01The enquiry form: date and place first
A couple comparing photographers wants three answers fast: do they shoot my kind of wedding, are they free on my date, and roughly what does it cost. Put the date at the top of the enquiry form and keep the form to date, place, name and a way to reply. Everything else can come in the first message. Say on the page how quickly you answer and who answers. A form that asks for a guest count, a budget and a mood board before any reply loses the couples who are writing to other photographers the same evening.
- Four fields: wedding date, venue or city, name, phone or email
- A line saying when they will hear back, and from whom
- Package names and starting prices as text on the page, not a PDF
- A free-dates calendar that blocks booked days is a separate build, covered below
02A portfolio that loads on a phone
A photographer has a hard page-speed problem, because the product is large images. Google's image guidance says images are often the largest part of a page's size, and recommends current formats and responsive images. Google Search supports WebP and AVIF, and a srcset lets a phone download a small file instead of the full-size original. Google's Core Web Vitals guidance asks for a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, measured at the 75th percentile. Do not lazy-load the first image people see: web.dev says not to lazy-load images likely to be in view at load, especially the LCP image. Lazy-load the rest.
- One strong first image, sized for the screen and loaded straight away
- Every image below the first screen lazy-loaded
- WebP or AVIF with a normal fallback, and several sizes per image
- Fewer, better frames per page: our advice, tested by opening the page on your own phone
03A page per wedding, written like a short story
A gallery of 40 anonymous photos tells a couple little. A page for one real wedding does more: the venue, the season, what the couple wanted, how the day ran, three lines in your voice. That is also how a venue name or a city gets onto your site as text, which Google can read. Google's image guidance tells you to write informative alt text, use short descriptive file names and place images near relevant text. Show only weddings where the couple agreed, and quote only reviews that exist. Write each page once, and add a new one when a wedding is worth showing.
- Venue, season, what the couple wanted, three lines in your voice
- Alt text that describes the photo, and short descriptive file names
- Only weddings where the couple agreed, and only reviews that exist
- A button to the enquiry form at the end of every wedding page
04Where PROOF48 is the wrong choice for a photographer
Client-gallery delivery is a different product. Private password-protected galleries, proofing, downloads and print sales are what specialist gallery platforms do, and we neither build nor resell one. Keep that platform for delivery and let your PROOF48 site link to it. A live calendar that blocks booked dates, with online contracts and deposits, is a web app from 5,000 EUR with its own timeline, and larger or custom projects may need a deposit as set out in our terms. Selling prints or albums with a cart and checkout is a store, 2,500 to 4,500 EUR, not the 48-hour offer. A page for every wedding goes past five pages and is scoped separately, and we give you the number before we build. If your gallery platform's own website already loads fast and has a form, you may not need us.
- Private galleries, proofing, downloads, print sales: a gallery platform, not us
- Live calendar with contracts and deposits: a web app, from 5,000 EUR
- Prints or albums with cart and checkout: a store, 2,500 to 4,500 EUR
- A page per wedding past five pages: scoped separately, number given before we build
Not a photographer: a hotel with a gallery and an enquiry flow
None of our eight written-up builds is a photographer. The closest is Santorini Hotel in Eforie Nord: a public website with rooms, a gallery and contact details, plus a booking enquiry flow. A hotel and a wedding photographer share the same problem. The pictures are the product, and the visitor wants to ask about a date. We do not publish the hotel's booking figures, and we have no photographer results to quote.
See the build: Santorini HotelQuestions, answered
How many photos should a portfolio page show?
Google gives no number. The limit is how fast the page loads on a phone, so show fewer, better frames, load the first image straight away and lazy-load the rest. Open the page on your own phone and judge it.
Can the site show which dates are still free?
A line of text such as which seasons still have openings fits the 48-hour site. A live calendar that blocks a date the moment someone books is a web app with its own scope and price.
Can PROOF48 host my private client galleries?
No. That is what specialist gallery platforms are for. Your PROOF48 site links to the platform you already use.
Do I pay anything before I see the site?
Not for the standard 48-hour site: you pay after the preview. Larger or custom projects may require a deposit as agreed, which is set out in our terms.
Where PROOF48 fits
A wedding photographer's site books dates when the enquiry form asks for the date and place first, the first image loads straight away and the rest wait their turn, and each wedding has its own page. Gallery delivery stays on a gallery platform. PROOF48 builds up to about five pages in 48 hours for 500 to 2,500 EUR, and you pay only after the preview.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.