Reasonably priced photographer?

£900 is extremely reasonable (although I've seen some very good TOGs for this price), good TOGs can be anything from this to £2k plus. You get what you pay for though if you consider the skill they need, the hours on the day and the editing time afterwards. If you can find somewhere else to save some money in the budget and put some extra in photography because the photos are one thing you can keep looking back on and you'll regret it if you don't like them. Keep looking and wait til you find a style and a photographer you like - you don't have to go way out of budget but you might be quite difficult to find someone much under £900 unless you'd consider a student maybe?

Thanks DreamCatchMe. I will need to re-adjust my thinking! I was obviously way off the mark...

For the togs on Hitched I think £900 is around the starting price that you'll find. If you want to save some money you could always opt for half day coverage etc.?

Yes, hate to break it to yuo but £900 is pretty reasonable. Think ours were about £**** (genuinely can't remember), but there were two of them....

That is very reasonable lovely. You weren't to know how much these things cost though and it's easy to think some things are going to be cheaper than they are. We had a thread saying about why cakes cost what they do too not so long ago.

It's not just their attendance on the day, they spend a lot of time editing them afterwards too.

? I start at £1450? anyway I do know of someone in Somerset that is a little bit more than £900, will look him up and see if he is available for your date if you want. What date is it by the way.

I would appreciate any help I can get to be honest! I can tell this wedding planning business may be an eye opener!

We are getting married Saturday 13 September 2014. I have already made some tentative enquiries though.

Half day coverage might be the way to go, but I guess if a photographer can get another full day coverage in on the same date, then clearly, from a business perspective, they are going to go with that.

Thanks for everyone's feedback/assistance.

Completely agree with this. You aren't to know how much it was going to be, although I would say not to scrimp on your photographer - they're going to be the photographs you cherish for the rest of your life

A lot of people think we show up on the day and get paid a lot of money for doing just that, (and I totally don't blame people for thinking that way) but we spend a lot of time and money investing in equipment, travelling to visit couples and showing them sample albums and having a chat with them, (A lot of the time I'll travel and spend a fair bit of petrol meeting people in their hometowns or homes), days after the wedding editing the photographs and making sure they look perfect, insurance, the list goes on. I am very much the same as in when I see something, I only see the price tag and half the time until I think about all the hard work that goes into a craft (such as cake making) I think it's expensive. It's only when I think about the skill and also a lot of the backstage stuff that goes into crafts that you realise how much work and commitment goes into them.

There was a thread knocking about on here earlier about how much work goes into making a wedding cake and it is just astounding. It completely depends on how much you value your photography, I think £900 is very reasonable and as Marianne says, if you don't want to pay that much, why don't you go for something like half day coverage rather than a full day if your ceremony is starting at 3pm?

Email a few photographers who you like, meet with them and chat with them about your requirements. I'm sure they will be happy to help. If you meet with a few that are all around the £900 mark, see which ones you like best and weigh up what you receive at the end - for example, how many final images are you going to get? What amount of hours for that price?

Good Luck

IMO, £900 is reasonable quote.

Hi Helen,

There are togs at all price points and price is usually directly correlated to demand and ability.

The biggest determining factor on price is the time of the year, what you'll receive in return and the quality of those photos.

We paid an above average amount for ours and will get above average photos in return.

It's also about expectations. I've seen photos online where the brides are really happy with them but I wouldn't of taken them in the first place (innappropriate, badly framed, cheesy..that sort of thing). But the bride went crazy over them. What people consider a good photo is extremely variable.

I get what you mean - it does seem like a lot. We started off with a zero budget as OHs friend was going to take them - til I saw his portfolio. People were looking at other cameras, pulling odd faces, they were just bad. Then I upped the budget to £500 and we still couldn't get anywhere. Budget is now £900 and I have found three or four togs I like the look of. My favourites are https://www.mariannechua.com/ http://www.haydnrydings.co.uk/ and http://www.mattlollarphotography.com/ all good but all pretty different in style

That said, we're spending £2000 on the videographer - https://www.everaftervideos.com/ - and they are worth every last penny. I haven't seen a single videographer who I like more. I've been married before and they videoed that - it was the best money I spent. It was so lovely to have a proper lasting reminder of the day.

Hi, I live in Devon and would like to recommend the photographer I'm using. His name is Marc Collins, he's really nice, enthusiastic and takes fantastic photos.

His prices start from £695 for the silver package. It's worth looking at his other packages - they are more expensive but he knocked the price down for us because we took out bits we didn't want (like the photo album and the engagement shoot).

Check out his website https://www.mkcollinsphotography.com/packages-and-prices

I would agree and say £800 is the norm...but just think of it as I super important investment as you'll be seeing the pics the rest your life! But i'm sure you're totally on board with all that jazz - good luck finding someone who's right for you

Hi Helen - you and I are in the same part of the world and when I went to a wedding fair back in January, we met a lovely lady from love-amour photogaphy. Her photos were really good quality and had a lovely natural quality. She was £700 for bridal prep to first dance. She was so nice. I nearly booked her but I felt like my wedding was too far away to do anything! In the end, we went for a different TOG as I realised I wanted more of a vintage style but she was brilliant and I would defo check her out. Google love-amour photography Bristol x

This is my TOG, he is based in Tewkesbury Glos but does travel.

http://www.richardatkinphotography.com/

He also has a facebook page

www.facebook.com/richardphotography.tewkesbury?fref=ts

I think we bagged a bargain in our photographer. For £850 we got him for 8 hours on the day, and at least 300 finished photos full resolution on DVD from which to print. I know he probably took a couple thousand photos on the day and its going to take a lot of work picking and narrowing down to get get the final photos, plus all the editing that goes into those. He was amazing on the day, too!

It can be worth negotiating prices if there are bits you don't want. As I recall, most of the photographers we looked at had package prices, which tended to include an album and prints, a certain number of hours on the day, etc. if you only want him there from 3-8 or something like that you can probably get a lower price if he is used to being there for a longer day. I would expect that this would also mean that you have fewer photographs at the end of the day, because the price would reflect the amount of time it would take to finish and edit them as we'll as take them.

Hello!

Thanks everyone for your assistance. Good news is that I think we have found our wedding photographer. I have taken on board all the tips about what to look out for and everything seems very positive!

Who did you go for? I am in bristol too and struggling to find a photographer in my budget.