Galleries that take forever to load
Wedding photography sites are the slowest category on the web, because they are the most image-heavy and the least optimised. On a phone, a gallery that stalls is a photographer who has been ruled out.
Websites for wedding photographers
One day.One shot at it.
Custom websites for wedding photographers, built for a couple comparing five photographers on style, availability and price — in that order.
Ridgeline Estates is a KustomSite design concept for the high-end real estate category. It is not a client project and the business is fictional.
Ridgeline Estates
Private sale · Viewing by appointment
Above thetreeline.
Acreage11.4
Elevation1,840 ft
StatusPrivate
The moment they land
They have a date. They are looking at five photographers in one evening, mostly on a phone, and they are filtering hard: does the work look like what we want, are you free on our date, and are you within our budget. A site that does not answer all three is eliminated in under a minute.
What costs you jobs
4 things a template gets wrong here.
No prices, not even a starting figure
"Enquire for our brochure" costs you every couple who was politely checking whether you are in their range. The ones who enquire anyway then have to be let down.
Availability is a mystery
The date is the hardest filter and the easiest to answer. Making a couple email to find out whether you are free is a lost enquiry for both of you.
Full weddings shown as highlight reels
Twelve perfect frames from twelve different weddings show taste, not coverage. A couple wants to know what they will actually receive from their own day.
What gets built instead
Mechanics, not features.
Galleries that are fast on a phone
Modern formats, correct sizes, lazy loading and a deliberate limit on how many images load at once. This is the single biggest technical difference in the category.
A starting price, stated
With what is included at that level. It filters out the couples you cannot serve and wins the ones who were quietly checking.
Date availability up front
Either a live check or a plainly stated way to ask that gets an answer the same day. The date is the first filter, so it should be the first question answered.
Two or three full weddings, start to finish
One day shown properly tells a couple more than a hundred best frames, because what they are buying is the coverage, not the highlights.
Fair questions
The reasons not to.
“My style sells itself, prices cheapen it”
Style gets you onto the shortlist. Price decides who gets emailed, and a couple will not email to find out whether they can afford you — they will assume they cannot.
“Instagram is my portfolio”
It is where they find you and a poor place to check a date or a price. It also shows your work beside every other photographer in the area, cropped square.
“Big images are the point, so the site will be slow”
Large images and a fast site are not in conflict; it is a solved problem. A slow gallery is a choice, and in this category it is an expensive one.
Asked often
Before you ask.
Can the galleries be fast without making the images small?
Yes. Modern formats, correctly sized versions per device and a limit on how many load at once make a large gallery quick on a phone. It is the biggest technical difference between sites in this category.
Should I publish a starting price?
A starting figure with what is included at that level. Couples will not enquire to discover whether they can afford you — they assume they cannot and move on to the photographer who told them.
Can couples check whether I am free on their date?
Either live from your calendar, or with a clearly stated same-day answer. The date is the first thing they filter on, so it should be the first thing the site answers.
Start it.
4 parts, and the trade is already answered when you arrive from here. Nothing is charged and nothing starts until you say so.
Build a brief for wedding photographer