How This Works

We create visual stories with photography that, many years from now, will remind you of what your wedding day felt like.

My team and I have been so fortunate to photograph more than 250 weddings here in the SF Bay Area, throughout California and the USA, and in more than 15 countries around the world. These experiences have enabled us to develop and fine-tune systems for doing things that will make working with us easy, stress-free, and, most importantly – fun.

Every step of working together is designed to make your wedding photography experience intentional, highly detailed, and extraordinarily convenient. 

From pre-planning to photography on the day of your wedding to final image delivery and album creation – you can rest assured that you are working with top-level professionals, imaginative artists, and a creative team that is trustworthy, dependable, and fun to have around. But, don’t just take our word for it. Feel free to read some 5-star reviews from our past clients.

Yes. Absolutely. We love to create unique and artistic posed couples portraits for our wedding clients. For these arranged portraits, we’ll pick out the scene and the best time of day for lighting. We’ll help to arrange you in that setting and we’ll create natural and beautiful portraits that show you at your best. View our artistic couples portrait gallery. 

Our overall style and approach include the ideal blend of candid, unscripted moments, artistic portraits, AND creative images of architecture, details, and decor. For most of the day, Drew and our team will be observers and documentarians – photographing unscripted events, people, and interactions with a hands-off natural, and organic journalistic style. Read more about our style and The Art of Storytelling with wedding photography.

We hear this from many of our new clients. It’s normal and understandable. You becoming comfortable with being photographed is all about you becoming comfortable with your photographer. As we develop a rapport and a level of trust, you’ll begin to realize that what we are doing is fun and there’s no reason to feel nervous.

A big part of you feeling comfortable is Drew’s personality. He is easy going, relaxed, and connects well with people. But it’s probably better if you read this review from our clients Sarah and Greg. Their wedding was at the San Francisco Film Centre in the Presidio:

“I don’t know where to start– with Drew as a person or with his photos?! His timeless images and documentary style visual storytelling was exquisite. I was hooked.

Then! We got to meet with him in person, and let me tell you, he will put you immediately at ease. This gentleman is one of the kindest and warmest individuals and a true professional. My husband and I were in total agreement that this is the person we wanted at our wedding, interacting with our guests and getting all the great shots.

Which is exactly what he did- my guests all raved about his presence and warmth. And even my pre-wedding jitters were no match for Drew’s calm, friendly, easy demeanor. We even managed to get in a spontaneous boudoir shoot, which came out beautifully.

I can’t recommend Drew enough – do yourself a favor and book Drew and cross worrying about your photos off the list.”

Drew Bird is the founder and lead photographer for Drew Bird Photography. Over the years, we have grown into a robust multiple photographer Studio. Currently, in addition to Drew, we have 5 Ambassador Photographers who represent the Drew Bird Photo brand impeccably.

Drew limits the number of weddings he personally accepts to approximately 10 per year. He does this primarily because he maintains a robust clientele for non-wedding photography projects. If Drew is unavailable for your date, one of our talented Ambassador Photographers probably is available.

Engagement sessions are a great way to capture and document a unique moment in your lives and also an excellent way for us to get to know each other better. On your wedding day, your photographer will be with you and your closest family and friends for an entire day or multiple days. The engagement session is a great way to help us build our friendship and relationship and help you become even more comfortable in front of the camera and having a photographer around.

Drew and our team of professional photographers are very adventurous people, and we love coming up with new concepts and ideas for engagement sessions. The world is literally our canvas. Anything that we imagine, we can probably do – photographically speaking. We are available to travel everywhere on Earth.

Yes. Drew and our creative team love to photograph Adventure Elopements. We will work together to help you plan the most amazing adventure wedding. Drew and our team of professional photographers are available to travel throughout California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, the American West, Canada, all of the USA and world-wide to just about any destination. Check out our … LINK TO Adventure Elopements PORTFOLIO.

This totally depends on the details and size of your wedding. For most weddings, Drew (or our Ambassador lead photographer) will have a non-photographing assistant to help with extra gear, lighting, and off-camera flash during the reception. 

For weddings with more than 100 guests, we usually recommend including a second photographer, which can add depth, texture, and incredible value to any photo story. A second photographer can be included in any wedding collection.

It’s very possible that we have photographed at your venue previously. That being the case, we are blessed with so many amazing wedding venues in the San Francisco Bay area that it’s also possible we have not yet photographed a wedding at your venue.

If your venue is new to us, Drew and our creative team will most likely visit your venue prior to the wedding date for location scouting and for pre-planning. This way, we will be intimately familiar with the location, the lighting, and all of the important wedding venue details before we start photography.

Our advice to you is simple: do not choose your wedding photographer based on whether they have photographed at your venue before or not. Familiarity with your venue should be one data point that is considered a lower priority on your checklist.

More important criteria should include: 1) the photographer’s style and experience overall; 2) ask any photographer to show you “full weddings” so you can get a sense of their actual quality and proficiency – especially in low light settings; 3) consider reviews & referrals from their past clients; 4) have a video chat or meet with the wedding photographer and read what past clients have written about the person’s demeanor and business dependability; the wrong personality type or a person who is not good at the business side of wedding photography can lead to both heartache and disappointment.

Yes, and yes. We LOVE wedding albums. They are the one product we hope every client chooses to include in their photo storytelling collection. We do the digital design and layout. You can make revisions and swap photos in and out of the design. Then you get to choose from various lovely cover materials and colors.

We also offer great parent gift books. Many of our clients include these as a way to thank their parents.

We can plan a boudoir session. A couple of times, we’ve even had clients ask to do this impromptu on their wedding day. A few settings and aesthetic options can improve the quality of images for this type of session. While we can accommodate a last-second request, it’s generally best to plan this session.

All great photo stories are born out of empathy. We want to get to know your story. All of our collections are custom-built for you based on the uniqueness and context of your story.

For a full day (8hr) wedding, we’ll generally deliver to you ~ 500 finished edited and optimized digital files with “home use” and printing rights. This amount will vary depending on the size of your wedding and how many events are covered. These images are entirely watermark-free.

Your entire story online viewing gallery usually is ready within 4 to 8 weeks after your wedding. We aim to have an early sneak peek (best of selection) for you within 1 week after your wedding. This way, you will have images to share on social media and with your family and friends.

We have many different pricing options for many kinds of weddings. For elopements, micro weddings, San Francisco City Hall Weddings, and intimate weddings (small gatherings with 20 or fewer people), our collections start at $2,500.

Our regular full-day wedding collections start at $4,000. Our most popular collections tend to be in the $5k to $7k range. Our destination wedding packages are entirely custom-built for you and almost always include multiple days of photography. Our adventure elopement pricing is also custom-built for you based on your plans and the location(s).

Every photo collection can be fully customized with the option to include more time and other add-ons like albums, parent gift books, wall art photo prints, welcome parties, adventure sessions, and engagement sessions.