This a question I have touched on before in these ramblings, but having just revised my own package costs and added an "a la carte" option, I thought it might be time to come back to the How Much question.
Unlike some photographers, I am quite open about my fees (
the curious can click here - I find a lot of "the curious" turn out to be other photographers!) - I prefer to be up-front about fees for a couple of reasons: it cuts down the number of inquiries that are never going to result in business, it gives people a basis for comparison, and it lets potential clients concentrate on my photography, rather than on whether or not they can afford my services.
You would be surprised how often customers walk away from shops or merchants who are not prepared to put the price on their products. My wife, Jean is really hot on this - she simply won't ask "how much?" and while I am prepared to ask, I generally won't if there is someone else who is forthcoming about their prices.
Why? Well, you can't help being a bit suspicious about hidden prices (
I can't, anyway) and the nagging feeling that if you have to ask, it is going to be expensive. Then there's that sort of anticipatory embarrassment that says, if I ask and then say it's too much, I am going to sound cheap, or poor, or maybe I'll offend the merchant, or be challenged to defend my opinion, or perhaps feel humiliated.
All foolish, perhaps, but not a position I ever want put a client into.
So, what dollar value should you anticipate for your wedding photographs? There are plenty of places where someone will offer a simple answer to that question. Wedding Magazines, Catalogues and Directories always plump for a percentage of the total cost of your wedding, typically 20%, although I see 10% cited now and then. On that basis if your budget is $20,000 then photography would cost between $2000 and $4000. That may be helpful if you actually have a clear idea of your budget far enough in advance.
Really organised people will, but how can you budget until you have some figures to work with?
Very often the process is well advanced with a great deal of money outlayed before a realistic budget emerges - "we have spent $xxx - how much do we have left?" - and photographers are not often the first person on the bride's list; we are often paid for out of what is left after the "essentials" have been committed - the Church, Reception Hall, Catering....the Dress!
It's another problem if the couple have different fiscal priorities to the people footing the bill. It may be increasingly common for families to share wedding expenses, and for the groom and bride to bear part of the expense - even guests contribute in some circumstances (which is why I offer gift certificates), but photography is a very personal decision and it can be hard if your heart is set on a particular photographer and the bill-payer wants you to ask Uncle Phil or that fellow who advertises "Great wedding photography for $33 per hour"
Ten percent might be reasonable if your base is $20 or $30K, but what if your spend is $8000? A photographer's fixed costs are - well,
fixed. $800per wedding is not going to cover insurance, samples, lighting, cameras, computers, other equipment, maintenance, depreciation, travel, rental, assistants etc. let alone their time on the wedding day and after, which means that, for $800 or less you are going to hire either an amateur trying to make some pocket money, a student, someone with no experience trying to build a portfolio or someone who took some nice pictures on holidays and thinks this is an easy way to make a living.
No, that doesn't guarantee a bad job - everything might work out fine, but these (so called) photographers don't carry the back-up camera bodies,additional fast lenses, dedicated lighting gear and other fail safes to be able to deal with dear old Murphy's Law. And if ever the rule applies, it is on a one-time only event like a wedding. So part of what you are paying for is experience and resilience to deal competently - invisibly -with what might otherwise be a disaster in the hands of a week-end warrior. Should something go wrong you do not want to be left on your own - like the lass who phoned me last Friday looking for someone to replace the wedding photographer who let her down
one day before her wedding. When something goes wrong, a professional has the resources and the contacts to rescue the situation (and yes, I was able to find her a competent photographer.... but I wish she hadn't hired on the basis of cheap and cheerful in the first place).
Another simple (simplistic?) approach to working out how much you should pay is to look for an hourly rate. While you will commonly see $50 or even $30 per hour quoted, the appropriate rate is currently $150 per hour. Be careful, though. Do not be tempted to say "I have $600 left, so I will hire the photographer for 4 hours." Which 4 hours? The ceremony is an obvious place for the photographer (that is about 90 minutes from when the groom arrives until the time the greetings, congratulations and group photos are done. Travel directly to the reception venue, spend 15 of 20 minutes prior to the formal entrance and you have roughly 2 hours left of the photographer's time. Unless you have your speeches, first dance, etc all clumped together at the very start, your photographer will have finished before the cake is cut or the bouquet thrown! No bridal party photos, no preparations, and a lot of the time shooting very little.
The other problem with working out what to pay on an hourly rate is that much of the photographer's work happens after the wedding day, and if you pay a bargain basement price, you offer no incentive to the photographer to invest the many hours necessary to complete the work. In fact, a pert-time photographer with a "real" job will not have the time to finish your photos properly - for every hour spent shooting, there is another three required to get you files to a professional, print-ready standard.
You need to be sure that the photographer will make a real investment in this post-production aspect of the work. It is where most of the "magic" happens - really, the photos taken on the day are only the raw material that a photographer uses to produce your wedding memories: $150 per hour over a typical 10 hour wedding day is really just short of $40 per hour over the entire period spent working on your behalf. A $50 per hour photographer finishes as soon as he gets home and burns your photos to a disk.
There has to be a better way of working out what you should expect to spend for the only aspect of the whole wedding day that lasts as long as your rings. Coming from the other side of the equation, this is how I figure it out what I think you should pay ...but do I know what you can afford? Well actually, I do in a way....
We have been living through a period when people have been very careful about their finances. This should be reflected in careful decisions about just what my clients decide they really want in their wedding packages. I think that should give an insight into what is not just available, but both desirable and affordable.
So I reviewed all the weddings I have photographed over the last two years of the Global Financial Crisis, and listed the most sought-after products - the most popular combinations and types of albums, multimedia productions, enlargements and so on. I looked at the average spend, and the typical spend, which turned out to be quite similar. I was really interested to see what brides and grooms actually wanted.... what were their most valued products based on where they allocated their dollars. Since all of my packages are flexible (you can add or remove anything you want), that gave me a pretty clear picture of what people wanted and made sure they could afford. I also took the time to compare my experience with those of my colleagues. I discovered some items that I considered as "special orders" were actually becoming something of a trend...Hybrid albums, for instance.
And then I took this information and translated it into new packages, returned to my suppliers, looking at what they and their competitors were able to offer that people really wanted.
Thankfully, I found that my main suppliers were already the best at what they did and great value, but I had to add a few new suppliers to my vendor list and one has, sadly, been dropped - I have had to set up a new review system, too, to make sure I don't lose touch with the trends, the standards or the prices.
So, what should you be paying? I can offer my current package list as a good starting point for working out what you should expect to pay and what you should expect to receive. Not too many working photographers will have lower overheads, so cheaper is not likely to be better, and a lot of very reputable wedding photographers, especially those with high-cost studios to maintain and staff to pay, will naturally need to charge more - but not a lot more, I hope.
I am NOT saying that people who charge more than I do are overcharging, just that my fees may offer useful guidelines. And I am certainly not suggesting anyone should drop their present photographer and come to me instead - I can handle only so many weddings or portrait sessions in a year; and besides, wedding photography should never be just about money It's about reputation, style, personality and your relationship with your wedding photographer. Those qualities are worth a very great deal...something I have
not been able to cost!
Four weddings in 5 weeks leading into Christmas has meant too little attention to this blog: my apologies to everyone for that. To make up for the quiet weeks I want to offer a few images from those busy days. That's a "thank you" to my lovely brides and a gift of beauty to all my readers.
Two of these recent weddings were part of the "Second Time Around" series - we think people who choose to remarry, especially a little later in life - are a very special group, and we think very carefully about their photography and how it should be managed. The more mature bride has a different kind of beauty and qualities that set her apart from the more typical twenty-something bride, and she deserves to have those qualities displayed and recognised. 
Couples in this situation also have different attitudes and expectations to those entering into marriage for the first time, but they come to a "new" marriage from many different places in life - from divorce, from widowhood; with wonderful past relationships and from social and personal tragedy. Often there are adult children from both sides whose feelings have to be considered very carefully. That also affects how we approach our role in recording their wedding day: it is a special responsibility to the families as well as to the couple.
Unlike some of my colleagues, I will not include photographs of professional models in my portfolio. There isn't anything wrong with the practice, but all the photos that appear in this blog and in other sites I contribute to are from real weddings. The trouble is that I have been having trouble convincing some people that Chantelle and Michelle are not professional models hired for a "wedding shoot". They are not - but I have to admit it is very easy to why I have been "accused". 
They and so many other have made 2010 a wonderful year to be a wedding photographer. I am taking a break now - no more bookings until mid January. 
