1. Selective portfolio. You might like the portfolio a photographer puts before you, but keep in mind that it may encompass the best of a zillion photos taken over a decade of work. Ask the shooter to let you see all the shots from any given wedding.

2. Trend-happy shutterbugs. Beware of photogs who rely too much on Photoshop filters and the latest set-up shots. It’s about getting the shot – not about saturating colors that do not exist in nature, adding impossible blurs to focus your attention on any given area, or turning what used to be a photo into a sun-bleached Polaroid pic your iPhone’s Hipstamatic app could’ve done cheaper. Filter frenzy, heads getting cut off and an overabundance of shoe shots are also an indication that your shooter lacks creativity.

3. Poses and more poses. If all you’re seeing are posed or set-up shots in your shooter’s portfolio, it probably means there aren’t’ a whole lot of great shots taken on the fly. Ask your shooter where the real images are – not those constructed but captured.

4. Personality pushers. If your photog is all about explaining how great he’s going to get along with everyone, beware. If you want camaraderie or a date, invite your friends or hire an escort. If you want good shots, hire a good photographer.

5. Pricing structure. Look for hidden costs. Just because a photographer promises you a $1,999 fee for your wedding, ask him or her what the grand total is going to be after you get a DVD, an album, prints, more than four hours of work and post-production work – or if that photog is going to dump his assistant on you and bail out for a higher paying job that night.

Tip No. 1: Personality

By Natasha Chornesky and Chris Cozzone

Don’t buy into the hype.

Any photographer who is trying to sell you on his/her sparkling, oh-so-fun personality will, most likely, have the potential for serious flaws in his/her craft.

Ask yourself this: Are you hiring someone to be the life of the party (your party), or do you want good shots? Do you really care that the photographer likes long walks on the beach, loves to watch “Mad Men” or can rifle off jokes faster than his 11 frames-per-second camera?

Study a photographer’s website. Are there more photos of the photographer than his or her subjects? That should be the first clue.

While it is important not to hire a stick-in-the-mud, grumpy-ass photographer, do you really want someone who’s never going to shut up?

Our suggestion: Check the work. Look at the images. Then meet with the photographer to see if there is going to be a personality clash.

At WriteShot, we believe photographers should be ghosts or shadows. No one is hiring us to join the party or chat with the guests – we are there to get the best possible shot, not win a popularity contest.

Are your photos you?

I know, it sounds crazy, but recently  a wedding planner shared a story with me. She planned a wedding out of the country at a gorgeous location that held meaning and history for the couple. The couple hired a photographer whose work the bride had seen in several magazines.

Sounds great, no?

But then the photographer put the couple through their paces, posing them “editorial style” (which, in the wedding industry, basically means staged photojournalism) around the property, wiping the smiles from their faces and focusing their gazes away from one another, in dramatic fashion. The photographer made excellent use of the landscape’s natural beauty, but in creating the ideal portrait, he failed to capture any sort of connection the couple had for one another. The end result was highly stylized photos resembling a pseudo Vogue or GQ shoot. The problem? The photos did not truly represent the couple.

In fact, it was only two years later that the bride ran into her planner at another function. They reminisced about the bride’s destination wedding. “Everything was perfect,” shared the bride. “Except for my photos. I actually get mad when I look at them. I hate them. They are not us.”

Weddings are a celebration. A wedding couple epitomizes the human connection. These elements occur spontaneously at a wedding and when captured by a photographer, provide images that reflect the couple.

“Editorial” portraits, however, are designed to showcase details and locations while showing a couple in a fantasy or staged environment.

The way we see it, if your love is real, let your photos be real. Why stage it? – Natasha Chornesky, WriteShot

Photo caption: Though appearing as if it could be a so-called “editorial style” shot, our accompanying photo of Lauren and John was captured during the couple’s bus ride from church to reception. “If there’s one thing I hate,” says WriteShot primary photographer Chris Cozzone, “it’s setting up unreal shots in phony scenarios.”

Due to the disturbing trend in the overuse of sunbleached filters for that ’70s vintage film look, and chopping off people’s heads in wedding photos, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon as a self-styled photographic executioner.

“Off with their heads!” I say. “Let’s bleach ‘em down and soak them in a urine-colored hue, too.”

What bride and groom wouldn’t want to look through their treasured wedding album, five, 10, 50 years later, and see headless bridesmaids, best men, and, of course, the (assumed to be) happy headless couple?

It will require some work, not to frame my photos, but to lop off what has always been the most essential part of a image – someone’s face.

I bet I’ll get more clients. Maybe the trend-happy brides will think I’m really cool and book my services.  I can probably justify an increase in rates, too, since I’ll be doing an overabundance of cropping and that takes time. I’ll also have to purchase all those actions I’ve despised these many years, as a photography purist hell bent on retaining any sort of image resembling real life.

In fact, when I’m shooting boxing, i’m going to cut off heads, as well. I bet ESPN or Ring Magazine will love to see that! They’ll talk about how innovative I am. I’m going to chop off my dog’s head as well. My dogs will think I’m pretty nifty, too.