Wedding photographers – how much!??!?

Seriously I mean 2 grand? The cheapest we seem to be able to find is £500 and they don't appear to be any better than my mates who play at photography.

Am I missing something here? I know the kit is expensive but those rates are obscene.

And they expect to be fed! For 2 grand you can bring a packed lunch thank you very much.

Think I should be re-training…..

it's not just the work on the day, the post-production takes a lot of time as well… a few minutes an image, sometimes a lot more (like hours if you're a real perfectionist!) times that by hundreds of images and it's a lot of work…

I'd do it for three 20 year old bridesmaids and a Nebuchadnezzar?

and who's fault will it be if the 'cheap(er)' photographer does a crap job…

Either pay an expert a lot, or get a mate – nowhere in between.

We paid £500 for an expert and he was excellent so worth shopping about. Mind it was errr let see, ah nearly 9 years ago now but I bet he's still under £1k as his other prices haven't changed much.

MrNutt: had me googling there! Thats a lot of champagne!

Marsdenman on here is the fella to go for. Quite literally made our wedding, and the quality of the photography was amazing. Definitely worth every penny… 😉

And quite frankly, anyone who can make my hatchet-faced family look presentable could probably sort out world peace as well…

Ayup Chris! Hope you and the missus are grand!

We paid £1600 for a qualified and experienced member of the master photographers, they need to be stern and loud in order to organise the people and the particular photos you want doing. It's also about the album you want the piccis displaying in, our album alone was about £400 of that! Can't wait to get it!

My prices atart at £2.5K.
If you fail to feed me, you will find my contract states you will be charged £35, which is reasonable if I am going to be with you for up to 15hrs (more if required and with consultation) which is the time I give to every couple as part of each and every wedding package.
I am not loud nor stern.
If I am, I have failed you and what I do promise you. I will not raise my voice, I will not bully you, I will not pressure you. Although you are only the groom – the main focus is typically the bride.
I belong to no organisations nor societies – it's not necessary.
Do you want me to email over the booking form as dates are filling up fast for the rest of 2010.

They only get one chance to get it right. I'd bechecking they're downloading from card to laptop on the day to ensure no data lost. Oh and it doesn't have to be that dear, depends what you're looking for. It's also far cheaper abroad. We got married in Greece, the photographer was great, he gave us all the imageson disc plus an album ( granted the album was nowt fancy like some of the beautiful leather ones you can get) for less than 200quid

I should also add that I will actively raise my voice, I bully you and pressure you.

CHB – Member
MrNutt: had me googling there! Thats a lot of champagne!

I've had Nebuchadnezzars of beer before. Now that's a fun evening! Had one at Burghley Horse Trials one evening. As the sun went down, I was pouring the thing in to glasses and Princess Anne drove by. She motioned to her driver to stop. He did. She then wound down the window and said, "Enough to share?". We laughed, lots! She smiled, waved and drove off.

loads and loads and loads. One wanted £4500!!! Its worth paying a pro, but don't pay for the associated tat IMO. One guy (the 4.5k guy) would put all our photos on an ipod for us to keep? WTF? We paid about £250 in the end for a guy who took loads of great photos and just gave us a cd rom afterwards. You'll get loads of great shots from family as well (cos they just stand behind teh photographer and take the same shot!)

You will find the Book or Albums can make a huge difference to the finished product & the price.
Ones to look for are Graphistudio Wedding Books, Jorgensen and Queensbury and Albums Australia. There are others, some better than others.
In my case:
I give you all the images printed up to 6×4, typically you will own 1000+, depending on the day.
You have access to a web gallery and of course my happy, smiling face on the day.
With 500+ weddings under my belt, I have a fair idea of how to manage the wedding photography, cravats, corsages, you name it, I can mostly solve wedding day issues!

Here's a link to one G.S Wedding Book layout, all done long-hand in Photoshop.

My post grad' is in photojournalism, having freelanced for many national papers, The Independent, Observer, Sunday Times etc so my style and approach is self explanatory. I have no isseus with any guest following my lead – they might lean something, but they won't get the shots I get, of that I promise. I'm good!

I'll do it for 50 quid. I'll even bring 2 cameras so I'll look like a professional. I'll be a bit loud and abrasive but nothing too bad – it's the only way to control the proles, I've found. I will eat like a pig and probably drink a lot, so photos of the evening do might be a little on the experimental side, if I've not copped off with a bridesmaid. In which case I'll keep the photos of the evening do in my own personal stash. For the price you can pick any of the albums in the Boots 'less than a tenner' range. I will insist that both bride and groom wear grey, as it is much easier to photograph. Do you want me to cobble a booking form together and sent it through to you? Probably best you don't confirm dates with the wedding venue until you've checked I'm available – I'm pretty stacked out with work at the moment. Hell, I'm good. You won't be wanting me to wear a suit will you?

Ti29er – I'm sorry but you are way way out of my price range, we are attempting (badly) to keep the spend to a budget that won't mean we are financially crippled for the first few years of married life.

If you charge £2.5k a wedding then that's great for you, it's making me strongly consider that I should join the gravy train that is charging silly amounts of money to people getting married. Even if you only did on average 4 weddings a month you are clearing a substantial wage.

I still think insisting on food is a bit of a piss take. No other contractor I have ever employed for a multitude of services over the years has demanded I pay their lunch – I mean come on!

OK, 45 quid and I'll bring me own sandwiches?

You wait until you see how much they charge you for cake!

Bakers that is, not photographers.Obviously.

I gave up trying to control the budget for my wedding ages ago. One more month of being the hapless victim to this extortion racket to go…..

Hmmm just reread my post, seems unduly harsh – wasn't in any way supposed to be a personal attack, I expect the weddings that can afford your rates think you are worth every penny. I'm just truely gobsmacked at how much everything is…

Cake is being made by granny so thankfully I haven't had to worry about tripling that estimate.

I've only had 3 couples decide not to feed me or one of my team.
They all paid, but that's not the point.
The band will need feeding the moment they turn up and a free bar.
Mostly the venues I frequent factor it all in, or the wedding organiser or wedding coordinator has done so on my behalf.

I only drink tea and water on the day, and don't eat cake. You see, you're coming 'round to me!
I get first dibbs on the bridesmaids too. Or the mothers – whichever look most promising.

we went cheap and i could have done better plus he was f~@king rude to everyone.

i would say call up your local college and as if any photography students wanna do it. they'll do it for free and charge for prints i imagine. i did photography at college and people were doing it often.

Everybody involved in the wedding "racket" tout the same line: it's your big day, do you want risk NOT paying top dollar and getting some old cr*p ? Take some polaroids, get everybody a fish supper and then have a big party. With the millions you save either donate to DEC Haiti or, more sensibly, buy a new bike and have a belter of a honeymoon. I know that's what I (and the missus) would do if we had the chance again.

I am a wedding photographer and my average wedding is about £1500. I can understand how to member of the public it may seem like a lot of money for "just taking a few snaps" but trust me there is a lot of work around post production.

I will spend between 8 and 10 hours on my feet, I typically take between 1 and 2 thousand pictures, they need editing and then there is album design, the cost of the album, insurances, rent, tax, marketing, associated web fees trust me the amount of money that goes in my pocket from a £1500 wedding is not very much.

Like so much in life, you get what you pay for, i believe my work is worth £1500 there are a lot of togs out there that will charge you a 1/3 of that for the same thing.

Put it this way, you can buy a £200 full sus at halfords or £2k on a proper full sus. ergo – you get what you pay for.

Sorry Ti29er, with the exception of the first dance pics, that album does little for me.
Nice collage and layout though.

A friend at work had this guy:
http://www.randallweddings.co.uk/wedding_photos/wedding-photography-moments.html

Best I have seen in a long time.

ti29er

downloaded your sample pdf – not sure i like some of your layouts, but the shots themselves are stunning

now I know how you fund your ti29er 🙂

I mean £600 for a **** cake! That's eggs, flour, water, some currents and a bit of icing.

AND THAT'S THE ECONOMY OPTION!!

And MrsSP's mother can't have her precious daughter 'settling for the economy option' can she?

Yes. Six. Hundred. Pounds.

Surely quoting the amount of work involved is just a poor attempt to jusitfy the price. People don't pay for time, they pay for an end result. It should be "£4k becuase my photos are f*cking outstanding" not "£4k because I've spent ages on it". And if people are dumb enough to pay it then well done on a profitable business. And of course there is an element of assuming a £4k photographer is better than a £500 one.

When we got wed 8 years ago we ended up paying £900 for our wedding shots and album , as we were the photographers last wedding before he emigrated we got the negatives and all the preview album too.

I trained with my grandad for 5 years with a view to taking over the family business then when he retired he sold all his gear under my nose without so much as a thank you! , If he'd wanted someone to carry his gear he should've said from the off , but never mind that's in the past and we don't talk anymore.

It's beyond me why you would need to take 1-2 thousand pictures , surely if you position your subjects properly there's no need. when I did weddings with my grandad he rarely used more than 6 rolls of film (medium format Bronica's) thats 90 shots , IMO it's not really a professional job if you need to take thousands of shots to get the results you need , I'm not really a big fan of the avant garde style of wedding photgraphy myself much prefer a traditional wedding album.

It all depends on what you want.
I'd been to plenty of weddings before I got married and knew what I didn't want;a photographer taking over the day, keeping guests waiting for up to 2 hours while he took the different staged group shots( no offence to photographers on here but this had been my experience on many occasions.)
I wanted my wedding day to flow naturally, not to be just one long staged photo-shoot.
We had a family friend offer to do ours as a wedding present. He spent about 10 minutes doing the staged groups after the ceremony, and then just spent the rest of the time taking natural photos.
Me and my family took photos in the house in the morning.
We came back from honeymoon to receive about 200 great pictures.
We then spent the next few evenings having great fun putting them into an album of our choice along with other snaps sent to us from friends and family.
I do not regret at all not getting in a "professional".

But then I didn't have a 3-tier fancy cake, and my dress cost less than £250. I designed it myself, bought the fabric, and had a seamstress make it up for me.

Ti29er – Member

My prices atart at £2.5K.

Hence why he can afford to buy a Titanium 29er! What is it a Jones or something 😉

You can even pay way more that 4.5k if you want but I suspect that the pain would be too high. I've got to agree with both Angela and Ti29er here. You want someone good enough that they get all the right shots first time in minutes rather than messing around for hours and that will probably take two people, not one. You also want someone spending the time after to do the filtering and give you 200 great shots rather than a DVD of everything because you just know that no-one will ever delete the junk after so can you imagine how bad the photo 'showing' will be…

If you wouldn't flinch at hitting the pay button on CRC for the same as you are paying your photographer, you probably need to be paying more 😉

Kind of agree with carlsog, 2.5K for a wedding shot on a digital SLR is a peetake. I don't care how long you spend on photoshop afterwards. Its not exactly rocket science and I run a digital print & design company. I guess you have to be confident to command those prices.

Its not even like you have to shoot polaroid any more, its all on a high res screen right in front of you. If its poor you delete and repeat. Not even any lab processing or film cost these days.
Professional Advertising guys get paid less and are truly skilled. I did my time working for them. My advise shop around, don't think that by paying more you are guaranteeing a better outcome.

DO: remember to have the best day of your lives!

PS. The ad guys I worked for bought the client lunch!

I do between 7 and 10 weddings a year and start at £750 for CD, it usually works out at less than £10 per hour all in. Even on a £2K job most of it goes on albums and mounts and frames.

Probably the lowest paid profession, only celeb photogs get rich quick

Ti29er – nice pics but pretty terrible layout/design imo.

My Gran made our cake, we supplied the ingredients and she made it. I wouldn't have had it any other way, nice to have something the family did for your day.

Fotorat. I deal with a lot of photographers and I can assure you it's not a low paid profession. Most photographers I know do very well thank you.

pfft tightwad!

ok I'll drop my fee. however I will be requiring at least two cans of tizer and a watermelon.

You see.

Horses for courses!
Some like the shots. Some don't like the shots.
Some like the layouts. Some don't like the layouts.

You can't please all the people all the time, and you'd be a wally to try to.
I specialise in certain things. I offer a few options and people either subscribe to that or not.

Those who do not like my work don't book me. I learnt not to be bothered by this many, many moons ago. Rejection in whatever form is actually part of the business, what you must not do if offer up one portfolio of work and images and products and then produce something that is not in keeping with your portfolio.

I've turned dowwn 3 booked weddings on further consideration and discussions in the last 15 years, with at least 9 months before a wedding because the b&g have actually booked the wrong person- me. Never try and fit a round peg into a square hole.

I'll upload another example shortly….

http://www.yousendit.com/download/S1VEc0w0NHZENlJMWEE9PQ

http://download.yousendit.com/MVNmS3hkR0ZsMHgzZUE9PQ

If MrNutt could please upload his book.

Mrs G is keen.