Husband + wife wedding photography teams are pretty common these days and to be honest, I’m totally jealous!  There is so much that goes into running a successful wedding photography business and I’d absolutely LOVE to share that load with someone else instead of doing it all alone.  Between shooting, culling, editing, blogging, social media, client communications, vendor relations, submissions, uploading, downloading, archiving, and everything in between… it’d be AMAZING to have someone else to lean on.  But are husband and wife photography teams actually “better” than wedding photographers who run their business by themselves?

Not necessarily.

There are PLENTY of successful wedding photography businesses that are run by solo photographers.  The quality of their work and ability to serve their clients well is not dependent on whether or not they are part of a husband + wife team.  I personally built my business all by myself and, to be honest, I’m quite proud of that!  It wasn’t easy.  I didn’t have a partner to lean on and share the workload with.  It all fell on me and I learned SO MUCH along the way because of that.  The fact that I didn’t have a spouse to partner with me in business didn’t hinder me from building a business that’s still thriving after 8 years.

When someone advertises that they are a “husband + wife photography team”, it can actually mean one of two things:

• Both the husband and the wife are full-time wedding photographers… this is their sole income + career together
• One partner owns + runs the business while the other partner is basically a full-time second shooter (and typically has a different full-time job/career)

 

These two types of teams are VERY different from each other, so it’s important to understand what people mean when they advertise themselves as a husband + wife team.  True husband + wife photography teams, like Justin + Mary and Amy + Jordan are wayyyyy different than Suzie + her accountant husband, Mark, who shoots with her on weekends.  I’m not saying that Suzie + Mark won’t do a good job… but it’s totally different when both partners are full-time photographers, who both dedicate their lives to the craft + the business.

Most solo wedding photographers pay top dollar to secure experienced second shooters to help them serve their clients, so while it may be convenient to have a spouse second shoot regularly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the spouse is any “better” than a second shooter hired by a solo photographer.  I personally use the same 3-4 people throughout the year to second shoot with me and they are all full-time wedding photographers who run their own photography businesses.  I have personally trained them to shoot alongside me and I know that if anything were to happen to me, they could step in and take over for me at any given moment.  I’d bet money that any of my second shooters could shoot circles around Mark the accountant!

I guess the point of this post is to explain that just because someone advertises themselves as a husband + wife team, it doesn’t mean that they are “better” than photographers who aren’t shooting alongside their spouse.  I think it has become very popular for photographers to train their spouse to shoot with them and it can definitely be misleading if you don’t really understand the entire situation.  Do your own research and make sure that you aren’t dismissing a wedding photographer just because they don’t have a spouse shooting with them!