Price, and why Photography is so darn expensive....

I'm sure you've looked around at the variety of photographers available for your wedding.  There are lots and lots and lots.  I'm sure you've also seen the great range of prices for these services too!  I've seen everything from $100 to over $20,000 to photograph a wedding!  I actually saw a listing for someone willing to photograph a wedding in exchange for a scooter! Wow!

Weddings are important, they are the start of a new life together, not something to be taken lightly.  The photography should reflect the impact of this event.  I'm guessing you aren't going to wear a ring made of tin foil, right?  It won't last, and it doesn't reflect the importance of your marriage.  Why in the world would you entrust the memories of this day to a "friend with a nice camera" or "a new photographer building their portfolio".

You get what you pay for.

It's easy to say that, but it really is true.  With most purchases we make, spending more gets us quality, while a "too good to be true" price usually is.  While the "For a limited time, only $19.99, but wait!  There's more!" types of purchases teach us good lessons about buying junk, wedding photography purchases are a much, much larger investment.  Many brides and grooms save a few dollars on the photography and think everything is just wonderful, until the wedding day, or after, when they see their photographs.  Then it's too late.  We can return that latest gadget, but you can't return your wedding photographs.  Once it's over, it's over.

I'm not saying you have to spend a fortune to get good photography either!

There are many great photographers that don't charge a fortune.  The average spent on wedding photography in the Tampa Bay Area in 2008 was $3300.  When you think that's the average, you begin to get the idea of about how much quality wedding photographers charge.

Still wondering how we can charge thousands of dollars for clicking a shutter?

Here's a breakdown of a typical wedding:

Pre-Wedding Consultation:  2 hours

Emails and Phonecalls leading up to wedding day: 2 hours (sometimes lots more!)

Prepping gear and researching facilities for the wedding: 2 hours (includes day of setup)

Actual time shooting on Wedding Day: 8 hours (typical wedding coverage)

Travel and "Show up Early" time:  2 hours

OK, so far we are at 16 hours, and all we have is a bunch of full memory cards.

After the wedding.......

Download and backup images: 2 hours

Pre-posting sneak peek on blog:  1 hour

Editing and Processing wedding images:  8 hours

Preparing proofs for internet and posting to web site:  2 hours

Preparing proofs for Proof Book and ordering Proof Book:  2 hours

Creating disks, and mailing proofs and disks:  1 hour

OK, that's another 16 hours, so we are at 32 hours, and we still haven't done an Album!

Albums take a very long time and it varies from bride to bride.  I personally like them to be separate purchases from the wedding photography.

So, 32 hours.  That's an average, of course.  Some are more, some are less.  This also does not take into account these things:

Cost of the actual materials, postage, etc.

Cost of paying assistants

Insurance for our gear and liability (required by many venues)

Cost of our gear (including computers, and keeping backups of your images!)

Gas and wear and tear on our vehicles

Now add into all this that there are only so many Saturdays in a year and some of them are holidays that no one would get married on or near.

Once it's all figured out, we really aren't that expensive, most of us just want to earn an honest living.

The photographers you see charging very high rates only do it because the market allows them to.  The folks charging nominal figures are only doing it because they don't know any better or are using the excuse, "I'm still learning, so I can't charge like a pro".  Guess what, if they are not a pro, they shouldn't be charging at all, and why would you want to hire them to do the job of a professional?  Wedding photographs are not for today, or tomorrow, they are for the rest of our lives.  Hmmm, that's a long time, something worth a bit of investment?

Something to think about.......

-B