haggling with suppliers

Hiya,

I can't speak for other suppliers but in general I only lower my prices if I can justify doing so.

I'll shoot a wedding for all day until 10pm and charge £1995 for this at the weekends. If the couple want me until 8pm I'll drop a little off this amount. If it's on a weekday (Mon-Thurs) I'll knock another £200 off as those dates are less popular.

It's pretty much the same price for all couples and locations unless it's a venue on my bucket list (like Aynhoe Park) in which case I offer a concession as I'd love to shoot there.

I guess it's the same with other suppliers. If they can justify a fee drop but removing something from their packages they will because we all want the business. Just most won't sell themselves at a loss to do so.

With any negotiations find where the costs are coming from (canapes, drinks, prints you don't need) and work on those.

The Album discount thing is a red herring. A typical album is usually bought at £300 and sold at £500(ish).

That £200 markup after tax paid is about £120 and for that £120 the photographer will have to spend several hours designing and proofing it with the couple.

Even if they wiped out any profit on the book you'd maybe save £100 off the cover fee. You'd be paying an extra £400 to save £100.

If I didn't have much work then I may be more flexible and I'm always prepared in business to go backwards in order to go forwards.

The good suppliers will always be busy and less flexible to negotiations than others but it's completely understandable that the wedding budget will place a downward pressure on prices (and the couple).

I will pretty much echo what Chris has said. A good quality album will be around the price mentioned so I doubt that you will get an album thrown in.

But I can get low cost albums for about £40 but wouldn't touch them as an album for my wedding photography because they are just not good when compared. But that's just me I know of other photographers who are happy to use them as a "throw in" to then say you get an album included. I wonder if your photographer agrees to include an album in their price, would it be a £40 one or a £500 one.

If someone finds a photographer who's work they love after a long search, spoken directly or face to face with them and seen whole weddings and their prices, after all of that would someone then decide not use them because they would not give way on their base cost.If so then perhaps deep down its not quite the photographer they were looking for.

I am always happy to talk about costs because every wedding is different it may be Bride prep at 10 am to a Church 45 mins away to a reception 45 mins away from that with a horse and carriage with a 9 pm first dance, and then fireworks. Or it could be a 3 pm wedding that went straight into an evening reception with the bride getting ready at the venue.

As well as being a longer day the first wedding will generate far more images than the second which would then lead to many more editing hours - its the editing hours that can get overlooked.

Then there is the time of year, peak summer weekends I could book some date 4 times over so am not inclined to give way on much. But then again if you came to me at short notice for a normally busy period and I actually did not have a wedding on that day - then great I am happy to talk like Chris said, especially if it is a venue I want to get my hands on. And like the above fireworks example I like shooting them so that wouldn't be a factor for me, even though in a summer wedding it means staying much later until it gets dark.

I haven't really haggled with anyone. We found a photographer we liked and his prices were advertised so we knew what to expect. I had allocated £2k for that (a big part of my budget tbh but photographs are very important to us). The place we are getting married is a one off fee and the reception venue just told me what deal they could do for us and I accepted

I only have 7 months to plan and started quite late so I just went with the prices as I couldn't really afford to look around and take lots of time.

I have to echo what Chris & Bill said so couldn't really add to it but will say make sure you check out the photographers work fully oh and have a lovely wedding ?

We haven't really haggled with suppliers. The only thing we did do, as we were booking so far in advance (2 years), was to ask them to give us their 2015 prices. In the case of our photographer, that means we're paying £715 for a package which now starts at over £1,000 and getting for free a 20min engagement shoot which he charges extra for.

Like Madam Red, we haven't haggled but because we booked most things early we have had some good deals- venue, photographer, videographer etc all charging 2015 or 2016 rates for a 2017 wedding.

To be honest it didn't really occur to me to 'haggle'- if someone quoted me a price we couldn't afford or didn't think was reasonable we looked elsewhere- one hairdresser for instance quoted £300 just to put my hair and my bridesmaids up- I didn't think that was reasonable so I found and booked someone else! The only thing I 'haggled' over was my venue offering the bridal suite free if we had 50 or more adults eating at the reception- we only have 47 so they were going to charge us for our room- until I pointed out that this seemed unfair as our 47 having their 'top priced' menu was costing us a lot more than 50 would for their bottom price menu- they agreed and the bridal suite is now free!

As others have said, I didn't really haggle with suppliers, as we're getting married on a Saturday in June I figured that they could easily get someone else who wanted to pay full price.

We did get a 5% discount from our videographer because we can't have drones at our venue, but other than that nothing.

Thanks everyone, nice to know what goes through photographers minds when considering their prices.

TBH we have stuck with suppliers who we like but are trying to save where we can.

I suppose I have received discounts here and there, I just expected more...especially when my friend who got married last year saved literally thousands by haggling. I've saved £200 up to now haha.

xx

We haven't really done a lot of haggling either - I hadn't really thought of it to be honest. I've been checking out prices before approaching people so I know if they are affordable to us or not. I did get some money knocked off the florists quote but I didnt deliberately haggle that was just through conversation lol. We're getting married on a Friday in Nov which our photographer considers low season and he offers a cheaper price for then anyway.

Maybe I am missing a trick and need to do some bargaining....although I really dont feel comfortable doing that so maybe I'll leave that to OH! haha

In my experience it never hurts to ask the question and push for the best deal. We find some suppliers leave a bit of wiggle room sometimes anyway.

I echo what's been already said. In fact, I'd be more worried if any supplier was prepared for steep discounts for what should be the busiest two months for any wedding supplier.

My venue reduced my price but only because I asked to remove some of the things that come standard with the wedding package, if there's something to haggle with they're more likely to offer money back.

I also want to echo what others have said. As a magician, I can only do one wedding a day and could book some dates many times over. I need to work on a trick where I can be in two places at the same time!

I do try to accommodate peoples budgets where possible so there is no harm is asking!

I managed to haggle a lot on the price of our wedding breakfast, which is an afternoon tea. I basically tweaked their suggested menu a bit so it had slightly fewer items and asked if they could do it for £15 a head and thankfully they said yes. Originally they'd said more like £20 plus extra for the vintage crockery but I got that included too.

I haggled with the dress I was originally going to buy, got quotes from different dress shops and then our nearest shop matched the best price. Then I ended up falling for an Essense of Australia dress instead but their suppliers aren't allowed to do discounts so they all charge the same price. I still struck a bit of a deal though and got them to include a free petticoat, free dress bag and £25 credit towards my alterations or accessories.

When suppliers have given me a price I feel is fair I haven't haggled though, and with our photographer and band we really wanted them so just paid full whack.