intro to why wedding photography is a pretty penny:

You don’t need me to tell you that a wedding day is exquisite and fleeting. It quite makes the need for skilled, and experienced wedding photographers essential. But, why do we wedding photographers charge such high prices? And yeah, pricing is subjective. $5,000 to one person might be cheap, while to another it’s expensive. On and on the wealth income disparity goes. I want to explore with you the artistry and intricacies behind wedding photography and decode the expenses that make it a valuable, albeit expensive, investment for couples and their families on their wedding day.

We all know a wedding photographer is not merely a person with a camera, right? I think we do by now so I won’t rant about how a lot of us are artists (I’m not super keen on considering myself an artist but that’s for another conversation. I do consider many of my wedding photographer friends to be artists within their craft, though). We specialize in humanity. That’s kinda crazy. We are photographing emotions and the storytelling that surrounds it, ensuring your important moments are everlasting in a high quality way. Our years of experience, technical expertise, and creative vision allow us to encapsulate the essence of a couple's love and their intricate and sometimes complicate dynamics with their friends and family, through our photographs. That’s kinda crazy if you ask me, and a really important job, yeah?

From the initial consultation and pre-wedding preparations to equipment costs and the upkeep that comes with it, the time spent actually shooting, then editing (editing your wedding photographs is a 9-5 job in and of itself. If you don’t believe me, ask any wedding photographer. Especially ask a wedding photographer who has outsourced their editing, and why they couldn’t keep up with doing it themselves). There are numerous factors that contribute to the overall expense. Licensed, insured, and experienced wedding photographers (like me!) are giving you the highest level of craftsmanship and are determined to deliver exceptional results. That costs money. Wedding photography for most is a form of artistic expression. Photographers use our creative vision and technical skills to compose beautiful shots, play with light and shadow, and capture the unique personalities of our couples and their loved ones. The photographs become a work of art that reflects the style and essence of the wedding, allowing our couples to revisit and cherish their special day for years to come.Understanding the behind-the-scenes work we do and the costs involved in our wedding photography may help all of us appreciate the true value of the wedding profession and the priceless memories we’re handling for you. So let's delve into the artistry behind wedding photography— and discover why it is worth every penny.

a breakdown of what contributes to the cost of wedding photography:

The cost of wedding photography is influenced by several factors. Let’s break it down for you. It is essential, in my opinion, to understand these factors to even more-so appreciate your own wedding photographer and especially why they charge what they do. The truth is if your wedding photographer’s price-tag seems too good to be true, there’s a reason for that — and it probably IS too good to be true. Experience and expertise isn’t cheap, and never will be. Here are some key elements that contribute to the overall expense:

1. Experience, Expertise, and Professionalism

Wedding photographers with years of experience and a proven track record command higher prices, as it should. Your day can’t have any do-overs, right? Our expertise allows us to anticipate every. single. thing. That could go wrong. And every thing that could go right, and ensuring we capture it. I and many others have have perfectly honed our skills over time— developing an understanding of lighting, composition, and storytelling that can only come with time and many, many weddings. It’s what sets us apart from less-experienced counterparts, who are at no fault at all as every wedding photographer has to start somewhere. But if you’re hiring a less experienced wedding photographer or a photographer with no wedding experience, you should make sure all parties involved understand the risk, and proceed appropriately. An experienced, veteran if you will, wedding photographer is also going to have a very important level of professionalism that certainly contributes to the prices they charge: A BUSINESS LICENSE AND BUSINESS INSURANCE! When you are a small business that pays your taxes to our (shitty) ole government, it isn’t cheap. Most clients are surprised to learn that 30% of the total cost you pay your wedding photographer goes straight to the IRS. And that doesn’t even include the other business expenses we will talk about later in this article, and the overall costs of doing business. The truth is, speaking for myself entirely, whatever my clients pay me for their wedding, I often take home about 40% of it. Yeah. It’s wild, isn’t it?

2. Time and Effort

A wedding photographer's work extends far beyond the actual hours they spend shooting on the wedding day, in fact I find the hours of coverage I spend at your wedding the easiest part for me. There is considerable time and effort involved in pre-wedding preparations, such as scouting locations, meeting with the couple to discuss their vision whether it’s in person or over video chat, time spent emailing back and forth, preparing for the day by making sure you have an adequate amount of film in stock (I shoot film at weddings), fresh SD cards, new batteries, etc. After your wedding, we spend hours carefully curating and editing the images to ensure they meet their artistic standards. I, personally, first spend money to send your film off to the lab. Then I spend money on the scans. Then, I have to perfect the film scans the same way I do your digital images.This takes a meticulous attention to detail and the post-production work we do adds hella value to your final product. Some people wonder why it takes so long to get their wedding photos back (at the present time my wedding turnaround time is 8-10 weeks and clients know this from their contract with me) and I’d love a chance to explain. It isn’t just the fine detail we have to pay to the images we’re editing, it’s that you can only stare at a computer screen for so long not just before you’re exhausted, but before you start doing a bad job and missing things because you’ve been staring at it for so long.

Let’s pretend it’s a typical Tuesday for me, and I have a few weddings in my editing queue. I’ve just shot a wedding over the weekend. I wake up around 8am, spend until about 9am showering, getting my coffee, preparing for my day. I sit down to begin work around 9am. I spend 1 hour culling the weekend’s wedding, picking which images stay and which go. Once I’ve made my selection, I transfer the images to my two harddrives (backups for backups are ESSENTIAL!) but ahhh, backing up takes a considerable amount of time and also slows your computer down greatly. I can’t edit in my photo program while your images are backing up. Depending on the number of photos, it may take anywhere from 15-20 minutes to backup your images. I’m on my email, I’m responding to emails. Spending time matching client messages to old ones to make sure I don’t confuse anyone with each other when trying to answer your specific questions for me. Checking my calendar so I can respond to the inquiry I got overnight and give them the spill they’re asking for about if we will be able to work together. After an hour or so, I’m ready to begin editing. It really varies so much, but I find I spend a solid 3-4 minutes on each photo to get it perfect. Now think about that with 1,000 images per wedding to work with. Then think about the other emails I have to answer, the video calls I have to hop on, finding time to make and eat lunch, having to run to my own appointments and do things like grocery shopping, all while finishing your wedding photos in a timely manner. It’s a lot, and it takes a lot.

3. Equipment and Technology

Investing in high-quality cameras, lenses for the cameras, BATTERIES (so many batteries. And batteries are $50-$75 depending on your camera brand), film rolls, film scans, equipment upkeep (have to keep our gear serviced, just like you service your car), lighting equipment, software tools that have either monthly or yearly subscriptions ranging from $30-$500 — all of it is crucial for wedding photographers. These tools enable us to capture sharp, well-exposed images in any lighting conditions and deliver professional-grade results without any hiccups. Most of us have backup gear for our backups, to ensure that nothing ever goes wrong on your wedding day that would interfere with us getting the job done and getting your photos to you safe and sound. The cost of maintaining and upgrading our equipment truly is substantial and contributes to the overall expense of wedding photography for sure.

4. Running A Legal Business & Costs

Running a (legal) photography business comes with its own set of expenses, such as business insurance, the cost of marketing, website maintenance, possible studio rentals, yearly LLC licensing fee or cost associated with keeping up an S Corp in your state of operations. These overhead costs are factored into our pricing structure to ensure we can sustain our business legally. Taxes, oh taxes. I touched on this earlier but if you pay your wedding photographer $5,000, yes it’s still $5,000 for you — but $1,500 of it goes straight to the IRS. Then you’ve got those other associated costs we talked about earlier that are essential for keeping a business running smoothly and safely. If we charge $5,000 (or whatever we charge) we do not even remotely take home what we charge. Yes, w2 employees in the U.S. are subjected to the same taxes. But the restaurant you eat at every week accounts for the taxes they’ll have to pay when considering their menu pricing, and we as wedding photographers have to do the same.

5. Artistry & Signature Style + Demand

Artistry and Signature Style— you don’t go to a chain restaurant (usually? Unless you’re my grandma lol) for an artisan steak, right? Or an Americanized Vietnamese restaurant when you could go across town to the small family-owned & authentic Vietnamese restaurant, yeah? These same human instincts apply to picking a photographer, too, or they should! Some photographers specialize in just small, intimate elopements. Others specialize in off-camera lighting for their weddings. Others specialize in analog film (hey that’s me!) while others specialize in senior portrait photography. Now let’s narrow it down a little: let’s say you know you want a wedding photographer who specializes in film (again, like me hehe) but not even any two film photographers are the same. There are photographers in my vicinity who also specialize in wedding film photos, but our work looks nothing alike. Ask yourself what sets the wedding photographer you want to pick apart from the crowd. Is it just that they… have a nice camera and take decent portraits? If that’s the case, maybe investing big money into your wedding photos isn’t for you and you are better off giving a newbie a chance. But if you have a specific vision for what you want your wedding day to look like in the photos, you need a specialist, you need to be picky. I know for me, my clients that hire me tell me often that they could pick my photos out of a crowd of other wedding photos, because of my signature style. They tell me when it’s a close call between me and another photographer who also specializes in the type of wedding work I do, but that my work won them over by a mile simply because of how signature my style is and identifiable it is. You are hiring me for my signature style, for my artistic flair that can’t be replicated. You should look for that in whoever you do hire as your wedding photographer!

Demand— I know for me, personally, and a lot of the wedding photographers I look up to, our pricing is largely based on demand, much like the plane tickets you’ll pay for, the Disney trip you’ll purchase, or the vacation rental you’ll pay more for during peak holiday season. Our business is a game of demand. My prices are higher than they were before not just because of my lived and gained experience, but because artistic burnt out is not just miserable, it’s not good for you as the client, either. You need me as your wedding photographer showing up excited, rested, and sharp. If I am shooting a wedding every weekend, I learned the hard way like most of us did that it isn’t sustainable if you want to give your 100% to every wedding client. When you factor in the 9-5 weekday work that goes into wedding photography (discussed earlier in this article) we literally cannot work every weekend or we will drown in desk work. We will not just show up to your wedding giving 50% instead of 100%, you will receive your wedding photos late or half-assed. If you are hiring an artistic wedding photographer, our creativity is not a limitless supply. We need rest, we need time to have a life away from our work and away from working directly with our clients on 8 to 10 hour days. My work improved so much when I started spacing out my bookings. Spacing out bookings means working less, which means needing to charge more. If the demand is there, this is sustainable. For me, the demand has been there. Charging more ensures I’m giving you the best possible experience I can give you. It ensures that me and my business can survive through the off-booking seasons and slow times. It means I can try fun new ideas on you and take more risks on your wedding day that a burnt out creative brain never would’ve thought of. If my demand ever goes down, my prices will too, just a tad. But currently, I can’t keep up with demand. Many wedding photographers are in my same boat.

“Can I negotiate price with my wedding photographer?”
Can you and should you are two different beasts, but yes and no. If you find a wedding photographer whose work you love but their pricing is slightly out of your budget, don't be afraid to explore what your options are with them. Here are some tips I recommend that won’t insult us:

1. Be Honest About Your Budget

Openly communicate your budget constraints with the photographer right off the bat. They may be willing to customize a package or find other ways to accommodate your needs without compromising on quality, like doing a payment plan. Being transparent about your budget will help both parties find a solution. I personally love offering payment plans to my wedding clients to offload the financial burden a bit for them.

2. Consider Off-Season or Weekday Discounts

Please don’t ask us for a discount, but a sneaky discount opportunity can apply to most wedding photographers. Using the pricing-based-off-demand rule means that weekday weddings or weekday elopements (Monday-Thursday) often cost less, because then we aren’t taking on your smaller and cheaper booking on a day we might have to turn away a full priced wedding payday instead. If your wedding date is flexible, discuss the possibility of a discount based on your preferred date. This can be a win-win situation for both parties, and I’ve had clients move their wedding date around for me on more than one occasion.

3. Explore Customizable Packages

Many photographers, myself included, offer customizable packages that allow you to select the services that are most important to you. If there are certain services or add-ons that you can do without, discuss with the photographer if they can adjust the package to fit your needs and budget. Different photographers will have different boundaries— for example removing the included engagement session from your wedding package with me will not drop the price, because the engagement session is complimentary and more for me to get to know you and have you see my shooting style in action before your wedding day. But if you want 4 hours of coverage on your wedding day instead of 8, this is something we can discuss.

4. Ask for Payment Plan Options

If the upfront cost is a concern, inquire about payment plan options. Some photographers may be willing to split the total cost into installments, making it more manageable for you. This can help alleviate financial strain while still allowing you to secure the photographer's services. Remember, negotiation is a collaborative process. Both parties want to find a solution that works, so approach the conversation with an open mind and a willingness to compromise.

Finding the right wedding photographer for your style and budget:

Okay we’re almost done, you’ve almost made it to the finish line of this long ass article I wrote for you.

Finding the right wedding photographer is a crucial step in the wedding planning process, we get this now, yeah? It is essential to choose someone who not only possesses the technical skills and artistic vision you want that meets your standards but also someone who understands your style, preferences, and budget.

Here are some tips to help you find the perfect wedding photographer:

1. Research and Review Portfolios

Start by researching wedding photographers in your area and exploring their portfolios. Look for consistency in their work, attention to detail, and the ability to capture emotions. Does their portfolio consist of nailing various lighting situations? Do not be afraid of requesting full wedding galleries from prospective wedding photographers. A professional wedding photographer who knows their shit will have no problem showing you some full galleries, instead of just letting you see the hero shots they post to Instagram or their website.

2. Read Reviews and Testimonials

I’m guilty here. When I relocated my business to Richmond, Virginia — my relocation flagged the security of my Google Business account, where over 50 five-star reviews for me live. It has been the biggest pain in my ass, 2 years later, tying to reinstate my account. So I have resorted to showcasing client texts on Instagram, and requesting private reviews from them that I then transfer to my website. If an inquiry ever requested direct references, like you might for a job, I would give you a list of 10 past clients you could call (with their consent, of course) to ask them firsthand their experience with me. Look for that same confidence in any wedding photographer you consider. Now, most people will have actual reviews you can read on Google. Reading these reviews and testimonials from past clients can provide valuable insights into a photographer's professionalism, reliability, and ability to deliver on their promises. Look for feedback on their communication skills, flexibility, and overall client satisfaction. Same if you are calling past clients we give you from a reference list.

3. Set Up Consultations

Once you have shortlisted a few photographers whose work resonates with you, reach out to them and set up consultations. Preferably a video chat. Most wedding photographers won’t have the time to meet over coffee, if we are local, but video chat is plenty easy and something we do often. Personally, I won’t book any wedding clients unless they agree to hop on a video chat with me. I’m courting you just as much as you’re courting me, because I want our visions and expectations to align. Use the consultation opportunity to discuss your wedding vision, ask questions about their process, request full galleries and overall understand their pricing structure. It is crucial to establish a connection, too, and ensure that you feel comfortable working with them! And vice versa.

4. Consider Your Budget

I’m not on some high-horse of “your wedding photographer must be objectively expensive or else they suck”. While it's essential to find a photographer whose work you love, it's also crucial to consider your budget, and I get that. If you can only afford $2,000 (which… is a lot, my goodness. Just not in the context of running a sustainable and legal small business). You can only afford $2,000! Wedding photography prices can vary significantly, even depending on where you’re located or where the wedding is taking place and if your wedding photographer will have to travel themselves. Definitely be upfront about your budget during the initial consultation, and I try to do my own due diligence by laying out my pricing on my website beforehand so that no one wastes anyone’s time. Many photographers offer customizable packages or flexible payment plan options as well.

5. Trust Your Instincts

This part cannot be overstated not just for couples looking for their wedding photographer, but any wedding photographer colleagues that are reading this and contemplating whether to take on a couple or not. Ultimately, trust your instincts when choosing a wedding photographer or choosing to take on a client!! It's important to feel a connection with them and have FULL confidence in their abilities to capture your wedding day. Especially if they are shooting film. Remember, these photographs will be passed on for lifetimes. So choose someone who you feel will do justice to your love story, and the way the day unfolds.

Too long didn’t fucking read? That’s okay. Finding the right wedding photographer is an investment that will pay off in beautiful memories and stunning photographs. Take the time to research, meet with potential photographers, and choose someone who not only fits your style and budget but also understands the importance of capturing your unique love story.