Photo Finish

There are hundreds of important decisions to be made when planning your wedding - the dresses, the cake, the function hall, the flowers. But surely one of the most important decisions you'll ever make, besides who you're going to marry, is who you will have as your wedding photographer.

Consider this, your wedding photos are the one concrete memento that you will be taking away from your wedding. Photos can bring you happy memories for years to come - unless you've chosen a photographer who does not meet your needs or who is not qualified, and then you are bound to be disappointed with your wedding album.

The best way to find a wedding photographer is to not only ask trusted friends who they used, but to ask everyone involved in your wedding from your caterer and function hall director to your florist and dress designer.

Once you've narrowed it down to a few choices, keep in mind these questions: How much will the whole process cost you? What is the photographer's style and how does it complement what you want your wedding pictures to look like? And what is the quality of the photographer's work?

Expert photographers, brides and grooms all agree that you and your wedding photographer should really like each other. Cheryl Richards, a photographer who works out of Worcester and Boston who has photographed hundreds of weddings over the past 10 years, says she cannot stress enough the importance of a photographer's personality to your wedding: "You should look for someone you feel comfortable with and who will be part of your day. Someone who will blend in, be unobtrusive and who will capture what's going on instead of making it happen."

Arthur Rainville, a Whitinsville wedding photographer for 32 years, believes so strongly in the need for compatibility of bride, groom and photographer that he holds an interview with his prospective clients in advance of either side making any decisions.

As far as the cost, prices can range from $900 to $7,500 and up depending on what is included in the package or whether there is a package at all. For example, Rainville doesn't work within a package but, rather, custom designs the coverage for each wedding, working on an hourly rate with a minimum purchase required. Richards, on the other hand, works within an elaborate package, featuring such items as an album handmade by a local bookbinder and two family albums.

There are several styles of photographs to consider before choosing your photographer. You might decide to choose a soft and emotional type of photograph like the ones that Arthur Rainville produces. He describes his work as "photojournalistic," meaning his photos are not posed and static but "a real record of the events and emotions of the day." His mostly color, "painterly" soft, lyrical and misty photos are suited for someone who is looking for artful wedding photos. For those who are looking for a more modern artistic photo album, Cheryl Richards, who specializes in fine art black-and-white prints, fits the bill. She describes her style as "timeless and artistic" and looks for special moments at the wedding that the bride and groom might have missed and are happy to have captured in their album.

For a more traditional photo album, you might want to go with someone like Karen McCall of Portraits by McCall in Natick, who has taken wedding photos for the past 10 years. McCall describes her style as "candid or posed candid," meaning she spends one hour doing standard posed shots and then moves around the wedding, taking photos that she either helps pose by offering her subjects suggestions on how to look more natural or finds perfectly posed already.

As far as judging the quality of a photographer's work, Richards suggests you meet with at least five photographers before you decide on whom to use. That way you will have a basis on which to judge what you are looking at. Ultimately, all the experts agree that when you look at a photographer's work you should feel something within yourself, for if a photographer can stir your emotions with photos of a stranger's wedding, just imagine what that photographer can do for your own.