Choosing a wedding photographer in Belgium: price, quotes and contract

What drives the price

A photographer sells time on the day and work afterwards. A quote is usually a package: so many hours on site, so many edited photos, delivered within a set time. Anything outside the package is extra. How those parts add up differs per photographer. The questions below make the difference visible.

Hours. Does the photographer start while you get ready, or only at the town hall? Do they stay until the first dance, or leave after the cake? Count the hours from your own schedule, not from the package. A couple at the hairdresser at ten and still dancing at midnight has a different day from a couple with a ceremony and a reception. Ask what an extra hour costs if the party runs late, and whether every hour started is charged.

A second photographer. Two people can be in two places at once: with each of you while you get ready, or at the front and the back during the ceremony. Whether you need that depends on how your day runs. If you get ready together in one place and the group is small, one photographer is often enough.

Number of photos and delivery time. Ask how many edited photos you get, whether that is a minimum or an estimate, and what "edited" means: colour and light, or retouching as well. Ask when you get them. A small preview a few days after the wedding is not the full set. A shorter delivery time can cost extra.

Album and prints. An album is a separate product, priced by format and number of pages. Ask whether it is in the package, who picks the photos and how many rounds of layout changes you get. Ask separately about albums for your parents.

Travel and video. If the venue is far from the photographer, the quote may include mileage or an overnight stay. Ask in advance, especially if the ceremony, the shoot and the party are in different places. Video is a different craft: another person, its own edit, its own delivery. Some photographers offer both, others work with a regular videographer. Then compare the whole, not the two halves.

A small item that is easy to forget: food. A photographer working from noon until night needs a meal too. Agree who arranges it, and count it with the caterer, not with the photographer.

Comparing quotes

Two quotes with the same total can be very different things. So do not compare the bottom line, compare what is in it. Split every quote into a fixed part and extras. You pay the fixed part either way. The extras come on top if the day runs late, if you want an album, or if the photographer has to stay overnight.

Write down the same lines for every photographer. Number of hours, from when to when. One or two photographers. Number of edited photos. Delivery time. How you receive them: an online gallery, a download, a USB stick. Album or not. Travel. Price per extra hour. Video. Whatever is not on the quote, ask by email, so the answer is in writing.

Ask for the total price including all taxes as well. The Code of Economic Law ↗ requires a business to give a consumer that price before the consumer is bound: in article VI.2 for an ordinary contract, in article VI.45 for a distance contract. If the nature of the service means the price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, the business has to say how it will be calculated. If a quote to you as private individuals only shows an amount without VAT, ask what you will actually pay.

In Ringske you add photographers under Vendors, in the Photographer category. For each one you note the price, and in the field "What is included?" what the package covers. Each of you gives your own stars, and where you differ, it says so. If one drops out, you note why: not available, too expensive, no click. Book one, and they go straight into the wedding budget with their price. Keeping quotes and contracts with the vendor is part of Complete. What that costs is on the pricing page. With Ringske on your phone you have the budget at hand, even while you are sitting with a photographer.

A photographer is a fixed cost. The price does not grow with every guest, the way food and drinks do. How to split a budget into fixed and per-guest costs is explained in what a wedding costs. What does grow with a hundred guests is in the cost of a party for 100 guests.

Choosing a photographer

Start with your date. A photographer can rarely cover two weddings on one day. So first ask whether they are free, before you fall for a portfolio. In Ringske's task list, "Book the photographer (and videographer)" sits at about ten months before the wedding, after the venue and the town hall. That is the order of the wedding checklist, not a law. If you have no venue yet, start with the guide to wedding venues. The month-by-month timeline lays out the rest.

Look at full weddings, not at the best twenty photos on Instagram. A selection shows what a photographer can do at their best moment. A full wedding shows what they do in a dark town hall, with a group photo of forty people, in the rain, at eleven at night on the dance floor. Ask for two or three full galleries, ideally from a wedding like yours: indoors or outdoors, small or large, day or evening.

There are many words for style: documentary, editorial, fine art, classic. They do not mean the same thing for every photographer. Look at two things instead. What do the colours look like, and will you still like them in twenty years? And how much is posed, against how much simply happens? If you dislike posing, ask how long the shoot takes.

Meet before you sign, in person or on video. This person is close to you all day, closer than most guests. Notice how they ask about your day, whether they listen to what you do not want, and whether they have worked at your venue before. Ask what happens if they fall ill: is there a replacement, and who chooses them?

Looking for a photographer in Ghent, Antwerp or Limburg? The questions are the same. What differs by region is mostly travel. Ask what it costs, and whether the photographer knows the place.

Once the photographer is booked, give them the schedule for the day. In Ringske it lives in the run of the day, and a booked vendor appears there automatically among the key contacts. Add which group photos you want and who needs to stand together for each. It saves half an hour of calling names on the day itself.

What belongs in the contract

A quote is not a contract yet. Have the arrangements put in writing, and read them before you pay the deposit. A short list: the date and hours, the addresses, who will photograph (the photographer or an associate), the delivery time and format, the number of photos, what happens with the album, the price per extra hour, the payment schedule with deposit and balance, what happens if either side cancels, and what you may do with the photos. That last point is copyright. The next section covers it.

For contracts between a business and a consumer, article VI.83 of the Code of Economic Law ↗ lists clauses that are always unfair. A few of them concern the deposit and cancellation. A contract may not let the business keep what you paid if you withdraw, without giving you the right to equivalent compensation if the business withdraws (27°). It may not let the business keep the deposits if it ends the contract itself (28°). It may not set a sum you owe if you fail to meet your obligations, without an equivalent sum the business owes if it defaults (17°). And it may not set damages that are clearly out of proportion to the loss the business could suffer (24°).

Article VI.84 says what follows: such a clause is prohibited and void, and the rest of the contract stays binding if it can stand without it. The same article VI.83 also rules out a clause that stops you from ending the contract in case of force majeure unless you pay compensation (12°). In practice: read the cancellation clause twice. Once as if you cancel, once as if the photographer cancels. If it only describes consequences for you, ask what happens the other way round.

This is a summary of the code, not legal advice. For a specific contract that does not look right, a lawyer is the right person.

Put the deposit and the balance, each with a date, under the photographer in the wedding budget. With Complete, Ringske tracks deposits and balances with their due dates, and who pays what. That way you see which month will be heavy before it arrives.

Who owns the photos?

Copyright stays with the photographer, as the author. Article XI.165 of the Code of Economic Law ↗ gives only the author the right to reproduce a work and communicate it to the public, online included. Ordering and paying for the photos does not hand you those rights. Article XI.167 says so itself: transferring the object that contains a work does not give the right to exploit the work. A USB stick or an album on your shelf is not a transfer of the rights.

What you may do is set out in the contract. The code lets an author transfer the rights or grant a simple or exclusive licence. As against the author, every contract must be proven in writing, and clauses about copyright are interpreted restrictively. For each way of using the work, the payment, the scope and the duration must be stated explicitly. So do not take anything for granted that is not explicitly in the contract.

Write down what you want to do. Share photos with family and guests. Post them on social media. Put them on your wedding website. Have prints made, or order an album from another printer. Use a photo on your thank-you cards. Crop one or add a filter for Instagram. Ask whether that is allowed, for how long, and whether you have to credit the photographer.

Those last two are not details. Besides the rights they can transfer, the author has a moral right that cannot be sold. The code names the right to claim authorship of the work, and the right to respect for the work, which lets the author object to any change to it. A blanket waiver of future exercise of that right is void. So agree on a black-and-white filter or a tight crop in advance.

Copyright lasts until seventy years after the author's death (article XI.166). For photos that term applies when they are original, in the sense of being the author's own intellectual creation. What you agree now holds for a long time.

Your faces, and your guests'

A photo carries more than copyright. Article XI.174 of the Code of Economic Law ↗ says that the author or owner of a portrait may not reproduce it or communicate it to the public without the consent of the person portrayed. That works in two directions. The photographer needs your consent to show your photos in a portfolio, on a website or on social media. And you need a guest's consent to make their portrait public.

If the contract has a clause about portfolio use, read it and decide for yourselves. If you do not want to appear online, or only without the children, or only after the wedding, write it in.

The Data Protection Authority ↗ (GBA) makes a distinction that is useful at a wedding. Agreeing to be photographed does not necessarily mean agreeing to publication or distribution. They are two separate consents, to be asked separately. The GBA recommends a written agreement, because it is easier to prove.

Consent is also specific, writes the GBA ↗: an image may not be used for a purpose other than the one consent was given for. Within a closed circle, such as a school or a club, the GBA recommends written consent for targeted images, where one or more people are singled out. For general atmosphere shots, where nobody is specifically picked out, the GBA says it is enough to inform people that such images are taken, for what purpose and for which publication.

Not every photo falls under privacy law. According to the Data Protection Authority ↗, the law of 30 July 2018 does not apply to images taken for purely personal purposes, within the home or the family, such as a family album. Images placed online with limited access and reach, such as in a group or a private conversation on social media, are also named as an exception. The GBA adds that this has to be assessed case by case. The portrait right in the code stands apart from it.

In practice: let guests know there is a photographer and where the photos will end up. Ask who would rather not appear in public photos, and pass those names to the photographer. If other people's children are in a photo you want to show publicly, ask their parents.

Photos on your wedding website

A wedding website can show two kinds of photos. Before the wedding: a photo of the two of you, from an engagement or a shoot. After the wedding: the full set, or a link to it. Both raise the two questions above. Does the photographer allow it, and do the people in it?

On a Ringske wedding website you choose which parts are visible. Search engines do not index wedding websites, so anyone who does not know the address will not find it. If you want more, set an access code. Guests who scan the QR code on the card do not type anything. Anyone who pastes the link into WhatsApp or Messenger sees a photo in the preview, except with an access code: then the photo is left out. The morning after the wedding, the site thanks your guests, with a link to the photos if you add one.

Only add that link once you know what the contract allows. An online gallery from the photographer, behind a password, is often the simplest route: the files stay with them, and you only share access. A group photo of all your guests on a public page is a different choice from the same photo behind a code.

A verifiable package example

Thomas Blairon lists Full Love at €900 excluding VAT for eight hours, at least 350 edited photographs, delivery within six weeks and 50 km round-trip travel. The provider states 21% VAT, giving €1,089 including VAT. This is one public package, not a market average. Check current terms with Thomas Blairon ↗.