There’s a lot of advice out there about choosing vendors. And in my opinion, much of it creates extra work for folks getting married that’s really unnecessary. For instance, some websites (I’m looking at you, The Knot) have enormous lists of questions to ask photographers: What gear do you use? What do you wear to the weddings? Do you require a meal? The truth is, the answers to most of these questions are totally irrelevant to the point of the inquisition: is this the right photographer for you? So I’ve put together this guide to help couples figure out if their photographer is the right one for them. I’m assuming here that we’re getting down to photographers in your budget.

Allison and Mark rock so much. They’re super-happy-cuddly-giggly, which is hands-down my favorite quality in a couple. And Allison wore this amazing 50s polka-dot dress. And they were going to someplace called Spice Xing for lunch and they kept calling it “ex-ing”. And they’re librarians and arranged for us to do indoor portraits at a nearby library and it was an awesome library. And Mark has a Star Wars checkbook. And and and. Allison and Mark:

Erin and Patrick are going to rock out the big dress, big ballroom, party-for-everyone-we-know a little later on this year. But sometimes life (or bureaucracies) dictate that you have to go to the courthouse a little early. And if you’re going to do that, you might as well bring along your photographer and rock out a courthouse/engagement session duo of awesomeness. So they did.