Do I need to feed my wedding photographer?

Wedding photography is actually quite a hard manual job and a long day on our feet, especially if we are fighting bad weather and rushing about trying manage over 100 day guests,  I quite often can burn a 1,000 calories in a normal 10 hour wedding day on my feet and quite often have done 20,000 steps too!! So like any job, a good meal, and pints of water are a must during a long wedding day.

Let's though take a look at why wedding photographers ask for a meal to be provided.

Your wedding photographer will usually want to sit alone during the wedding breakfast and not with the wedding guests, usually this is in a different part of the wedding venue. Your wedding photographer will usually eat when you eat during this time, but it's also an ideal opportunity for your wedding photographer to back up their photos at this point. This can mean laptops are open and portable hard drives are buzzing away while they review their photos so far on the wedding day and also do a much needed backup of the images so far and generally have a break from shooting!

Providing a wedding photographer with a meal is a polite gesture given that they are usually working  10 to 12 hrs straight at your wedding. It means your photographer doesn't need to go in search of a meal elsewhere away from the venue which can be tricky for certain venues that are far away from any towns or shops. Quite often a wedding venue will without charge provide a meal to your photographer without questions as a standard part of their policy, but sometimes too caterers will only cater for the total guest numbers at the wedding, so it can be impossible at some weddings for the photographer to even order or pay for a bar meal themselves!  This therefore is why a lot of photographers have it written into their wedding contracts that a hot meal should be provided. At first this may seem a little cheeky after all they are being paid a lot to cover your wedding day, but its usually done to "guarantee" that they get fed a decent meal during  a long day at work and don't go hungry rather than wanting to get a freebee!

Personally working as a wedding photographer in South Wales I've been in all kinds of situations when it comes to being fed at weddings, even having to drive 30 miles to try to find a greggs or mcdonalds! and also at the other end of the scale being provided with a luxury 5 course italian feast working at a destination wedding in Italy too!

When discussing your wedding photography plan of the day with your photographer, you can ask them if they have any specific meal preferences or dietary restrictions that you should consider. You can also coordinate with your caterer or venue to ensure that the photographer is included in the meal count and provide and this will then make sure they are fed.