How we research our guides
Our guides are built from data you can check: what the top-ranking guides agree on, prices that photographers and surveys publish, rules from official websites, and sun and weather data from NOAA. Every figure links to where it came from and carries the date we checked it.
1. Counting what the guides agree on
For a planning question such as “engagement photo ideas”, we take the guides that rank highest on Google, read each one, and count how many recommend each idea, pose or shot. A line like “12 of 14 guides” means exactly that. We publish the list of guides counted on each page.
- Couple poses: 17 posing guides.
- Engagement photo ideas: 14 guides; winter: 13.
- Wedding photo shot list: 15 shot lists.
- Courthouse wedding photos: 24 pages about real courthouse weddings.
- Wedding photo timeline: 15 timeline guides, counting only figures stated in minutes.
- First look: 8 guides, for the reasons for and against.
Search demand comes from keyword tools (US monthly searches) and is used to order ideas, never to invent them. A consensus count tells you what photographers commonly recommend, not what is right for every couple.
2. Prices: published sources, side by side
Wedding photographer cost shows each major survey and marketplace figure separately (The Knot, Zola, WeddingWire, Thumbtack) with what it measures, rather than averaging numbers that measure different things.
The engagement photo price index is our own compilation: 292 US photographers’ published prices across 40 metro areas, taken only from photographers’ own websites. We record numbers, not text or images, and publish medians and ranges, never individual businesses. The same sites gave 351 published wedding packages from 125 photographers, behind the package figures and the photo-count estimator on the wedding photographer cost page. Photographers who publish prices may differ from those who don’t, and the page says how many didn’t.
3. Rules: official websites, one row at a time
The photo permit guide covers 67 national parks, gardens and state park systems. Each row comes from that place’s own website, links to it, and shows the date we checked it. Rules change; when a page is unclear we say so instead of guessing, and we recommend confirming with the place before a shoot.
4. Computed: sun and weather
The golden hour calculator uses NOAA’s solar position equations and NOAA’s 1991–2020 climate normals (public domain), for every US city of 75,000 people or more (US Census). The timeline builder and the first look page combine those sun times with the median durations from the counted timeline guides. Nothing is estimated by hand; each page explains its rules.
5. Images
Example photos in our guides are AI-generated with fictional people and are labeled as such. They illustrate a pose or a setting; they are not evidence for any claim.
6. Who we are, and what we sell
Wedding Photos AI sells AI-generated engagement and wedding photos. We don’t take payment from photographers, venues, parks or brands to appear in a guide, and our product never changes a count or a price. When a guide mentions our product, it says so. More on the About page.
7. Updates and corrections
We re-check prices each spring, when The Knot publishes its Real Weddings Study, re-check permit rules each year before peak season, and re-count consensus guides when the rankings change. Each page shows when it was last checked. If you find an error, tell us and we will fix it and update the date.
8. Citing our data
Every dataset is downloadable as CSV on the data page, under CC BY 4.0. You are welcome to quote our figures with a link to the page they come from, for example: “Source: Wedding Photos AI, engagement photo price index, October 2026 (weddingphotosai.com/engagement-photo-cost).”