery where we literally live (our house is right above it), where we are constantly shooting, experimenting with creative ideas and new equipment on the market and also where we hold many arts events in the village of Uppermill. As you can see, it’s our way of life.
After the dances have been danced and the food has been eaten, your photographs are the most important part of your wedding day and are what you have left to remember you day by- a day which you have spent to much time (& money!) planning to make it perfect.
Some great ways of saving money for your wedding photography include asking guests for donations or photography vouchers towards your wedding photography instead of other gifts, cutting down on other costs that you feel you can be a little more flexible with and even as simple as putting money aside each month up until your wedding day dedicated to your photography. As previously mentioned, we do payment plans for couples sometimes which often helps stretch out the balance.
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4. Make sure that the photographer(s) you book are fully trained/qualified and are using really high quality equipment, especially if you are investing a decent amount of dosh on them!
At Tim Simpson Photography, we make a conscious effort to make sure we keep ourselves up to date and or constantly attending training days and keeping our finger on the pulse in the photograph world to ensure we have the absolute 
best equipment on the market- the equipment that allows us to be so creative and produce the kinds of images you see on our website and in our portfolio. We also have lots of back-up equipment, and your wedding images get backed up 3 times with us in 3 different places (one being in something called ‘the cloud’ which is an untouchable virtual storage space in the sky for files!). So make sure that you’re images are going to be looked after so you have peace of mind!
best equipment on the market- the equipment that allows us to be so creative and produce the kinds of images you see on our website and in our portfolio. We also have lots of back-up equipment, and your wedding images get backed up 3 times with us in 3 different places (one being in something called ‘the cloud’ which is an untouchable virtual storage space in the sky for files!). So make sure that you’re images are going to be looked after so you have peace of mind!.
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“Do You do Group Shots?”:
The words ‘Group Shots’ do kind of give us the shivers a little bit! We generally steer clear of them as we like to get as many natural reportage shots as possible, we normally advise brides and grooms to go up to and ‘have a chat’ with the people they’d like to be photographed with so we can capture these moments of laughter and conversation. This normally happens when we’re floating about capturing natural guests shots (often at drinks receptions etc).
However, of course we are totally willing to do some group shots if you really want them!
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If this is the case and you have your heart set on them then we would love to offer the following guidelines and tips to make sure we make best use of the time we have with you and that the group shots don’t take up too much of the time we get to photograph you both creatively as a couple- we do our signature creative couples’ portraits which are always super cute and are normally people’s favourite photos! You can check out a recent wedding with examples of these couples’ portraits here on our blog if you like.
So yes, our advice would be;
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– If possible, try and whittle the group shots down as much as you can to immediate family and bridal party/groomsmen to avoid taking up too much time on your day- it really does go by in a flash! So time spent doing these shots is often time that can be spent getting some really cool and creative shots instead.
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It’s worth baring in mind that there will be lots of other photographers there on your day who will be photographing groups (your guests!).
We’ve noticed that guests love to do this as a lot of them bring their cameras, iPads, iPhones etc, and we’re sure they will get plenty of groups shots. Maybe you could ask everyone to send you any photographs via email/facebook or if they use social media such as Instagram they could hashtag #mrandmrs[insert married name] or something similar so you can easily access and view their images 🙂
.– Around 6 groups would take us about 15-30 minutes to do, so we often recommend that we get allocated enough time to capture the group shots you’d like but so it doesn’t eat into our time with you guys to get the creative stuff. We normally ask for around half an hour of your time with just you 2 on your own to get the couples’ shots. Most couples really love this part of the day as they can ‘get away from it all’ for just a short while as it can be a really busy day with
lots of people wanting your attention, and sometimes you need just a little quiet time together with a drink or two to step back and take it all in!
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– If there could be a list handed to someone in the bridal party or one of the groomsmen of the people required for group shots that would be awesome. This helps to make sure they we get through group shots as efficiently as possible. The person with the list could maybe be put in charge of gathering all these people together at the same time and at the allocated group shot time so we can pop round the corner somewhere to do the shots- generally, if group shots are done in front of the rest of the guests they can feel a little left out and understandably want to join in. This can double the time it takes to get group shots!
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“How many images do we get and when??”:
You will receive around 500 images from your day (often more!) which we will provide on one of our lovely bespoke wooden USBs in super cute engraved wooden box! On this USB will be your ‘digital negatives’- your images untreated with just a little tickle on Photoshop to regulate the colour balances etc, in full resolution with full printing rights- therefore in effect they are yours (of course!). The photographer does always retain full copyright by law, meaning if anyone else aside from them and yourselves uses the images for commercial reasons….. well we’d just like to know!
You will also receive versions of your images with an uber cool filmic style black & white treatment and third version of your images treated with our signature boho/dreamy romantic photo shop overlay on top! You can expect all your photos 6-8 weeks after your wedding day.
We normally first of all do a blog post on our website of our favourite images (often edited) from your day, which acts as like a ‘sneak peek’. You can expect this around 2 weeks after your wedding. We will email you before posting this to make sure you’re the first to see! These edited blog post images also get included on your final USB.
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“Do you travel further than the Manchester area?”:
Yes, yes and yes! We LOVE to travel 🙂 We will travel up North, Down South, around the world and to the moon if needs be! Just contact us for our requirements when travelling long distances.
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“How long will you stay for on our wedding day?”
We usually stay up to a maximum of 10 hours on the day (an hourly rate applies thereafter) but to be honest this is plenty of time for us to capture all that you need to tell the full story of your wonderful day. We normally arrive about and hour-ish before you get into the dress where we will spend a little time scouting round the venue for locations and familiarising ourselves with the surroundings (even if we know your particular venue back to front it’s always good for us to discover new spots for photos!). We will arrive to photography bridal preparations wherever it may be that this is taking place around 30 minutes before the bride gets into the dress. We also like to steal you for a minimum of 30 minutes for some of our signature semi-styled couples portraits at some point during the day (usually at the drinks reception after the ceremony).
If you’d like some ‘First Look’ photos then this will need to be planned for (hang on don’t freak out if you’re not sure what this is…. we’ll explain below 🙂 ).
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“Right, come on then tell us about this ‘First Look’ business”:
A ‘First Look’ meeting/ shoot is what it says on the tin- the first time you see each other on your wedding day!
Of course traditionally this happens at the ceremony when the music kicks in and groom is waiting at the end of the aisle for bride. However, we like to push the boundaries here and suggest that you actually meet up with each other for 10
minutes or so after the preparations when you’re both ready and just before the ceremony!… Bare with us there is some method behind this madness- This often relieves a lot of the high and intense emotion that can occur when you have the pressure of all your guests, family and friends around you when bride walks down the aisle, and this moment can be planned just how and where you want it to happen! This is a very popular phenomenon in wedding photography that kicked off first in America and has now made its way over here…. and we love it! Get in touch for info on this kind of shoot as there are different options and different ways of making this happen!
minutes or so after the preparations when you’re both ready and just before the ceremony!… Bare with us there is some method behind this madness- This often relieves a lot of the high and intense emotion that can occur when you have the pressure of all your guests, family and friends around you when bride walks down the aisle, and this moment can be planned just how and where you want it to happen! This is a very popular phenomenon in wedding photography that kicked off first in America and has now made its way over here…. and we love it! Get in touch for info on this kind of shoot as there are different options and different ways of making this happen!We know it may be a little scary braking that tradition, but it allows you to have a little quiet time together to compose yourselves and share a lovely romantic moment and mentally prepare for the day ahead, and often it helps you to be able to take a step back and take in the amazing thing that’s literally just about to happen to you! The day will go by so, so fast so this can help slow things down a little for you. & Yes, we’ll be there to photograph this gorgeous moment!
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“In this modern digital age, do you still offer albums?”:
WE DO INDEED! We love albums. This is one tradition we love to stick to as it is a physical thing of beauty for you to show off to your friends, family, kids, grandkids and for them to pass down to future generations! You digital files are pretty much guaranteed to last for your life time…. but there’s no 10,000,000% guarantee that they will still exist 5 generations dow the line for example. Think of Betamax & VHS videos, will digital go down the same route?? Scary thought isn’t it?! But that’s the modern digital world for you! However, you can’t just accidentally ‘delete’ a physical album can you?!
We offer 2 kind of beautiful album, both oozing quality and creative flair…. definite works of art in their own right! Contact us for our price list and the list of options regarding albums.
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“That’s all fab…. So how do I book you?!”:
First things first, drop us an email through our submissions form under the ‘contact us’ tab on our website so we can see if we’re available for your date! Here you’ll be asked for some simple details about your weddings day (date, location, etc). From there we ask for a £400 Booking fee to save the date (which comes off your final balance & is non-refundable), once this has been processed then we’re ready to take you on a photographic journey of a lifetime….. let the fun begin! 🙂
