Wedding photo copyright guide
Hello there! Welcome to a guide that will tell you all you need to know about the copyright of your wedding photos.
If you’re someone who’s planning their wedding (bride, groom, marrier), the right photographer can make all the difference in capturing those enchanting moments. If you’re recently married and want to know what your rights are when using your wedding photos, you’ve come to the right place.
In this guide, we'll delve into the world of image usage and copyright, ensuring that the memories of your special day are not only beautifully preserved but also legally protected, and that you don’t make your wedding photographer sad.
Alternatively, if you’re a wedding supplier who wants to use the photos of a photographer to promote your business (hellooo!), skip to the bottom of this blog.
You hire a photographer for their services, but you don’t own the photos
Copyright laws protect the person who creates something from having their work stolen from them. That can be a musician all the way through to photographers. That’s no different for a wedding photographer. A wedding photographer owns all photos that they capture, even the ones they’ve not put their watermark on.
Usage rights of your wedding photos
It goes without saying that you have rights over your photos. It’d be weird if you didn’t! Just make sure you know where the boundary lies with your photographer. Some don’t allow you to have the photos printed without going through them, others are happy for you to do whatever you like with them (like me) - providing you’re not giving them to wedding suppliers without asking them to mention us whenever they use the photos. Which takes us to…
Distribution of wedding photos
Most of the time you’re free to send your photos to anyone you like - your best friend, parents, uncle John, … but your photographer will probably be a little miffed if you send your photos to your wedding suppliers or any magazines.
Why? Well, we love to collaborate and support other businesses in the wedding industry. It’s a big way that we market ourselves - through recommendations and exposure. Sometimes they don’t tag us or mention us, so it’s a missed marketing opportunity for us to get our name out there.
Lastly, if another wedding business uses our photos to promote themselves, they don’t have permission from the owner of the photos to do so (see point 1 above). Which is copyright infringement.
Editing photos from your photographer
It makes us cry when we see the work we’ve spent hours on being edited.
You paid us for the photos and you can use them for your profile photos and so on, so what’s the harm?
Well, it’s not a representation of our work and how we like our photos to be edited. That’s important because if someone you’ve recommended us to sees your photos and they’ve had a dash of the Juno or Ludwig treatment, they’ll think that’s what our photos look like when we deliver them. They might look lovely, but like you, we have a style of photo we like and we want our work to stay that way. So pretty please, don’t edit them. This is often in our contracts too, so make sure you read the contract thoroughly.
And that’s all you really need to know! If you’re not sure on something, just give me or your photographer a shout. We’d rather be asked than for things to be assumed, and we love hearing from our couples so it’s a win-win!
If you’re a wedding supplier and would like to use any of my images, please ask first.
I love everything that you all do, and you’re magicians and heroes in my eyes, but please ask for permission before taking and using mine or any other photographer’s photos.
Using them without permission and without tagging/mentioning us is copyright infringement. We really appreciate being tagged in any photos that are used to promote your business, because it helps support our business too. We’re in this together - if you scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours!