Booking photography when the company approver is away

Approvals slow down when someone is on leave, travelling or in a long meeting cycle. The event date does not move, though. A short, clear process lets you keep things moving without committing before the right person has said yes.

This guide sits within our overview of booking event photography and agreeing the scope.

Who can authorise a photography booking?

Companies handle spending authority in different ways. Some have a single director who approves everything. Others have limits by amount or department, or require two signatures. Some treat photography as a small item, others as a marketing or events contract.

We do not know your internal rules, so we ask you. Before anything is confirmed, find out who may authorise this spend while the usual approver is away. It may be a named deputy, a finance manager, a committee chair or a second director. Our guide on corporate purchase orders and vendor onboarding covers the paperwork that often goes with it.

What can proceed while approval is pending?

Quite a lot can be done without committing. These steps are provisional and can safely continue:

1. Sharing the event brief, programme and venue details.
2. Asking questions about coverage, crew and deliverables.
3. Receiving a draft quotation to review.
4. Checking whether the date is available.
5. Preparing the information the approver will need to decide quickly.

What should wait is anything that treats the booking as agreed: paying a deposit, telling guests the photographer is confirmed, or planning around a crew that has not been confirmed in writing. Our guide on what makes a photography booking confirmed explains the difference.

How do you make the approval easy?

A busy approver, or a delegate who is unfamiliar with the event, needs a short summary. Prepare one page with the date, the venue, the coverage hours, what is included, the total in the quotation, the deadline and the decision wanted.

Our photography procurement brief builder helps organise this information. If the approver needs to compare options, our guide to what an event-photography quotation should include lists the items to check.

What if the date might be lost?

Photographers may have other bookings for the same day. If the approver cannot decide before another enquiry arrives, you may need a plan. Ask us whether a hold is possible and what it involves. Holds and tentative reservations differ from bookings, and the terms must be in writing. Our guide on date holds, tentative reservations and availability checks lists what to ask.

Be honest with us about your decision date. We cannot promise availability for a date until we have confirmed it with you in writing, but we can tell you where things stand.

An example scenario

For example, imagine a company's marketing manager is organising a staff dinner for 200 people in five weeks. The director who signs all contracts is overseas for ten days. The company's policy lets the finance manager approve spend up to a limit, and the quotation falls inside it.

The marketing manager sends us the brief and asks for a draft quotation, which arrives with a note that the booking is not confirmed. The finance manager reviews the quotation on day four and approves it by email, copying the director. The marketing manager forwards the approval to us, and we confirm the booking in writing.

How should the decision be recorded?

When the approver decides, ask for a short written message that names the person, the date and the quotation reference. If the approver is a delegate, mention their role. Forward it to us with the name of the day-to-day contact.

If the approver is still away and the delegate is acting, record that too. Our brief handover tracker is a place to keep the version of the brief and the approvals together. If circumstances change later, see our guide on assigning a backup contact.

What we confirm

We confirm the date, venue, crew, deliverables and quotation in writing, along with the name of the person who approved the booking. Until that approval arrives, we mark the booking as provisional so that both sides know where things stand.