If you’re wondering how to choose a wedding photographer, start with how you want to feel around them. Most couples who reach out tell me they found the photographs first. Something about them looked different from the galleries they'd been scrolling through. They felt more intentional and less like everyone else's. But the moment they actually decided to inquire usually came later, after reading something like this.
What they tell me is that they could tell we care, about the photographs and about the people in them. That's usually when it clicks: I'd actually want this person there on our wedding day.
After more than 1,200 weddings, elopements, and engagement sessions, I've noticed that the couples who find us this way already know how they want to be treated. So if you're wondering how to choose a wedding photographer, here are the three things I'd look for.
First, some context. For a long time, there was a pretty agreed-upon idea of what wedding photos should look like: the same portraits, the same poses, the same practiced expressions. That's been changing. I've recently photographed couples born in 2002 and 2003, and what struck me is how well they seem to know themselves. They know what they like and what they don't. I'm all for it.
Following trends is how you end up in a dress that doesn't suit you, in photos you'll keep forever. Give it a few years and "on trend" just means dated. You want photographs that still look like you in ten years, not like this year.
If that sounds like you, here's what I'd want on the other side of the camera.
1. Choose a wedding photographer who actually listens
Look for someone who listens without a filter. They shouldn't show up with a look already picked out for you. A good photographer hears your story as it is, then translates it through their own way of seeing.
This isn't new for us. When I started Eugene Kim Photography nine years ago, I wrote this down:
No two people in the world are the same.
When two different people meet and become a couple, the story they make can't be the same as anyone else's.
What they love, where they want to go, what they want to eat — different is normal.
Hearing that story as it is, and capturing how it feels, is the work of Eugene Kim Photography.
In San Francisco, that might mean skipping the postcard shot of the Golden Gate because the fog and the look on your faces are doing something more interesting on a side street. In Las Vegas, it might mean leaving the Strip altogether because I can see you both relax the second the noise drops. Beyond the city, Red Rock Canyon offers quiet rock and a sky that goes on forever. A lot of couples fly in expecting neon and fall for the opposite: a small ceremony, some wind, and a landscape that isn't trying to perform.
The backdrop was never the point. The point is whether your photographer is trying to fit you into last weekend's wedding or actually listening to yours.
2. An experience you'll remember, over a perfect frame
Couples who don't follow trends usually want a wedding day that feels like theirs. "Special" gets thrown around a lot, so let me be more specific. I mean the kind of joy that only comes from doing something a little uncommon.
Picture this. You meet in San Francisco, get in the car, and drive to Yosemite. Hair and makeup happen before dawn. You say your vows at sunrise on a granite ledge, at an hour when it feels like the deer and the bears are still asleep. It's physically hard. It's also so quiet that the wind in the trees makes you worry you'll wake something up. Then fog rolls over the valley like a blanket, and you're marrying the person you love in the middle of it.
You don't forget a morning like that. The photographs are just the way back in.
That's the kind of day we love. We've photographed weddings and elopements in Iceland, Italy, Spain, and Japan, and I'd love to add Kenya, New Zealand, and Bali. It's not about passport stamps. I want your day to feel like yours, not like a template.
Make room for the day you want to remember
This might sound strange coming from a photographer, but I believe it: the experience of your wedding day matters more than the technical quality of the files.
I care deeply about making beautiful photographs. But I won't ask you to trade a moment you want to live for a frame I want to make. The photograph should bring you back to a day you were glad to be in.
Ask anyone who's been married a while. They don't open their gallery every week, and when they do, nobody says, "Wow, this one is technically excellent." They remember how the air felt, the joke someone made, what the flowers smelled like, the warmth of a hand.
That's true at sunrise in Yosemite. It's also true at Red Rock in the late afternoon, when the Strip is still putting on a show and the two of you are standing somewhere quiet. A perfect photo of a forgettable afternoon is still a forgettable photo.
3. A team with different perspectives, not one formula
Learning how to choose a wedding photographer also means understanding who will be behind the camera. The first point was about how we listen. This one is about how the photographs actually get made.
A lot of people believe a solo photographer is safer than a studio with several shooters. With a bigger team, the thinking goes, you get whoever's free, quality slips, and you don't know who'll show up. With one person, what you see is what you get.
There's some truth to that. Many multi-photographer studios are built around one person's method, and everyone else is trained to copy it because it's quick to teach. The work starts to feel like a factory, with the same poses and the same shots. Then those photographers leave, start their own studios, and take the formula with them. Slowly, every gallery starts to look the same.
I was already stubborn about the first two points before I understood that pattern, and it's exactly why building a team took so long. If every couple is different, making everyone shoot my way would erase the very thing I hired them for. And photographers need to enjoy the day themselves, or they can't make it interesting for you.
So I looked for three things. People who work hard, because passion isn't the same as work ethic. People who can hear a couple over their own ego. And people who really love photographs. My job is to bring more of that out of them, not sand it down.
Finding the wedding photographer who understands you
There are five of us who can photograph your wedding, including me: three men and two women. We didn't grow up the same way, and we don't love the same pictures. Two of us shoot photo and video on the same day. One lights up around parks, animals, and anything small and sweet. One spent years as a designer at a major American company. One is completely in love with film.
I could go on about our differences, but here's what matters. We're all doing the same work, and we're not the same people, so the photographs don't feel the same.
During your consultation, I might suggest which of us should photograph your wedding. That's not a ranking, and it's not about who's more skilled or more experienced. It's about who will see your story most clearly.
On the day itself, that means we're not shooting a spot just because the last couple stood there. We're watching the light. Even on a completely ordinary street in San Francisco, or a random pull-off outside Las Vegas that isn't on anyone's list, someone on the team will stop and say: Wait. Look at the light on you two right now. That's the one.
So here's the test I'd use with any photographer: are they seeing you, or a location they already know how to shoot?
How to choose a wedding photographer who feels right for you
If you'd rather have photos that feel like you than photos that feel like this year, and you want your wedding day to be a little less ordinary, I'd love to hear from you.
I'll pair you with the photographer on our team who will see you most clearly. If your date and city are still open, I'll help you figure those out too. It could be San Francisco, Las Vegas, or sometimes both, plus an engagement session beforehand if you'd like one.
Let's make something beautiful.
When I think of the Korean word for beautiful, 아름답다, I think of being fully yourself. That's what I want a wedding photograph to hold.
