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Why are wedding photographers so expensive?

An example of what your $100 wedding photos compared to your $3000 photos would be. Which one do you want your wife to remind you of for the rest of your life :laughing

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Oceansides said:
So, band of midgets?
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Clearly groomsmen, but continue trying to insult people on the internet, since it makes you feel better :rolleyes

Some people are tall physically but small in character, you keep reinforcing that that for me :thumbup
 
contact Frozenuts. hire him. be done with it.
give the extra money you saved - to me :teeth
 
Don't forget to feed the photographer. LOL Some people forget to count them in the number of people who are eating at the reception.


I put a couple of those throw-a-way cameras on each table to get other shots. Turned out pretty well...until some drunk asshole takes pictures of the ceiling, floor, their crotch, bridesmaid's asses, etc.
 
Abyss said:
As of 2012, Americans spend on average twenty-seven mother-fucking thousand fucking dollars on their weddings on average (which exceeds the median income).

$3k for a photographer is a drop in the bucket.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/cost-wedding-27000_n_1533464.html
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I had a friend who just got married. pretty much right on


Ill never get married but if I do I aint spending 30 thousand fucking dollars on it. if I have 30k to blow on my wife and fam, youre sure as shit im buying a house and having a weddng BBQ.

i know im out there on a lot of things compared to most, but 30k on an event like that is insane
 
I'll bite, I've been a wedding photographer since 2005. Started on CL shooting weddings for $300 a pop. At times I look back on old stuff and see just how bad I was but most of my clients back then were having only 2-5K weddings and $300 was what they could afford. Lucky for me everyone loved their photos, but there was room to grow.

Today I have...

My min booking is 2,300 my average is much higher.
7 years of wedding photography experience.
Close to 7k in gear
Insurance that will cover not only my gear, venue (if I damage it), guest that might sue me for whatever reason, or even if I lose all the images (they will re-do the wedding up to 60K).
I have a second shooter and assistant (who is basically at your service)

Just to give you an idea how much time and effort goes into being a wedding photog... This is on a per couple basis

I send roughly 5 hours between meetings, phone calls and emails with each couple before their event. For every hour of shooting I've estimated I spend another 3 hours editing. So for a six hour wedding I'm editing images for 18 hours. If a couple orders and album, I spend roughly 1 hour of my time per page of it.

That's just a nice little insight to what I go through for a client.

Now the wedding day... I have to be perfect!!! You only get one chance to get it right because you would look silly calling a time out and asking the wedding party to do it over again. Trust me being on your game for 6-12 hours in a day with maybe a 1 hour break while carrying around camera gear isn't as easy as it sounds. On top of that we photogs become coordinators most the time, we keep things running on time. We have a magically get bridal parties to do as we ask and most the time these people are drinking.
 
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Weddings are (generally) the fulfillment of the female development cycle... I never understood this until I had girls. They unlike boys, to whom a wedding is an optional event to be gotten through (and I was/am one of those guys..), girls start planning weddings and acting them out as early as 3 years old... cost is rarely considered. Blame it on the "princess" mentality, or other cultural influences, weddings are one of the biggies of the female mind.

Guys get over it... at least for the first wedding... make it as low pain as you can... and if traditional rules are in place isn't the brides parents footing the bill? If not an you are paying, you have some say, but see the previous paragraph to understand what you are up against.

A wedding she remembers fondly is an important step to a happy marriage. and I sincerely hope the $$ spent in time seem less important than the bond that it brings...

*****
****
***
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*

Ok, now that that's out of the way... I had a big wedding (600+) for my first wedding... big cake, photos, vids, t-shirts, every damn thing the ex and her posse could think of... I went along... (but did wear white sneakers instead of those crazy rental shoes..)...

Our relationship last 10 years (mostly) and we got divorced just after our 20th anniversary... (out for good behavior as they say..)...

I got the wedding albums and pics... and I must say, it was worth every damn dollar I spent on those pictures, just to watch them pass through the paper shredder, very, very therapeutic!

My second wedding... in a bar, Red Square, in Vegas... total cost $500 bucks and nothing but cell phone pics to show for it... :thumbup:teeth:thumbup
 
byke said:
Start by asking yourself what you want out of the images and go from there. If you look at a pro's portfolio and say, "yeah, that's neat, but $3k?!?"...it's probably because you're at the Ferrari dealership when all you really want is an Accord.

Here are a couple doods who do good work:
http://hofferphotography.com/
http://www.holzphoto.com/

Look through their stuff. Do you say, "shit yeah, that's what I want", or do you say, "meh, wateva". If you're really struggling, shoot me a message with some criteria and I might be able to do a little fishing and put you in touch with someone. Sometimes you can find good people who really want to fill a weekend, or the location happens to be super convent, etc, and they'll give a good price.
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I actually was going to hire Hoff but change of plans after a layoff :(
 
iamjr2 said:
A wedding she remembers fondly is an important step to a happy marriage. and I sincerely hope the $$ spent in time seem less important than the bond that it brings...
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spending $ to strengthen your bond (even on a wedding) is the first mistake. it never works. ever. it's like a hit of crack. great for the first little bit, then quickly wears off.

i've noticed the guys that spend a ton on their lady, not because they want to, but because the woman wants him to, rarely lasts.

my theory is people mistakenly equate spending money with happiness, and miss out on the things that make a couple really happy.
 
The happiest and most successful young couple I know we're married at the courthouse and had a reception at a bar
 
mike23w said:
spending $ to strengthen your bond (even on a wedding) is the first mistake. it never works. ever. it's like a hit of crack. great for the first little bit, then quickly wears off.

i've noticed the guys that spend a ton on their lady, not because they want to, but because the woman wants him to, rarely lasts.

my theory is people mistakenly equate spending money with happiness, and miss out on the things that make a couple really happy.
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Agreed... I certainly learned that the long, hard way...

kevin 714 said:
The happiest and most successful young couple I know we're married at the courthouse and had a reception at a bar
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Again, agreed... My current, and to date very successful marriage started with far less pretense... (got married in the bar!!!) :party

Thank you both for getting what i was trying to say... :thumbup
 
imma scan a pic of me at my first wedding :toothless

photographer was crap, pics were crap, I looked like crap. But I still have the pics :rofl

And anyone who spends umpteen thousands of dollars on a wedding is a nut job. Plain and simple. There are waaaaaay more important things to spend your money on. Don't spend it all in one day, especially as the chances are very high that you will get divorced anyway :x

See comment above re "first wedding" which was actually small and relatively cheap. Second one was at a wedding chapel in Tahoe, wearing ski suits ready for a day of skiing after getting married :rofl

There will be no wedding number three. There is nobody left daft enough to want to marry me :x
 
sidewazzz said:
On top of that we photogs become coordinators most the time, we keep things running on time. We have a magically get bridal parties to do as we ask and most the time these people are drinking.
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This is often overlooked IMO. We picked our wedding photographer based mainly on her awesome skills of getting the group photos done both well and quickly at our friends' wedding. We paid ~$6K back in 2005 including digital copies, an expensive photo book, and a bunch of other stuff. We went relatively budget on everything else to accommodate that $6k, including my wife's wedding dress that was $200 (she decided, not me). Several of our wedding photos are framed in our home so I see them every day, gotta make sure I get my money's worth :teeth
 
I've been married 23 years and I have never once looked at our wedding pictures and I don't think my wife has either. The poor woman has to look at me enough. Buy a bunch of throw away digital cameras and have the guests take photos.
 
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iamjr2 said:
Weddings are (generally) the fulfillment of the female development cycle... I never understood this until I had girls. They unlike boys, to whom a wedding is an optional event to be gotten through (and I was/am one of those guys..), girls start planning weddings and acting them out as early as 3 years old... cost is rarely considered. Blame it on the "princess" mentality, or other cultural influences, weddings are one of the biggies of the female mind.

Guys get over it... at least for the first wedding... make it as low pain as you can... and if traditional rules are in place isn't the brides parents footing the bill? If not an you are paying, you have some say, but see the previous paragraph to understand what you are up against.

A wedding she remembers fondly is an important step to a happy marriage. and I sincerely hope the $$ spent in time seem less important than the bond that it brings...

*****
****
***
**
*

My second wedding... in a bar, Red Square, in Vegas... total cost $500 bucks and nothing but cell phone pics to show for it... :thumbup:teeth:thumbup
Click to expand...

I notice the first marriage turns out to be a bust. The second marriages are a hit or miss. The Third marriage is three times is a charm. Logically the first marriage should be modest affair at most. The Second and Third are the real commitment marriages, time for the big celebrations. :laughing
 
MY wedding is in 2 weeks :wtf

I am friends with the Barf photogs and debated going with them. I would have chose one of them but it isn't my call. My soon to be WIFE gets to make the photographer call. Only reason she didn't go with a Barf photog is the misses wanted a female photographer... I don't necessarily know why but thats what we she wanted and what she got.

we went with my friend Tara

We are hoping that some of the photos she takes gets published so we can recoup some of her costs :laughing
 
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