Wedding Photography Before and After

Wedding Photography Before and After

In this digital age, you quite often get exactly what you pay for when it comes to selecting a wedding photographer. There is a big difference when it comes to selecting a part-time or contract photographer versus a highly trained full-time professional wedding photographer.

Without a referral, choosing a wedding photographer is not an easy task. These days, everywhere you look, somebody seems to be a “wedding photographer”. Statistics show that the average wedding photographer stays open for business for just two and one-half years.

Joannie & I are the owners and the only photographers at Michael Anderson Photography. We’ve been the husband and wife wedding photography team and wedding photography experts for more than 31 years.

We are also the world’s only Light Painting Wedding Photographers that create full scene light paintings at weddings.

For some couples, it might be a person they know that has a “nice camera.” Maybe a family friend or a coworker offers to take the pictures perhaps to get started in the business or as a wedding present.

To others, they make they’re buying decision-based on price, or getting the least expensive one that they can find. Maybe choosing a big company with lots of “shooters” that they just simply assign to a wedding and hope they show up and also hope they do a good job. Sometimes you just don’t know how to choose, so price becomes the deciding factor.

Then there are the full-service professional photography studios. Yes, we are still around. The professionals with countless of hours of training and years of experience in the challenging real world of wedding photography. They’ve seen it all and are prepared for it. Joannie & I fall into that category.

The time to find out that you should have hired a more experienced wedding photographer is NOT on your wedding day!

On that note, this Wedding Photography Gallery contains great examples of wedding photography before and after images. It showcases the vision and the care we take in creating your finished wedding photographs for all of your wedding albums and custom prints.

These are the actual digital negatives from real weddings and the magic that I apply to them prior to making your custom prints or album design. As great as digital cameras are these days, it still takes a lot of skill and knowledge to properly pose and light a wedding photograph. It takes even more skill to turn them into exceptional wedding images and many times that happens after the wedding day.

Wedding photography before and after is a gallery of some of our wedding photographs showing you the difference in what the camera actually captures (before) and my artistic vision and post-production skills that produced the final image (after). Some enhancements are very subtle, while other images get major revisions, like removing people and/or background distractions or actually combining two or more different images to create one much better one!

It’s very important for you to know that each and every single print and album image is retouched and enhanced in one way or another using any or all of the following techniques; examples are blemish removal, wrinkle reduction, stray hair removal, whitening teeth and eyes, and even subtle weight reduction!

That’s just one of the services that we provide for you as a full-time professional photography studio versus most of the part-time and “big box” photography companies out there. I take the time to make your wedding images the best that they can be because I believe that’s why you’re hiring a real professional photographer in the first place.

You only do this once, so why not do it right?

By the way, the same care is taken on all of our portraits we produce. Engagement photos, maternity portraits, babies pictures, kids portraits, family photos, high school seniors portraits, pets photos; it doesn’t matter. I retouch and enhance each and every print we produce for our clients. And then it’s printed on one of Kodak’s Professional Papers for the very finest archival print possible.


Here’s what some of our brides & grooms had to say about their wedding photography experience with us:


“If you’re looking for an amazing photographer or two, look no further Michael and Joannie Anderson is your pair!

Michael shot our engagement session last April. After viewing all of our photos I knew we made the right decision with Michael and Joannie!

Wedding light painting photography of a bride & groom kissing in a heart made from sparklers. Image taken at The Hitchin' Post wedding of Jay & Vanessa in New Richmond, WI.

Fun with sparklers!

They showed up before scheduled on our wedding day and began capturing all sorts of moments! They had no problems swatting mosquitos in the tall grass while snapping away! Throughout the whole wedding day, Michael only showed me one sneak peek picture and I couldn’t believe it!

We just received our photos and they are more then I dreamed! They are stunning. Looking through all 600+ of our photos brings me to tears, how will I ever choose?! They do amazing work and go above and beyond! Thanks for everything!”

Crystal & Andy – on The Knot


“Mike and Joannie were the photographers for our October 2016 wedding and WOW did they exceed our expectations! Their professionalism and attention-to-detail was evident from the very beginning. Whether it was meeting at their home studio to discuss what we wanted, to Mike showing up weeks ahead to “scout” the venue (his idea!).

Wedding party photo taken from Indian Mounds Regional Park in St. Paul, MN. Downtown St. Paul is in the distant background.

The wedding party with downtown St. Paul in the background.

The day of the wedding, Mike and Joannie were calm, relaxed, and in control of everything and anything related to capturing our day. We recommend Mike and Joannie to all of our friends and family!”

Colleen & Charlie – on Wedding Wire


“Michael and Joannie photographed our wedding this past fall, and they were absolutely wonderful! These two are true professionals who gave us the photographs we were dreaming of. Having the two of them there taking pictures provided us with an exceptional amount of both traditional and candid shots, and they really captured all of our memories throughout the day.

In addition to being excellent photographers, Michael and Joannie are wonderful people to be around. Getting to know them during our engagement pictures, wedding weekend, and photo review sessions was truly a joy. They effortlessly made us feel comfortable during our photographs, and got along extremely well with our family (all of whom raved about how wonderful our photographers were at the wedding).

Semple Mansion Wedding Photos. Bride, groom and all of their wedding guests in front of the grand staircase at Semple Mansion in Minneapolis, MN

Patrick and Brittany pictured with all of their wedding guests in front of the Grand Staircase at Semple Mansion.

We could not have asked for two better people to share our once in a lifetime weekend with, and will definitely be using them again for photographs in the future! “Michael and Joannie were such a treat to work with.

Not only were they so nice and enjoyable to have on our wedding day, but during the ceremony I didn’t even notice they were there! “

Patrick and Brittany – on The Knot


“Michael and Joannie are two very special wedding photographers who have our highest recommendation.

Since they have been working together for years, they are able to work seamlessly together to capture every moment from your day. Michael takes the time to learn about your wishes, research your venue, and capture beautiful photos.

A very pretty, scenic wedding party photo taken at Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard in Jordan, MN

The wedding party at Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard.

Not only are they phenomenal photographers, they are even more special people! Michael and Joannie made everyone feel so comfortable which is very important since they spend the day with you! We will be using Michael Anderson Photography for all of our future photography needs!”

Katelyn & Chris – on Wedding Wire


Will and Charlie had this to say:

“My, now husband, and I chose Michael Anderson Photography because of the wonderful portfolio that we had seen and also from reviews that we had heard from others who had gone through the same service.

We knew that Michael was highly recommended, but he blew us away with the amount of professionalism he displayed and also the amount of talent he has. He captured the best moments of our wedding and listened to our ideas for photos as well.

We are incredibly grateful to have had Michael photographing our wedding and would highly recommend him to other couples looking for a talented, professional, and open photographer.”

Will & Charlie – Married June 2014


Please check out many more referrals here and actual wedding day memories from some of our brides here.

“Wedding Photography Before and After” ©2019 Michael Anderson Photography.