Wedding Photography: why is it so expensive?
Most brides and grooms would like to hire a professional wedding photographer (and possibly also a videographer) to capture the memories from their wedding day.
Some brides and grooms are put off by the seeming high cost of wedding photography. After all, over a month’s salary seems a lot to spend on some wedding photographs! Doesn’t it? Or does it?
For a wedding photographer to make a living wage from wedding photography, these elements have to be factored into any wedding photography package:
- A wedding photographer’s work is seasonal (usually limited to the spring/summer early autumn months) and there are only a limited numbers of commissions that a single wedding photographer can undertake. For instance, of a maximum 52 weekends of the year, a solo wedding photographer may take on only 20-35 weddings a year.
- A wedding photographer also has to pay taxes, insurance and equipment i.e. computers/camera/lenses. (A professional camera body can cost anything from £1,800 upwards and professional lenses from £900 to £1,200 each. Also editing software and computers are also not cheap). Professional albums are also an added cost. There are also the background costs of running a small business – electricity, telephone, advertising and the cost of running a car for example.
- The time that the wedding photographer spends with you on your wedding day is not the only time spent on your commission. Behind the scenes, the photographer spends time editing the photographs from the engagement shoot/wedding, uploading onto the online gallery and designing wedding albums afterwards.
- Wedding photographers may also visit your wedding venue in advance to scope out the best places for photography.
- However it is not just about equipment, a wedding photographer also will continually invest in his/her own development and training so that they increase their skill set to give you the best possible wedding photographs.
The wedding photographs will be the only thing that you will have after the wedding – a heirloom you can show your kids and grandchildren. You may not look at your album everyday, but they are there every time you are ready to take a trip down memory lane.
Tune back in next time for an article on how to choose your wedding photographer!
Educating brides about the reality behind wedding photographers’ tasks is awesome. It’s easy to take for granted what we do, if you’ve never been married before, or, if for some reason you don’t think photographs are important.
I appreciate this article.
I’m glad you guys posted this article. Sometimes people don’t realize everything that is involved in a wedding photographer’s commission.
A lot of people still have the notion that £x is a lot to pay someone for one days work. As any photographer knows, the actual day itself is quite a short amount of time compared to the hours that go into producing the final products – not to mention the material costs that are required to be met by the fee.
Very true Tim.