What should I expect on my wedding day?

You should expect to have a fun day without a lot of pressure from us. We will discuss your schedule and your priorities in advance. So on your wedding day, expect us to show up early, to work around you discreetly throughout the day, to rarely give you direction except during portraiture, to be prepared for anything, and to be open to all your ideas. In other words, we will be there to document, not to participate. Because we don’t work with restrictive time limits, we will never tell you that it’s time to cut the cake, or go ahead and do the first dance so that we can go home. So relax and enjoy!

Why do you suggest that we see each other before the wedding?

Simply this: it will reduce your stress, give you a chance to spend a quiet, meaningful moment together, and give you more time to party and relax after the wedding.

Take a moment to imagine your wedding day. Once You’re pronounced husband and wife, you’ll be both relieved and elated. It’s an emotional process. At that point, you’ll be more than ready to relax, but if you haven’t seen each other before the ceremony, you’ll spend your first hour as a married couple posing for portraits, while friends and family who want to celebrate with you wait patiently for your arrival. More than likely, you won’t have spent a single private moment with your new husband or wife until you arrive at your honeymoon suite. Now imagine how special it would be to surprise your groom and spend a few minutes together in the church or some other quiet place before the ceremony. It would be exciting and calming all at once, and it has the potential to make your wedding day even more meaningful.

In addition, it gives you time to get your formal portraits done in advance, when you are still looking rested and refreshed.

How many pictures will you shoot on my wedding day?

Depending on your coverage choice, we shoot somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 images during the day. This might sound like a lot, but we never know what will happen next, so we continuously document moments big and small. However, you’ll find that many of the pictures are repetitive. We shoot a lot so that, in the course of one scene, there will be a picture in which everyone’s eyes are open and the bride and groom look their best.

When will I get to see my photos?

We always try to have the photos edited, toned and posted to a private, online gallery in time for the couple’s one-month anniversary. The gallery will stay active for three months after it is launched. The photos in it are print-ready, and custom prints can be purchased through our professional partner, Pictage. Your archive disc will be mailed and in your hands two weeks later.

How does the editing process work?

Because we’ve worked on deadline for daily newspapers for years, we are skilled editors. The photos in your gallery represent both the most emotional, artistic, and technically strong of all the images we took on your wedding day. These images receive meticulous attention in the toning and color-correcting process, and are the images that we will choose from in designing your wedding book if you choose to order one. However, we understand that you might want to see the rest of the photos, so we burn the balance of the images onto a disc that you can view, tone, and print yourself.

How big is your coverage area?

Our local coverage area is a 100-mile radius from our home in Mobile, Ala. For events outside this area, we charge a modest travel fee determined on a case-by-case basis.

How many weddings do you shoot each year?

Because we’re editorial photographers, and we continue to shoot for local and national publications, we can only accept 20 wedding commissions each year. Our clients typically book us 6-10 months in advance, but please don’t hesitate to call us if you think our style might suit your needs.

How can I get prints of my photos?

We are photographers, first and foremost. We can and do fulfill custom print orders through our professional partner, Pictage, but we also feel you hired us for our creative eye, technical ability and experience behind the camera. We want you to have choices when it comes to reprints. We want you to use your photos. We want you to put them up all over your house, and we want you to do it your way. So we give all of our brides and grooms high-resolution image files so that you can get prints made anywhere you want whenever you want. Just upload your files to popular online print shops or take your disc to your favorite photo lab, keeping in mind that professional photos look best displayed as custom prints.

With that said, if you are more comfortable ordering custom prints through Pictage, you’ll find that it is an easy and affordable process.

What can I do with an archive disc?

An archive disc contains high-resolution files of the selected images from your wedding day. On the disc, you will also receive a monitor calibration chart and a print release. By purchasing an archive disc, we grant you a personal reprint license for the images. That means you can make prints and enlargements, create an album or a book, and use the photographs on your Facebook page or personal Web site (though we always appreciate a credit to Keyhole Photo when photographs are used on the Web). Keyhole Photo retains the copyright to the images, however, and your license does not extend to commercial uses. If you’d like to use the images commercially for any reason, a new license must be negotiated with us. We are more than happy to discuss the options.