When you’re looking for a wedding photographer for your big day, you are searching for average wedding photographer costs and see prices that are a lot higher than you expected. So you are asking yourself why do they charge so much but the reality is running a photography business is both costly and time intensive.
Wedding photography might seem unreasonably expensive at first glance. You may think photography is easy. You might feel like the eight or so hours shooting your wedding don’t add up to the expense.
But wedding photography is much more than taking beautiful photos of your special day. Far more time and effort are involved, both before and after the wedding day. Photography is also an expensive business, and work is typically inconsistent and seasonal.
When setting their prices, wedding photographers must consider business costs, hours worked, and profit margins. Let's dig into this post and learn more about what goes into wedding photography prices.
Wedding photography is an expensive business to start and maintain. The price of photography must cover the many expenses of operating a photography business.
Good cameras cost $SSS's and your wedding photographers will have at least one backup camera as well. No-one wants a camera to fail on your big day! Photographers also pay for equipment like memory cards, film, lenses, filters, external flashes, backdrops, and stands, strobes, and tripods. Maintenance, repair, and occasional replacement of equipment are also costly.
Photography equipment alone is expensive, but a photographer’s expenses don’t end there. Additional costs may include:
Your wedding photographer must charge enough to cover these expenses. Otherwise, they’re essentially paying to shoot your wedding. And if their pricing doesn’t allow for a profit on top of business costs, the photographer is working for free. None of us would work for free, and we shouldn’t expect photographers to do so either.
On average, a wedding photographer may shoot for about eight hours per wedding. That’s a full day’s work, but it doesn’t start or end there.
As a rule of thumb, one hour of shooting equals about 12 hours of hidden work. Hidden work before the shoot includes marketing, client communication, planning the shoot, and setting up equipment. After the shoot, hidden work involves breaking down equipment, culling images, editing and retouching, sending proofs and making adjustments as requested, administrative tasks, equipment maintenance, and more.
This means that you aren’t paying for just the time spent photographing your wedding. You also compensate the photographer for the hours working on pre- and post-production. These extra hours ensure a smooth shoot and beautiful final photos. And each of these hours represents an hour spent away from family and friends, downtime, and enjoying other hobbies or activities.
What value would you place on your time? Wedding photographers—and other small business owners—must make this important decision daily.
Wedding photographers don’t calculate their prices to take advantage of soon-to-be-married couples. They make logical decisions based on their expenses, hours, and profit margins.
Just like you, me, and everyone else, wedding photographers strive to earn a living. Their pricing must allow them to afford housing, feed their families, and keep the lights on. In the seasonal and expensive business of wedding photography, unprofitable prices won’t provide a livable income.
A recent study calculated a photographer to take home $15/ hr their packages should begin at $2,500. So that should be the baseline for a beginner wedding photographer - even that is low for the importance of the day and the years of experience of them honing their photography skills. If you want a photographer that has a few years of experience with running a business and intricacies of a wedding day, you should be paying more than $5,000. If you want a mid level you will look at $7,000-$10,000 and a luxury wedding photographer is over $15,000.
If your wedding photographer is charging less than the baseline, you can almost guarantee they are not running their business professionally. Anyone can grab a camera, attend a few styled shoots and appear to be a photographer with a business. Unfortunately, we see the backside of this daily - so many posts in groups about their cameras failing, their computers dying without them backing up or the client wasn't happy with their images. Imagine your wedding day memories either ruined or gone?All of your wedding photos and important memories are lost forever due to the lack of experience in running a business.
If you want gorgeous images of your Wedding Day, you will likely pay your Wedding Photographer more than you expect.
Your wedding photographer invests their time and talent to provide you with a priceless service: preserving your special day with gorgeous, lasting images. They deserve to make a solid living and set prices that allow them to do so. While those prices can appear expensive at first, understand that your talented photographer is only charging what they need to survive and thrive.
Remember wedding photography is much more than taking beautiful photos of your special day. Far more time and effort are involved for the photographer, both before and after the wedding day. There are so many costs that go into running a Wedding Photography Business.
Memories of your Wedding Day will last a lifetime and even for future generations, Wedding Photographers are worth it.
