The busy wedding season is fast approaching and you must have already updated your stunning wedding portfolio. As you spare no effort in marketing your wedding photography business through social media, emails, etc., more and more clients will see your wedding photos and make up their minds to hire you for their big day.
However, if you are a professional wedding photographer, you absolutely need a formal wedding photography contract before you work with your clients. We all know that verbal agreements don’t work in court. You certainly don’t want you and your clients to get into a legal dispute and compromise each other. To avoid this nasty situation, make sure you have a legally binding wedding photography contract.
What is a Wedding Photography Contract?
This is an agreement between you and your clients. It covers everything that both parties are responsible for on the day of the wedding event. The contract will include the expenses, time and way of payment, deliverables, possible cancellation policy, copyright and more. It can be time consuming to change a wedding photography contract. So it’s best to loosely agree on the details before formalizing the contract.
What Should A Wedding Photography Contract Cover?
Basic Information
Begin the contract with the full legal names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of both parties. But don’t stop there. You can also include the specific location of the wedding. For example, the location of the ceremony, the name of the venue and the date of the wedding.
Expenses
Your wedding photography contract should include the expenses of your photography services. This will not only showcase the pricing options for wedding photography packages, but will also provide an explanation of each cost in detail. For example, expenses include the cost of the photography services, surcharges, advance payments, etc. Additionally, if you need to travel to your client’s city for a wedding photography session, you should also specify in your contract the clients’ responsibilities and whether any travel or other expenses are included.
Deliverables
Ensure that the details of deliverables are included in the contract. For instance, the number of edited photos, digital downloads, prints, albums, and any additional products or services included in the package. You can also put in your contract how you will deliver your wedding photos, for example, you can use a client gallery like Zno Gallery™ to send all images to your clients and let them pick the ones that they prefer.
In addition to delivery content, your wedding photography contract needs to include delivery times. Your wedding photos may be delivered in a few weeks and sometimes months. To keep eager couples from getting frustrated, it’s important to be clear about the product delivery schedule.
Cancellation
While none of us want delays or cancellations in wedding shoots, sometimes you may encounter things beyond your control. For example, a natural disaster may destroy the wedding venue and require cancellation or rescheduling. Or you may get sick or have a personal emergency that needs to be dealt with. Therefore, even the simplest wedding photography contract needs to include a cancellation policy that protects all of you if something goes wrong. Typically, a wedding photography contract needs to include provisions for cancellations, rescheduling, and refunds in case of unforeseen circumstances such as inclement weather, illness, or venue changes.
If your clients need to cancel the booking, you can either apply the advanced payment as a cancellation fee or charge a rescheduling fee. However, if you need to cancel your wedding shoot due to illness, injury, or other personal emergency, then you can agree in your contract to refund the retainer fee to your clients and offer them some compensatory gifts.
Copyright
Generally speaking, copyright in a wedding photography contract includes full access to the wedding photos as well as a license for personal use. Copyright specifies what the clients can and cannot do with the photos you provide. If you wish, you can grant your clients a license to reproduce and distribute their wedding photos, or even a copyright release, so that they can do whatever they like with their images. Sometimes this also has the opportunity to lead to good word-of-mouth marketing, helping your work to gain greater exposure.
Equipment Damage
Most weddings go off smoothly without a hitch and don’t result in a major disaster, but you’d better be careful and put a policy in place that covers potential damage to you or your equipment. For example, if someone breaks one of your lenses, you need to make sure that they can cover the cost of repairing or replacing the equipment.
Meals and Breaks
A wedding shoot can last for hours and in some cases days. This is certainly a physical and mental test for wedding photographers. Remember, you are entitled to meals and breaks as well. Therefore, stipulate in your wedding photography contract that your clients should provide adequate meals for you and your photography team.
Free Wedding Photography Contract Templates
By following these steps, you can create a comprehensive wedding photography contract by yourself. It not only protects your rights, but also helps you build a professional and trusting relationship with your clients. If you want to save time, you can also get free wedding photography contract templates directly from these websites like eForms, Signwell and Signaturely.
About Zno Gallery™
Start creating your wedding photography contract and look forward to a successful wedding photography session today! Choose Zno Gallery™ to deliver beautiful wedding photos to your clients. It is an online photo gallery for sharing, delivering, proofing, and letting your clients download their images. Sign up for a free account and deliver stunning wedding images with a premium gallery.
