The half nobody photographs

A set delivered four months late has already lost most of its value, however good it is.

Cull hard

Eight hundred images is not generosity, it is abdication. The client cannot sequence their own day, and a tight set of two hundred that tells the story properly will be looked at many more times than a complete archive that overwhelms.

Turnaround is part of the product

Enthusiasm for a wedding has a half-life of roughly a month. A preview set within a few days, while people are still talking about it, does more for word of mouth than any amount of retouching done in week ten.

Push for something physical

Digital files are opened once and then live in a folder. An album or even a small print set is what survives a phone upgrade, a changed email address and the general entropy of storage. Clients rarely ask for it and almost always value it afterwards.

Keep your own archive honestly

Couples come back years later having lost everything, and the photographer who still has the files earns a great deal of goodwill cheaply. Decide the retention policy deliberately and tell people what it is.

Say what the set will not contain

Most disappointment comes from an expectation nobody stated. If you do not shoot heavy retouching, or you deliver black and white alongside colour, or the set will not include every guest individually — say so before the booking, in writing. The conversation is awkward once and prevents a much worse one afterwards.