Does wedding photography seem expensive to you?

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Claire
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… said the wed­ding blog­ger as she tipped the worms out of her tin. But no, I’m not try­ing to rat­tle any cages or have a big dis­cus­sion today. A lit­tle while ago I read a really thought-provoking com­ment on my wed­ding indus­try blog post and it really got me think­ing. This is a ques­tion I was ask­ing myself — and with the help of some great friends I like to think we’ve answered it for you.

Photo credit: Fiona Camp­bell Lon­don www.fionacampbelllondon.com

Under­stand­ing wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy prices

Let me start at the begin­ning. I was intrigued by a blog com­ment about wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy pric­ing from the lovely Fiona Camp­bell. Fiona Camp­bell is a respected Lon­don wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher whose work has fea­tured in Vogue and across top wed­ding blogs. Fiona shoots wed­dings in the UK and Europe, and her 2012 prices start from £1750 for wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. Fiona com­mented that many brides and grooms expect to find a top wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher for £1000 — but that often they’re sur­prised by prices closer to £2000.

Is £2000 expen­sive for wed­ding photography?

Fiona’s blog com­ment made some inter­est­ing points:

  • A wed­ding photographer’s work has to be 100% right every sin­gle time
  • “We can­not have an off day, because our off day is some­one else’s big day”
  • Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers work week­ends and have high overheads

On Fiona’s web­site she also explains that “a large vol­ume of back­room work goes on behind the scenes and this is reflected in the price” for her wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. And this is the part I think cou­ples often need help to really appreciate.

Fiona believes that wed­ding plan­ners could play an impor­tant role in rais­ing aware­ness of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy pric­ing — and in edu­cat­ing cou­ples “in how to get what is right for them, what to expect and how much they should expect to pay for it. I think it is only by strength­en­ing the role of the plan­ners that you will strengthen the indus­try.… a plan­ner knows who they like to work with and who will do a good job, and they know what is reason­able to pay them.”

wedding photograph

Photo credit: Fiona Camp­bell Lon­don www.fionacampbelllondon.com

Rais­ing aware­ness of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy pricing

It makes sense: a wed­ding plan­ner will have worked with dif­fer­ent pho­tog­ra­phers and under­stand the prices and options avail­able to brides and grooms. I also appre­ci­ate that many wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers aren’t com­fort­able sell­ing or hav­ing to jus­tify their prices — and that’s fair enough. If you’re cre­ative, you’re prob­a­bly not a born sales­man or woman!

I asked my friend Julie from The Wed­ding Genie her thoughts on wed­ding plan­ners ‘edu­cat­ing’ cou­ples about the price of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. Julie’s response was to focus on the bride and groom: in a nut­shell, the wed­ding plan­ner’s role is to help source the best sup­pli­ers, at the best prices, for each couple’s budget.

wedding photo

Wed­ding photo credit: Jo Hast­ings (wed­ding planned by The Wed­ding Genie)

The role of the wed­ding planner

When I emailed Julie — my Wed­ding Genie! (seri­ously — I love her!) — she’d just met with a recently-engaged cou­ple. She told me, “One of the first things I asked them was what were their pri­or­i­ties for their plan­ning. What do they cat­e­gor­i­cally have to have to make their wed­ding day as won­der­ful as they imag­ine it to be?

Pho­tog­ra­phy was high on their list but they had been talk­ing to recently mar­ried friends and could not believe the cost involved. In their heads they thought about £500 –600. They started to look and found noth­ing really in that cat­e­gory. They don’t like the very arty con­tem­po­rary shots but wanted some­one to cap­ture their day and their per­son­al­ity and have lovely images. They loved the idea of reportage; they did not want to spend hours being posed or spend hours with for­mal shots.

A wed­ding planner’s respon­si­bil­ity to couples

My role I think here was to explain why a pho­tog­ra­pher costs this much and what they do for their money. In reply to Fiona’s com­ment, I agree it’s up to us to edu­cate our clients. BUT even for me there is a cer­tain ceil­ing that I think every­day cou­ples can pay for their pho­tog­ra­pher. I am employed to make sure that this lovely cou­ple spend their money on the right peo­ple, and get the right pack­age that suits them. All cou­ples are dif­fer­ent: some are not that inter­ested in pho­tog­ra­phy so it’s my role to help them bud­get for their own pri­or­i­ties. We have sin­gled pho­tog­ra­phy out here but it could just be the case for edu­ca­tion in other areas such as flow­ers etc.

The real value of wed­ding sup­pli­ers: a per­sonal thing

I don’t meet cou­ples on a daily basis who have £15-20k to spend on a wed­ding. When cou­ples are sur­prised by wed­ding sup­plier prices it’s part of my role to explain the value of great sup­pli­ers and why they are this much. For exam­ple I was asked to look for a par­tic­u­lar group the cou­ple had seen at a func­tion and they were bril­liant, the price was £900: to me an excel­lent price for the cal­i­bre of enter­tain­ment. My clients’ first reac­tion was, “oh my god that’s £300 for a cou­ple of hours work”. I then had to advise them that yes, 2 x 45 minute ses­sions was what they were deliv­er­ing but they have to travel to the venue and per­haps set up two or three hours before the gig and then take an hour to pack at the end. I also showed a sim­i­lar group for £550 and the cou­ple came back straight away say­ing “ah yes I can see what I am pay­ing for”.

Julie’s advice opened my eyes to lots of things. A wed­ding plan­ner can cer­tainly help cou­ples to under­stand prices for sup­pli­ers — and an expe­ri­enced plan­ner can guide you to choose the best wed­ding ven­dors within your bud­get. If there are ser­vices such as pho­tog­ra­phy which seem expen­sive, then a plan­ner can help to show you why, and talk through pri­or­i­ties with you to aid you in mak­ing the right deci­sion for you.

Julie added, “It is not a wed­ding planner’s role to sell indi­vid­ual pho­tog­ra­phers: it’s up to them to por­tray to my client why they are charg­ing that price. As long as my clients go and see them with enough infor­ma­tion I feel I’ve helped them to make an informed deci­sion. Every­one I send my cou­ples to is a superb pro­fes­sional with prices that I think are fair, good value and worth their ser­vice. Most expen­sive is in my opin­ion is not the best nor is the cheap­est, it is what is right for them. I rec­om­mend peo­ple who will pro­duce what they say they will and make the wed­ding jour­ney a really good one. I teach my clients that it is all about this and work­ing with car­ing, tal­ented peo­ple who will make their day spe­cial. You do have to pay for that level of ser­vice.”

I love Julie’s per­spec­tive. A wed­ding plan­ner can share their own insight into pho­tog­ra­phers’ pric­ing, but ulti­mately it’s up to the wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher to por­tray why they’re charg­ing a cer­tain amount. 

And that’s what it all boils down to. Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers charge dif­fer­ent prices across the coun­try, for dif­fer­ent styles and expe­ri­ence lev­els. I could try to break down the basic price of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy and jus­tify it (I may even do so with the help of a cou­ple of pho­tog­ra­phers… you never know!) but it’s not about that.

In my mind I was mulling over the price of Tesco’s finest vs designer t-shirts. It’s a sim­i­lar story with huge vari­a­tions in price for a bit of mate­r­ial, print, stitch­ing, pack­ag­ing and mar­ket­ing. The cost price to the man­u­fac­tur­ers will be sim­i­lar for the two t-shirts. But the value of each one is down to per­cep­tion: your perception.

future of vintage bridal shoot

Photo credit: Jonny Draper

If wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy seems expen­sive to you, read this

I asked Man­ches­ter wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Jonny Draper for his thoughts on the price of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. When he emailed them to me, I replied, “You beauty. Thanks Jonny — a bril­liantly writ­ten response that cov­ers every­thing swish­ing around in my head… it’s com­mon sense but beau­ti­fully argued.” See what you think!

Do cou­ples need wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy prices explain­ing to them? Are pho­tog­ra­phers’ prices really com­pli­cated to understand?

Jonny Draper — “I don’t actu­ally think I’ve got the defin­i­tive answer for you — because I don’t think it actu­ally exists! I think the prob­lem is that as with any­thing cre­ative, every­thing around pho­tog­ra­phy is so subjective.

What is the ‘per­fect’ photograph?

And if it is the ‘per­fect’ pho­to­graph is it worth 100 times more than any other pho­to­graph that’s ever been taken?

groom in crisp white shirt

Photo credit: Jonny Draper Pho­tog­ra­phy www.jonnydraper.co.uk

The answers to those two ques­tions are:

1) There’s no such thing. It’s only per­fect to the peo­ple that it needs to be per­fect to. Whether that’s the pho­tog­ra­pher real­is­ing a vision or a bride and groom ecsta­tic as this par­tic­u­lar pho­to­graph cap­tures every­thing about their amaz­ing day.

2) Prob­a­bly not. No mat­ter how much the bride and groom love this par­tic­u­lar pho­to­graph, they are unlikely to pay a pre­mium for it. No mat­ter how much the pho­tog­ra­pher thinks it’s the best pho­to­graph in the world, he’s unlikely to be able to demand 100 times the price that he would nor­mally charge.

(Please under­stand that I’m mak­ing a cou­ple of very sweep­ing and gen­er­alised state­ments that are in no way meant to spark argu­ments about tech­ni­cal aspects of per­fect pho­tog­ra­phy, etc.)

We’re all dif­fer­ent so we value wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy differently

So where does this leave us? I think it leaves us with the same old prob­lem. Dif­fer­ent peo­ple attach dif­fer­ent val­ues to dif­fer­ent things. In life, not just in wed­dings! Some peo­ple like to drive round in expen­sive cars. Oth­ers see cars as an ‘It gets me from A to B’ type thing, so why would they spend a for­tune on the car itself, the tax, the insur­ance, the fuel, etc. when they can run some­thing for a quar­ter of the price.

With wed­dings, some peo­ple find the venue the most impor­tant thing. That’s where the major­ity of the bud­get goes and what­ever they’re left with gets divided up between the other things they need. Other peo­ple love flow­ers, some love live music and for some it’s pho­tog­ra­phy. Some brides and grooms are lucky enough that they can afford all the things that they want, but I sus­pect for the pur­poses of this con­ver­sa­tion we’re not look­ing at brides and grooms that have an end­less budget…

The deci­sion to spend on your wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy is all yours

So what if pho­tog­ra­phy isn’t the most impor­tant thing to a bride and groom? How do you make them realise just how impor­tant it is? Sadly, in an unreg­u­lated indus­try, I don’t think you can. You can try to ‘edu­cate’ brides and grooms when they come to see you about poten­tially shoot­ing their wed­ding, but for me per­son­ally, when I meet peo­ple, I don’t want to scare­mon­ger them into book­ing me. I want them to book me because they want to book me. And if I’m out of their bud­get, then I try to intro­duce them to some­one who I know is a great pho­tog­ra­pher, but is within their budget.

The real value of a wed­ding photographer

I’m very lucky in that all my brides and grooms value what they’re pay­ing me for. But I think that comes down to a whole dif­fer­ent thing.

It’s about who you’re work­ing with, other great sup­pli­ers whose work is amaz­ing and is highly val­ued (I’m not talk­ing nec­es­sar­ily about high-end, expen­sive sup­pli­ers, I’m talk­ing about excit­ing, inspi­ra­tional sup­pli­ers who get their brides and grooms excited about all aspects of their day and not just the part that they’re being paid for).

Lis­ten to advice from your friends and family

Once you break into a cir­cle of friends or fam­ily and do a few wed­dings for the same sets of peo­ple, it’s amaz­ing the sto­ries you hear. “Wow. My sister’s wed­ding last year was a night­mare because of the pho­tog­ra­pher, etc. I wish we’d found you for theirs as well — let me intro­duce you to my friends who are get­ting married…”

If you do a great job for dis­cern­ing peo­ple (and again, by dis­cern­ing I don’t mean dis­cern­ing in a big spend­ing kind of way, dis­cern­ing in an ‘everything’s impor­tant to us’ kind of way) then they will do the edu­cat­ing of their friends and fam­ily for you.

A break­down of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy prices?

I could do the break­down thing for you, why I charge £2k as a start­ing point, what that cov­ers (expenses, edit­ing time, what my images actu­ally cost per pho­to­graph once you divide my fee between the num­ber of images I take, etc.) but I have to be hon­est — it’s because I think what I do for my clients is worth it. Sim­ple as.

I had a phone call recently from a bride enquir­ing as to my avail­abil­ity for a date. The next ques­tion from her was obvi­ously about money and she was very sur­prised when I told her the basic fig­ures. She asked me why I’m so expen­sive. I told her I didn’t think I was expen­sive for the time, level of ser­vice my brides and grooms receive, the qual­ity and cre­ativ­ity of the work I shoot for them.

I had a meet­ing with a bride and groom last night who told me that they didn’t have a bud­get for wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. It was very impor­tant to them, so they weren’t cloud­ing their head with num­bers, they just wanted to see great work, find some­body that they got on with and they were pre­pared to pay appro­pri­ately to get that. Two very dif­fer­ent con­ver­sa­tions with two peo­ple who had two very dif­fer­ent out­looks on things.

Which is why I don’t think you can edu­cate peo­ple across the board. Yep, you’ll always hear the ‘I wish we’d used more of our bud­get on the pho­tog­ra­phy as we’re so dis­ap­pointed with what we got’ sto­ries, but at the time of those brides and grooms mak­ing their deci­sion and pay­ing out money before their wed­ding there’s no way you’ll be able to change their mind! What hope­fully hap­pens as a result of that, is that their friends and fam­ily learn from their mis­takes and don’t go down that route themselves.”

My huge thanks to Jonny Draper — for shar­ing his (very elo­quent!) thoughts for this blog post. Thanks also to Fiona Camp­bell for spark­ing a great lit­tle thought process for me! And to Julie Daw­son aka The Wed­ding Genie for shar­ing her thoughts from a planner’s perspective.

www.JonnyDraper.co.uk

www.FionaCampbellLondon.com

www.TheWeddingGenie.co.uk

To every­one read­ing this blog post: I’d love to know your thoughts on the price and value of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. Do you agree with Fiona, Julie and Jonny?

And what about my com­par­i­son to designer clothes? Do you wear George, Ware­house or Gucci? And does your wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher match your t-shirt?

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30 Responses to Does wedding photography seem expensive to you?

  1. Chris Seddon says:
    February 16, 2012 at 11:21 am

    I’m lov­ing all the blogs at the moment that are try­ing to shine a bit more light on wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers. I hear so many peo­ple com­ment­ing on how we’re all rip-off mer­chants charg­ing the earth because we can put wed­ding in front of it. The more infor­ma­tion out there about why our prices are what they are, the better.

    I was look­ing through a UK bridal forum and the sheer vol­ume of cou­ples who were com­plain­ing about pho­tog­ra­phers who were ask­ing £750+ for pho­tog­ra­phy & a disc. And here’s me think­ing that was cheap!

    It seems peo­ple have for­got­ten that there’s a value in pho­tog­ra­phy that goes beyond just being there & tak­ing the photo. After you’ve paid your pho­tog­ra­pher, you have the mem­o­ries of your wed­ding day. You can look at them when­ever you want. Surely this is worth pay­ing for?

    I think there are enough pho­tog­ra­phers out there that have options to fit most bud­gets (pay­ment plans, var­i­ous disc options, smaller albums etc) that cou­ples should be able to find a pho­tog­ra­pher that they really like.

    The old “You get what you pay for” does still have some rel­e­vance though! :)
    Chris Seddon´s last [type] ..“Why should I buy an expen­sive wed­ding photo album?”

    Reply
  2. Jonathon Watkins says:
    February 16, 2012 at 11:34 am

    Thanks for this thought pro­vok­ing and wise post about pric­ing Claire. When we got mar­ried 13 years ago we were advised to spend 10–15% of the wed­ding bud­get on the pho­tog­ra­phy, which we did and were delighted with the results. Pho­tog­ra­phy is impor­tant to us and we were happy mak­ing the invest­ment. Many peo­ple these days sadly realise too late that a ‘friend with a good cam­era’ is no sub­stituent for a expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher with all the top level equip­ment and back­ups. Yes, peo­ple put dif­fer­ent val­ues on things in life and it great to open people’s eyes to the risks they are tak­ing by opt­ing for cheap rather than good or great for the images which will form their main mem­o­ries of their wed­ding day.

    Reply
  3. Lyndsey Goddard says:
    February 16, 2012 at 11:37 am

    Great post about a topic which comes up time and time again.

    Reply
  4. Michael Wilkinson says:
    February 16, 2012 at 11:58 am

    Per­haps those cou­ple with smaller bud­gets should seek top qual­ity rather than quantity.Photography at the church only for instance.
    My par­ents has just one pho­to­graph taken as they left the church, OK that was in 1944 but per­haps the expand­ing role of the pho­tog­ra­pher to cap­ture more and more of the event has been fuelled by a per­cep­tion that more is bet­ter rather than good is bet­ter.
    Ive been mar­ried twice,full albums both times and I hardly ever looked at them,my mem­o­ries were real and live,seeing a print on the wall for years for me just dimin­ishes the value of my mem­o­ries.
    Per­haps I’m a tad sceptical,Good pho­tographs really are worth pay­ing for but rather like a good meal,how much of what you eat do you really want,need or appre­ci­ate :-)
    Ive been a work­ing pho­tog­ra­pher all my adult life.

    Reply
  5. Fiona says:
    February 16, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    This is a really well put together piece, and I com­pletely agree that you get what you pay for. How­ever, when not every cou­ple has £1000-£3000 to spend on pho­tog­ra­phy, there is a dearth of infor­ma­tion and inspi­ra­tion for brides and grooms who quite sim­ply have to seek a cheaper alternative.

    In such sce­nar­ios, find­ing a pho­tog­ra­pher who’s just start­ing out, but whose work you love is a viable option.
    Fiona´s last [type] ..The Wait­ing Period

    Reply
  6. Martin Hambleton says:
    February 16, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    I really enjoyed read­ing this arti­cle Claire. Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy forums are awash with debates on how to ‘edu­cate’ the gen­eral pub­lic on why wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy can (or should) be expen­sive. But they all fol­low the same pat­tern, talk­ing about the ‘hid­den’ hours of work, the price of train­ing and equip­ment, etc. I’ve par­tic­i­pated in many, read too many and got bored with hear­ing fel­low pho­tog­ra­phers go on and on about ‘new­bies’ cheap­en­ing the qual­ity of the work that we do. It’s been refresh­ing to read an arti­cle that didn’t rehash the same stale lines. Thank you.

    I think Fiona and Jonny have made excel­lent points from a photographer’s point of view. Putting a price on some­thing that can be con­sid­ered ‘art’ is so hard. Con­vey­ing why you think you’re worth what you charge is even harder.

    What really res­onated with me were Julie’s com­ments. Not every­one wants ‘great’ wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy — some don’t care enough, and just want some snaps as keep­sakes. Fine; they’ll be happy with an amateur’s work. Why should they pay more? They’d be wast­ing their money if they did.

    Oth­ers, for whom it is impor­tant, need guid­ance through the tan­gled web. It’s this sec­tion, who con­sider pho­tog­ra­phy impor­tant, who need help. Not only in real­is­ing the sort of price they should real­is­ti­cally expect to pay to get what they want, but also to help them work through the huge range of styles out there. Not every expen­sive pho­tog­ra­pher is right for them; price isn’t the only cri­te­rion to con­sider. Many cou­ples won’t like my style; oth­ers will love it. The same is true of my per­son­al­ity. All these fac­tors are as impor­tant as the price tag.

    Reply
  7. Kirsty says:
    February 16, 2012 at 1:21 pm

    Claire firstly great few blogs of late about pho­tog­ra­phy!
    Me and my part­ner are cur­rently on the hunt for our pho­tog­ra­pher. Pho­tos are one of the most impor­tant things, and have spent a great deal of time look­ing and research­ing pho­tog­ra­phers. Our bud­get for the wed­ding is incred­i­bly tight, just 7k. We can only afford just over 1k on pho­tog­ra­phy, and to be hon­est although pho­tos are very impor­tant, in our day to day life we can­not jus­tify spend­ing 2k on pho­tographs for one day. We both under­stand this is someone’s full time job, and have a lot of over heads. But many cou­ples just don’t have that amount of money to spend on this qual­ity, we have spent so much time look­ing at pho­tog­ra­phers I always look at the images first to see if I like there style and qual­ity, only to get dis­ap­pointed there out of our bud­get. As you can imag­ine we have been unable to find a pho­tog­ra­pher we like yet! Other than opt­ing not to have that dress, or to feed our guests we can­not alter our bud­get, and then there’s that thought can we jus­tify in our lifestyles spend­ing that amount of our money on pho­tos. Maybe we have just put our­selves under too much pres­sure to have the lush images you see on wed­ding blogs.

    Reply
    • Martin Hambleton says:
      February 16, 2012 at 2:42 pm

      In response to Kirsty’s com­ments, I’d like to say that I think there are some great pho­tog­ra­phers pro­duc­ing stun­ning work, whose fees start lower than you might think. Many pho­tog­ra­phers, myself included, have intro­duced less expen­sive options in the past few years; we appre­ci­ate that bud­gets are tighter than in the past and, sim­i­larly, if we don’t work, we don’t eat! I’d love it if all my clients booked my top pack­age, but I appre­ci­ate that few have unlim­ited bud­gets, espe­cially in the cur­rent eco­nomic cli­mate. (Sorry, this isn’t intended to be a tout for work, but a gen­uinely well meant suggestion).

      I don’t know if you’ve con­tacted some of the peo­ple whose work you admire — it might be worth get­ting on the phone and talk­ing to them. You may be pleas­antly surprised.

      Reply
  8. Lina - LiquidPhoto says:
    February 16, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    Really enjoy­ing your infor­ma­tive blogs Claire, and the pho­tog­ra­phy debate is prob­a­bly one that will never go away but it’s really good to always hear opin­ion. I found myself agree­ing with it all, and with most of the com­ments, and alot of it res­onates as I would say it was only recently that we decided to stick to what we know we are worth, and if it is too expen­sive for some cou­ples, then we have to let them go. We always rec­om­mend that pho­tog­ra­phy should be around 15% of the over­all bud­get, and that way peo­ple can fac­tor it in right from the start.

    What I’d be inter­ested to dis­cuss is the term ‘expen­sive.’ To me, this can have neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions, if some­thing is expen­sive we are usu­ally say­ing it’s a lot of money for what you get. If that is the case, then I would hate to be referred to as expen­sive. We say we’re not expen­sive (and we don’t think we are!), we’re high qual­ity and there is a difference…

    Reply
  9. Lina - Liquid Photo says:
    February 16, 2012 at 2:50 pm

    Another really inter­ested and infor­ma­tive post about pho­tog­ra­phy Claire, thank you. For the record, we always rec­om­mend that around 15% of the total bud­get should be set aside for photography.

    I of course agree with it all, but what I do think should be dis­cussed is the use of the term ‘expen­sive.’ Does expen­sive not have neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions? When we say some­thing is expen­sive, are we not say­ing it’s too much money for what it is alot of the time? I don’t think we are expen­sive, we are prob­a­bly some­where mid-range, but I would hate to be called expen­sive, as I would say instead that we were ‘high qual­ity.’ I think there is a dif­fer­ence, as we all know that expen­sive doesn’t always mean high qual­ity… Thoughts?

    Reply
  10. Jonny Draper Photography says:
    February 16, 2012 at 3:36 pm

    Great post Claire! I agree with that Jonny fella — he seems to know what he’s talk­ing about ;)

    Some great thoughts on the com­ments, an excel­lent dis­cus­sion all round!

    x

    Reply
  11. Nikki Ward says:
    February 16, 2012 at 7:08 pm

    I totally agree with Johnny and Julie’s points on this! I think in all aspects of the wed­ding world ( I’m talk­ing from a sta­tion­ers point of view ) the value of a prod­uct is essen­tially very sub­jec­tive and every so often you are going to come across clients who will ques­tion the value of your prod­ucts and use that dreaded expres­sion … ’ oh that seems expen­sive’. Its my worst night­mare as I’ve often devel­oped a nice rela­tion­ship with the cou­ple by then and we are sud­denly dis­cussing the pros and cons of what my time and design expe­ri­ence is worth! In my expereience the major­ity of peo­ple in this indus­try are NOT out to rip peo­ple off and charge a very fair price for their time, costs and experience.

    Unfo­tu­nately there will always be the odd sup­plier who is will­ing to use the word wed­ding as an excuse to add on a huge per­cent­age in prof­its … but I think these peo­ple are easy to spot when you are search­ing for a wed­ding sup­plier / pho­tog­ra­pher as they’re prob­a­bly not going to be par­tic­u­larly pas­sion­ate about your wed­ding either!

    Reply
    • Julie Dawson says:
      February 17, 2012 at 3:25 pm

      I agree with you Nikki. I have rarely met any­one in this indus­try who has not been fair and just try­ing to do the best they can for the client and make a liv­ing at the same time. Yes there are some wil­ing to rip you off but as you say they are easy to spot. This arti­cle is so well writ­ten Claire, I have just had chance to read it. I have to say I do advise my cou­ples that pho­tographs are very impor­tant. I guess I use my own expe­ri­ence, we did pay a great deal for our pho­tographs but I have to say that the cou­ple of pho­tog­ra­phers we spent the day with were noth­ing short of bril­liant. In fact even if the pho­tographs were never given to me I had so much fun with them I would have paid the cash just for that. I hate hav­ing my pic­ture taken but it was a joy to be with them,they even gave me a les­son on how to be in front of the cam­era which made all the dif­fer­ence. This is what you pay for the expe­ri­ence and exper­tise they showed to me and my hus­band. I have to say my guests adored them too. I have not even men­tioned the pic­tures, they are divine and I love every one of them. Just in case any­one won­ders it was Les­ley Mered­ith based in cheshire. Yes I can see the com­ment from Michael about how often you look at them, nei­ther does my hus­band often, but for me they are a piece of heaven from a fab­u­lous day I will never ever repeat. I know its cheesy but it was a bloody bril­liant day. There is no answer to this debate but its great that Claire has the courage to tackle these issues head on. It means for cou­ples who read this they can see why the cost is what some per­ceive as high and why that is the case and most impor­tantly show that the costs for pho­tog­ra­phy are not just for their time on the day. It would be great per­haps if one of you lovely peo­ple wrote a diary of what hap­pens when you shoot a wed­ding and what is done in terms of time, prepa­ra­tion and design,before dur­ing and after. I am sure most cou­ples would be amazed a the time and effort you put into the whole process and ser­vice. A bit like wed­ding plan­ning hard to jus­tify some­times but incred­i­bly time con­sum­ing. You don’t just point and shoot! I would for one run it too on my blog.
      Julie Dawson´s last [type] ..Are You Brave Enough? Leap Year Wed­ding Proposals

      Reply
  12. Fiona Campbell Photography says:
    February 16, 2012 at 10:32 pm

    Lovely Claire, you are so right about the impor­tance of wed­ding plan­ners in help­ing clients to find what’s right for them, not to men­tion keep­ing this indus­try on the straight and nar­row. Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy costs a lot not only because of the time fac­tor (6 days of back­room work or so) but also because all those cam­eras have to be replaced every five years and cost more than cars… A rep­utable pho­tog­ra­pher will have full wed­ding insur­ance in case some­thing goes wrong. Back up cam­eras. Albums. Online view­ing gal­leries capa­ble of hold­ing giga­bytes of pho­tographs. Expen­sive soft­ware. Accred­i­ta­tion. Adver­tis­ing. A zil­lion other things that mount up. The costs are high and that’s before you get to the ques­tion of how to feed your fam­ily. The dif­fi­culty is that because these are mostly indi­rect costs wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers are often thought to be unfairly hik­ing up the prices for their clients. Then some­one steps in and offers a bud­get pack­age, but doesn’t deliver. (Some­times I even find they have stolen images from my work to adver­tise their ser­vices on the inter­net!) The client feels dis­ap­pointed but its too late. And had they under­stood the nature of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy they might well have been will­ing to pay more and got some­thing really won­der­ful that they would have cher­ished forever.

    Reply
  13. John LeFebvre says:
    February 16, 2012 at 11:02 pm

    Agree com­pletely with every­thing writ­ten here. I too see many peo­ple who are put off by high prices — after all, they know some­one with a decent cam­era, so they can take the pic­tures, right? (I did have one cou­ple approach me last year the week before their wed­ding as their friend who was going to do it as a favour backed out due to nerves.)

    Peo­ple only see the bot­tom line. They don’t see the hours of post-processing — edit­ing, album build­ing, proof­ing, re-proofing, etc., nor do they have any real incli­na­tion of just how much a professional’s cam­era kit costs — and nor­mally we would have at least two cam­eras and a good range of lenses to cover all even­tu­al­i­ties! Then there is travel, insur­ance, web­sites and all the other things that need to be paid for by wed­dings which tend to be con­cen­trated around August time! I once cal­cu­lated that with the time put in to do a full album includ­ing the tak­ing of the pho­tos, I was earn­ing slightly less than the min­i­mum wage.

    I am dis­mayed by pro­fes­sional wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers adver­tis­ing their ser­vices start­ing at £249 — includ­ing a CD of hi-res images — yes, they are out there! I feel this just cheap­ens the indus­try for the rest of us.

    Reply
  14. Sabina says:
    February 17, 2012 at 8:32 am

    Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy is most of the time a lit­tle expen­sive, but we have to think that we will have those pho­tographs for the rest of our lives, and they have to have high qual­ity.
    Sabina´s last [type] ..Per­son­al­ize Your Wed­ding. Origami Nap­kin Folding

    Reply
  15. Becca says:
    February 18, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    Pho­tog­ra­phy is our biggest expense after the venue and food for 175 peo­ple. Its eye water­ingly so (con­sid­er­ably more than listed above as “top end” but for us its worth every penny. We aren’t hav­ing a video­g­ra­pher because we don’t want our guests to feel con­stantly aware of film­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy so we have been able to increase our pho­tog­ra­phy bud­get accord­ingly. After the dress has been packed away and the expen­sive wine drunk, pho­tog­ra­phy is what is left. My friend is spend­ing £3,000 on a Jenny Pack­ham dress for her win­ter wed­ding but was think­ing of “get­ting a friend to do the pho­tog­ra­phy”. I showed her a really scary arti­cle on Rock­n­roll­bride and she’s adjusted that accord­ingly. No one will notice the dif­fer­ence between spend­ing £5 and £30 per bot­tle of prosecco/champagne but we will have pho­tographs that we will love forever.

    Reply
  16. Kirsten says:
    February 19, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    Well done, Becca. I think your friend will look back and thank you for that sug­ges­tion! Great blog post!

    Reply
  17. Steven Carter Hewson says:
    February 21, 2012 at 10:35 pm

    A great arti­cle. This issue seems to pop up quite fre­quently and I feel whether it’s tra­di­tional, fine art, reportage or doc­u­men­tary wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy that the cou­ple wants, they do need to realise that you get what you pay for. I’ve no prob­lem with pho­tog­ra­phers charg­ing £500 for a wed­ding. They’re serv­ing a mar­ket and clien­tele that needs £500 wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers. There are hope­fully still plenty of cou­ples out there who value pho­tog­ra­phy enough to will­ingly spend the extra to book me.

    Reply
  18. Andrew Billington says:
    February 22, 2012 at 11:06 am

    Great arti­cle.

    I do agree that the ‘value’ that you put on pho­to­graph is a very per­sonal one and cou­ples have to decide what they are will­ing to pay and how impor­tant a good pho­to­graphic record of the day is going to be for them. I work as a doc­u­men­tary wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher and the cou­ples who com­mis­sion me to pho­to­graph their days do so because they like my style and want me to record their day in my fash­ion. My pric­ing reflects the num­ber of wed­dings I am will­ing to shoot in a year and be fair to every cou­ple (I’m not going to book 3 wed­dings in a row and there­fore not give every­one the best ser­vice I can), the cost of run­ning a busi­ness and the time that I take after the day edit­ing and post-processing images. I’m not the cheap­est, not the most expen­sive but I think I am able to pitch my pric­ing to be fair and afford­able for cou­ples who want the type of pho­tog­ra­phy I have trained, prac­tised and per­fected over the years. Part art, part craft and part love.
    Andrew Billington´s last [type] ..What makes a doc­u­men­tary wed­ding photograph?

    Reply
  19. steven carter hewson says:
    February 22, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    A great arti­cle. I believe what­ever style of pho­tog­ra­phy, from tra­di­tional to doc­u­men­tary wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy, cou­ples should under­stand that they will get what they pay for. If wed­ding plan­ners can help edu­cate cou­ples, great! I have no prob­lem with pho­tog­ra­phers charg­ing £249 a wed­ding, per se. With any­thing in life, there is always a bud­get option. These pho­tog­ra­phers are serv­ing a dif­fer­ent mar­ket to me, a mar­ket that wants and needs £249 wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers. Pho­tog­ra­phy isn’t impor­tant enough to those cou­ples for them to spend more. And that is fine. There are still plenty of cou­ples out there who do value their wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy enough to pay the pre­mium to book me. Or Jonny. Or any other pho­tog­ra­pher charg­ing more than a few hun­dred pounds.

    Reply
  20. Steven says:
    February 23, 2012 at 3:49 pm

    Really insight­full look into wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy prices. It’s all been said before but I do believe you get what you pay for. Some cou­ples don’t care about pho­tog­ra­phy and just want to tick the box aginst ‘book wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher’ They don’t realise how impor­tant it is until it’s too late. It’s impor­tant to invest prop­erly in one of the most impor­tant days of your life. — It’s equally impor­tant to know the style of the pho­tog­ra­pher before you book. We’re not all the same you know!
    Steven´s last [type] ..Hay­ley and Shane – A few frames from one of my favourite wed­dings of 2011…

    Reply
  21. Nicky Chadwick-Buckley says:
    February 28, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    Great post Claire, full of really valid points! :)

    Reply
  22. Cat Hepple says:
    February 28, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    A great arti­cle, and so nice to see it approached from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive than the typ­i­cal argu­ments too.

    Kirsty– my advice is to pick up the phone or email some of the pho­tog­ra­phers work you love and see if any will do a deal with you. Most of us will dis­cuss options and will be pre­pared to try to help work to your bud­get. You may not get the album and the disc and all the hours cov­er­age and the end­less wish list, but you might just find there are some com­pro­mises to be made on both sides.

    x

    Reply
  23. Claire says:
    March 8, 2012 at 8:05 am

    Thanks every­one for the com­ments — there’s a sim­i­lar blog post with a dif­fer­ent angle on Brides Up North wed­ding blog today which I thought I’d share with any­one look­ing into the sub­ject of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy pric­ing — http://bridesupnorth.com/2012/03/08/why-does-good-wedding-photography-cost-so-much/
    I hope that helps some­one too. :)
    Claire´s last [type] ..A sur­prise 40th birth­day wedding!

    Reply
  24. Jackie says:
    March 11, 2012 at 8:21 am

    There has to be room in the mar­ket for lower priced wed­ding togs, as every bride should be able to afford some beau­ti­ful pho­tos of her big day. How­ever, the trend towards more and more being included in a wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy pack­age just isn’t viable from a busi­ness per­spec­tive at the lower bud­gets. Prewed­ding shoots; all day cov­er­age from prepa­ra­tions to end of the evening; two pho­tog­ra­phers; an album and a disc of all the images; a slideshow … It all adds up in time as well as cost. Yes, there are peo­ple out there offer­ing the full pack­age for next to no money, but either these are hob­by­ists with a full­time job to pay the bills, or pros that will be out of busi­ness in a year or two unless they change their busi­ness model.
    So what do you do if you have just a few hun­dred pounds to spend on your wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy? First reel in your expec­ta­tions a lit­tle and think about what you really want from your pho­tog­ra­phy: do you need a few hun­dred untouched and unedit­ted pho­tos taken by Joe Bloggs or would you rather have a few beau­ti­ful pro­fes­sion­ally posed, edit­ted and processed pho­tos just after the cer­e­mony of you and your guests look­ing fab­u­lous? Less is often more!

    Reply
  25. Claire says:
    March 11, 2012 at 9:59 am

    Thanks every­one for the com­ments on this blog post — it’s nice to revisit, and Jackie you have made a fan­tas­tic point.
    As a wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher do you offer a pack­age with the focus on qual­ity, not quan­tity… or would you do this on request?
    I’m just won­der­ing — and here’s a ques­tion for every­one: if a bride and groom had a bud­get of £500 and asked for two hours of your time and twenty images, would you do it?
    Claire´s last [type] ..Made for each other: Sarah and Matt’s Dorset wedding

    Reply
  26. Niel Stewart says:
    March 11, 2012 at 10:40 am

    We hav to be real­is­tic about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. Less peo­ple get­ting mar­ried year on year, smaller bud­gets when they do get mar­ried. More ‘pho­tog­ra­phers’ than ever and more peo­ple com­ing into pho­tog­ra­phy over the next few years. The ‘old guard’ who used to make money shoot­ing wed­dings are now mostly train­ers sell­ing the dream of be your own boss and make money with your camera.

    If you divide the num­ber of UK wed­dings Byrne num­ber of UK reg­is­tered pho­tog­ra­phers it works out at roughly 6 wed­dings each per year! (yes I know it’s rough and inaccurate !!)

    We can reg­u­late our own indus­try — we can make sure we present our insur­ance to brides and grooms and venues so it becomes the norm. We can become qual­i­fied through any of the photo organ­i­sa­tions such as the MPA, BIPP, Guild etc — so it becomes the norm.

    When we show our work we can edu­cate by talk­ing about why a shot is good — posi­tion­ing, light­ing, technique

    But we all have to face the fact that sup­ply is up, demand is down and so what we can charge has to reflect the market.

    And with a cur­rent crop of decent con­sumer cam­eras and sim­ple actions / pre­sets and a world awash with iPhone snaps –the wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy indus­try is changing.

    Reply

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