Image by Lindsmae via Flickr
By far one of the most common misconceptions about a wedding photographer is that they are incredibly overpriced. Let’s face it, wedding photographs are the key tangible keepsake from your special day and a lot of couples believe this is the reason behind the sky high prices of wedding photography - in short, your photographer charges sky high prices because they can. Yet this is fundamentally untrue.
What’s Involved In Just One Wedding Shoot?
If you’d like to find out about wedding photography prices, you can enquire online at www.studio4photography.com.au or a reliable photographer near you.
This is what typically goes into just one wedding shoot:
- 1 hour initial consultation
- 4 hours of communications and emails in the run up to the day
- 1 hour final meeting prior to the wedding
- 6 hours of wedding day preparation, such as preparing gear, talking to other vendors or the wedding coordinator, researching, paying a visit to the venue, drawing up a timeline and planning with a second photographer, if necessary
- 4 hours of average travel time to and from the wedding, including driving, getting to the venue early and parking
- 8 hours of wedding day photography
- 2 hours spent backing up the wedding photos
- 25 hours sorting, culling, exporting, editing and uploading the wedding photos
- 1 hour creating a wedding slideshow
- 1 hour posting to social media, blog and possibly the client gallery
- 1 hour creating the client package of the finished product
= Totals average hours involved: 54
Putting it All Into Perspective
Weddings are costly occasions. And, wedding photography can be expensive. But, when you take into account all the work that goes into just one wedding for a photographer, his or her expenses, the quality of their work and the value of the end-product (such as the Barossa Valley travel wedding shoot) that you receive, it’s no surpise that photography is one of the most expensive services to factor into your big day.
What’s more, if a one-man-show wedding photographer is going to run a business to support their family full time and withstand the industry’s test of time, they need to take home a liveable salary.
Wedding photographers all tend to have one thing in common: they are extremely passionate about what they do. Those who aren’t, find themselves quickly leaving the industry after realising they won’t cope with the stress levels, long hours, expenses and strenuous 12-hour days as well as all that heavy gear that needs to be catered around.
Conclusion
If you’re in the midst of planning your big day and trying to determine a budget, you’ll need to keep in mind not just what goes into the wedding photography, but also what you will take away from it. Book a photographer who has the experience, insurance, gear and ample knowledge. Also, it’s important you pick a photographer you can connect with and feel comfortable around. Wedding photography many not be as cheap but it’s well worth the investment.
