7 Best Online Wedding Photography Courses

The Career Project is reader-supported. We may earn a commission on products purchased through links on this page. Learn more here.

Are you a hopeless romantic? Is the idea of capturing two love birds on the best days of their lives attractive to you? Are you looking for the best online wedding photography courses? If yes, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve put together a list of the best tutorials on the web. We’ve included free and paid ones to give you a variety of options.

But first, let’s answer the important question – what is wedding photography? Wedding photography is a speciality of photography. It involves taking pictures of a couple on the biggest day of their lives: their wedding day. Wedding photographers need to be able to take ‘portrait’ photos of the bride, groom and their family and friends. They also must take ‘documentary photographs’, where the wedding party are behaving naturally.

Wedding photography is a major commercial endeavor and with the average wedding photographer making $3,000 to $5,000 per wedding, it is not a career to be overlooked! However, it is also a huge privilege to be invited to photograph someone’s special day. Therefore, wedding photographers must be able to produce excellent quality images. In this article, I’ve gathered the best online wedding photography tutorials that will mean you can specifically target your photography skills to weddings.

 

1. Wedding Photography 1: How to Shoot a Wedding (Skillshare)

  • Level: Intermediate
  • Completion time: 1 hour, 16 minutes
  • Cost: 14-day free trial
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 2,993
  • Course rating: N/A

Taught by Phil Ebiner, this Skillshare class is perfect for those who have some experience with photography but want to channel their skills more towards wedding photography.

In this class you will learn how to capture a magical day and preserve memories for a lifetime. Phil carefully, yet concisely, teaches you exactly how to shoot a typical American wedding. He talks you through the whole wedding process. You’ll learn what discuss pre-ceremony. You will then learn how to capture the smaller things, such as bride and groom preparation, speeches and toasts, the reception details or the reader detail. You’ll also be carefully taught how to capture the big moments: the ring exchange, the kiss, the first dance and the cake cutting.

With this Skillshare course, you can turn your general photography knowledge into skills that will make you big money, and help you to make people happy… win, win!

 

2. Wedding Photography 2: Posing a Couple for Wedding or Engagement Photos (Skillshare)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 45 minutes
  • Cost: 14-day free trial
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 1,721
  • Course rating: N/A

This quick Skillshare course can be done in less than an hour. So, you really have no excuse to not dive into the world of wedding photography now!

No photography experience is needed to take this class as you learn by watching a live demonstration of a photographer taking photographs of a couple. Instructed by Phil Ebiner, the short class is hands-on. You will be shown how to work with live poses and how to shoot posed wedding shots. You will also receive some business advice, such as how much to charge for engagement photos and how to interact with clients.

As an added bonus, this Skillshare tutorial also gives you access to a downloadable guide that has seven poses and 35 unique shots. To get the best possible skills, it is recommended to take this class in conjunction with the other wedding photography classes in this series.

 

3. Wedding Photography 3: Setting Up Your Business (Skillshare)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 1h 26m
  • Cost: 14-day free trial
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 947
  • Course rating: N/A

A lot of wedding photography classes focus on the practical side: how to take good pictures. However, being able to deliver a good service is pretty useless if you can’t set your business up to get clients.

This class is the third and final class in Phil Ebiner’s Skillshare wedding photography course. During this class you will learn all things business. You will learn how to pick a company name, how to brand yourself, what equipment you should invest in, how to create wedding photography packages and how to price your services. You will also be taught how to get your first client and the importance of getting these clients to sign a contract. Finally, the class will discuss how you should behave on the wedding day, whether it’s worth getting an assistant and how to go about getting testimonials.

To get the best skills and have the best chances of being a successful wedding photographer, this tutorial should be taken in conjunction with wedding photography 1 and 2!

 

4. Wedding Photography: Complete Guide to Wedding Photography (Udemy)

  • Level: Intermediate
  • Completion time: 4h 49m
  • Cost: $129.99
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 74,747
  • Course rating: 8/5 (from 1,679 ratings)

This class is designed from those who are passionate, ready to take action and have a basic knowledge of photography and equipment.

Taught by Phil Ebiner and William Carnahan, this course will teach you how to become a successful wedding photographer. It covers you on the practical front, as you will learn how to set up your own business. Phil and William will teach you how to create a brand, a website and a portfolio. You will learn what kit to get together and how to approach clients.

As well as focusing on the nitty-gritty business stuff, this course also teaches you how to take amazing wedding photographs. Through a series of engaging videos, live demonstrations and two full wedding walk-throughs, you will learn how to shoot every moment beautifully, how to pose and interact with couples and how to edit photos post wedding!

This course seems like a pot of gold: in less than five hours you can learn how to set up a successful wedding photography business and how to take breath-taking photos for people to cherish forever.

 

5. Learning Wedding Photography (LinkedIn Learning)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 1h 32m
  • Cost: $32.99
  • Certification: Yes
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 1,686
  • Course rating: N/A

Instructed by Chris Orwig, an experienced wedding photographer, this quick class aims to prepare aspiring wedding photographers for all the un-predictable moments of a wedding ceremony.

What makes this course so special is that everything that is taught is backed up with examples from Chris’s own unique wedding photography experiences. During this class you will learn how to prepare for wedding ceremonies – what equipment you should take and how to discuss goals with the bride and groom. You will also learn how to capture the emotion in each wedding photograph, as well as how to pose couples for photos. Lastly, this course reviews some postproduction strategies that are designed to enhance your images and deliver photographs that the couple can treasure forever.

Suitable for those with minimal photography experience and for those with years of photography experience who are wanting to narrow down their skills, this course is perfect for those with a passion for making others happy.

 

6. Wedding Photography Course Online (Shaw Academy)

  • Level: All levels
  • Completion time: 4 weeks
  • Cost: Free
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 5,000
  • Course rating: 5/5

This Shaw Academy wedding photography course is a globally recognized and university certified course. Throughout the four-week course, you will learn how to find your style and distinguish yourself as a wedding photographer. You will discover how to plan pre-wedding, how a typical wedding day goes and how to shoot ceremony, couple, group and candid shots. You will also go over post production, presentation ideas and how to work professionally with clients.

This Shaw Academy tutorial takes longer than some other courses to complete. However, it allows you to up-skill at your own pace and tests your knowledge through a series of exams. For the price, this course really does offer an excellent deal!

 

7. Diploma in Wedding Photography (Institute of Photography)

  • Level: Intermediate & Advanced
  • Completion time: Up to 1 year
  • Cost: $650
  • Certification: Yes
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 20,000
  • Course rating: 5/5

This course is by far the most comprehensive out of the seven on this list. Although it is expensive, it covers every aspect of wedding photography in a HUGE amount of detail.  Suitable for those with photography experience, you will need to have access to photography equipment (e.g., a DSLR camera, lenses, tripod and editing software) in order to complete this course.

The diploma offers 130 in-depth units that cover everything you need to know about becoming a professional wedding photographer. Throughout your time studying this diploma, you will learn about marketing, website design, how to price your services, how to meet clients, what photos to take, how to take the photos (e.g., finding the correct light, the right composition, whether to use flash and how to organize people), post-production flow and how to present the photos to the happy couple! To measure your learning and success, you will complete graded assignments, comprehension tests and have chats with your tutor.

 

Conclusion

So, there you have it… the seven best wedding photography online tutorials.

There are an abundance of online classes available to help you get your skills up to scratch. Some are for advanced photographers, whereas others are for complete beginners. Some are quite expensive, whereas others a free.

However, they are all the crème de la crème of online wedding photography classes. So, it doesn’t matter too much which one you pick. You just need to ensure that whichever class you pick is suitable to your skill level, budget and time frame.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Table of Contents

Share this post: