Wedding Photography Pricing

Hope this helps some x

Where does it say he's not editing, has he modified his post since?

As a heads up Ted. You will get answers biased to this forum and it's users only and will not be representative of a complete audience.

It's like walking into PC World to buy an ipod and the guy behind the counter asking me how much would I like to pay

Average prices for DVD only packages are £0-£6000+ depending on who you go to.

Work out what you're worth, not what someone is prepared to pay as there's too many variables.

Sorry it doesnt, but I just presumed that a DVD only package is the images taken on the day and not altered etc

Apologies if I got it wrong

Completely agree with this sentiment.

What we are paying for our photographer, we would not necessarily have paid for a different one. Each package we saw we evaluated on the photographer's own merits, which as you rightly outlined were such thing as great pictures, style, our rapport with the Tog, the Tog's ability to instill faith that he would do a great job on the day, the availability of extras such as a pre-shoot. The price in itself was irrelevant until we had met the Tog and fully appreciated what and who we'd be getting.

I'm sorry this isn't very helpful for the task you are doing but I hope it gives you a perspective!

Also you have to price for where you are in the country... If i saw prices at £200-£400 I would assume you are rubbish and stop looking at your services (sorry but uts true!) I'm in the south east

I've spent the entire day looking at photographers and the cheapest package Ive come across is £795 the most expensive £6999. I've shortlisted not on price but on quality of pictures (but to be fair I discounted the £6999 because there is just no way on earth I'd pay that)

Chris has this spot on.

The wedding market varies wildly in price and expectations. If you're able to provide consistent high-quality work, then you're worth much more than someone who cannot.

As your business grows, so should your marketing and the other non-Photography part of the business.

The ideal position to be in, is when clients want "you" (as opposed to any other random Photographer they find).

Personally speaking, I'd not worry too much about how much other Photographers charge.

The DJ market is even more saturated with low end guys, but most brides luckily don't want to take a chance.

Your looking at the hole business model wrong - You cannot charge what you think you charge what you are worth and the only way you will know that is if you start at one price (a reasonable price based on what you can live on with expenses) with an aim to shoot x weddings and if you go over that then you can afford to raise your price as your demand is high, if you are getting minimal weddings then you are obviously to expensive.

Your are offering yourself and so you need to charge based on skill and salesmanship (likability).

x can be any amount of weddings i know some who only look to shoot 20 weddings a year, my target is 40. - I do know some photographers who are starting at £1800 and are shooting 40 weddings a year.

Hi anniepie,

Thanks very much for taking the time to give such a full response - this is exactly the sort of information I'm looking for.

The DVD I offer my customers gives the files as part of the price as I also agree that this is important. If I was choosing a photographer, I would want to have my files and/or prints included in the price too.

Thanks to the others for their comments too; please keep them coming.

This isn't the way I work, although all business models are different. It is likely that those working this way would have a lower attendance cost and make the money from the quality of the photography on the day. At least this way you aren't paying for any photos that you don't like, which you would be if it were an inclusive coverage IYSWIM.

Peter

BTW...Hi Ted.Whereabouts are you based?

Peter

Yes,Work out what you're worth

The "half day" options tend to be rather useless in my experience, as our timings don't seem to fit into what is considered a half-day. The whole experience of trying to find a photographer fitted right in with my general frustrations at wedding timing, and the inflexibility of some venues. Why is it expected you want to eat lunch at 3-4pm (and call it breakfast)? Some photographers seemed equally rigid in their approach, and seemed to think all couples want the same photos. In the end the photographer we picked was one who was flexible and open to understanding what was important to us about our wedding. He actually discussed the hours we wanted him for, the things we wanted pictures of, and gave us a price based on that (which actually fell between a half day and a full day, how sensible!).

WTS.

This might be of interest to you though: https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/t/253527.aspx

We seemed to have a pretty healthy budget for our photography but the biggest thing for us was what we thought of potential photographers' work. If we loved their work and loved meeting them, we'd have been amenable to altering our package if necessary.

If the photographer had a crap website or there were any photos with spot colour (shudder) they were out of the running. The website is their shop window and if their wares looked shoddy then we weren't interested.

Thanks for sharing wonderful ideas about photography.

Thanks for sharing wonderful ideas about photography.

I found finding a wedding photographer a very distressing process, simply because there are so many awful ones out there. They claim to be a professional, but when you go to their sites, the work is just awful, or non-existant.

From my research, there are LOADS of photographers out there offering CD packages for £100-£400, for all day, but they are all so bad, I would trust them to take a photograph of my cat, which is funny, because I found so many of them had photographs of what was clearly their pet cat.

So my advice is firstly a] If you are not a really high quality photographer. Don't bother. I've read all about how non-pro photographers have spoiled couples weddings with poor photography.

b] As someone who runs their own business, or at least my fiances, you need to sit down and do some business sums and projections. Its very obvious to me that some photographers are charging so little, that they can barely be making profit, and therefore that means they are clearly not a professional, because they couldn't survive otherwise. Take into account all your expenses, travel, equipment, insurance and all your time, travel, shooting, editing. And work it out.

c] Personally with any photographer I was looking at I had the following critera.

1. Loads of beautiful photographs, from loads of different weddings. Examples of complete weddings from start to finish, not just cherry picked photos.

2. A proper, quality website. Not a flickr or picassa account.

3. Full time professional. Not someone who sits behind a telesales desk in the week and just shoots weddings at weekends.

4. Has insurance in case something goes wrong.

5. I have lots of children coming to my wedding, being CRB cleared helps a lot.

6. Has backup equipment. I've read all over the internet about equipment going wrong and how non-professionals do not have backup kit.

I only contacted a few photographers who met the above criterea. Weather I took it any further went on a combination of personality and pricing.

And with the few I met, one I discounted immediately had really poor quality albums and prints. They were cheap, but awful. He proudly told me he printed them all at home on his own printer, and quite frankly they looked it.

The photographer I eventually went for, not only had visually beautiful photographs, but he was so easy to get on with. We both knew its someone we could spend a day with. He was very friendly, very professional and answered all our questions precisely and accurately. He clearly knew what he was talking about, and he does lot of other photography, fashion, celebs, portraits.

And it was a clincher that his prices were very reasonable, his storybooks individually handmade and that he uses traditional chemical printing for his prints. No home inkjets insight!

After the process I went through I'd highly recommend him.