HIB needs your advice

I can't really answer your questions about packages or a la carte as OHs brother is doing our photography as a gift so it's not something we've had to consider. The idea of asking our guests to contribute to our photography is distinctly unappealing though. I'm a firm believer in not asking other people to pick up the tab for our wedding, if we can't afford a honeymoon/photography/whatever then we either scale back our plans or go without. It would not sit at all comfortably with me to ask people to make a donation towards these kinds of things.

I like the idea of an 'a la carte' menu for options to add on. I think it's a really good idea. We have booked our photographer and are just paying for his time and a cd with all of the images on for us to print as we wish. However we will probably ask him to do an album for us, and if the options were there would consider adding on extras like thank you cards, canvases etc, but as it is we will arrange these ourself as we will have the copyright to the photos. Most of the photographers that did 'packages' were over our budget, and included things that we just didn't want to commit to at this stage, so we didn't go for them. The opportunity to add on extras would be very appealing to us, to create our own package.

I wouldn't use the gift list option myself, especially as you would have to ask people to contribute well before the wedding. We don't have a gift list at all and haven't asked for anything, I feel really uncomfortable about the idea of requesting gifts but that's just me, and I'm sure having the option there would do you no harm and some would take it up.

Hi,

Thanks for your replies so far. Interesting feedback.

I agree with your comments about the gift idea. I'd be the same thinking about it. As most people these days pay for the wedding themselves (including my wife and I) I would prefer the independance to pay for what I wanted rather than others paying for what I want - unless it was a fortnight in the Maldieves!!

Also I agree with the price. Packages do seem a lot more and no flexibility, but if you have the choice, you may add extras either at the time, or after the wedding. A lot of couples I work with come back afterwards to order albums.

Thanks again. I will keep an eye out for others opinions.

AJ

Hi

Just to add my twopence.

I really like the a la carte option, our photographer had a very similar thing which we loved as meant we could pic and choose what we wanted, extending the time he spent aat the wedding but dropping the number of albums we wanted in favour of a CD etc...

I think it's a brillent idea as it helps you know exactly what your getting and leaves pleantly of room for changing minds about ordering albums etc after the event.

In terms of guest contributing I'm not so keen like the others have said when it comes o my wedding if I can't afford it then I can't have it.

I like the pick and mix approach! Due to the circumstance of our wedding (overseas wedding and UK blessing) we didn't want a tog in the UK to do the full pkg thing as we didn't want an album from them. But back in 2007 we struggled to find anyone who would just charge for his/her time, do the editing and then a CD for us of all the photos we could print ourselves (and put into one single album with our overseas photos). We did finally find a lovely guy to do it but its mainly cos it was January, and he didn't have much else on - it wasn't normally an option....

I ended up doing a truprint album and was able to not only get it exactly as I wanted it (had heard horror stories of togs who take absolute control of the wedding album layout and you end up with photos in there you'd never pick in a million years - whats THAT all about!) but was also able to get a 150 page album with over 400 photos in it covering the entire event (including the full evening shindig, which you never normally get) for under £150 plus full copies for family members ... that sort of package would have been many many thousands with a tog.

So yeah, offer people what they want - you're likely to get a lot more business that way ...

but no, the 'gift voucher' thing - don't go there!