I love photographing weddings and I love to have a busy schedule. I try to position my pricing so that I am in the midstream of professional wedding photographers. I want to be busy. I want to work with clients who appreciate my work and who appreciate the value.
I recently attended a seminar for professional wedding photographers. It was more of a discussion group and the theme was around the wedding interview itself. There was a younger professional couple that had recently met with 8 photographers before making their decision to hire a wedding photographer. The photographer that got the commitment was there and participated in the discussion. The person interviewing the couple was a photographer that had been interviewed by the couple and not selected. She also participated in the discussion.
The meeting was really about the wedding interview process. The couple talked about pricing and how pricing played in their selection process.
I was amazed that our couple dismissed the consideration of photographers charging less than 4,000. They looked at the $4,000 figure as a base figure that they expected to spend for eight hours of service with an experienced professional wedding photographer. The price did include an album.
It was my understanding that most of the photographers at that seminar were pricing at that level.
As I looked at this group, most of the attendee’s were not dedicated full time photographers and most of the wedding photographers in this group had less than four years experience.
Fewer than a handful of these photographers had full time studios.
With technology being what it is, digital cameras are capable of giving a good image without an understanding of exposure or lighting. I am finding that many in the wedding photography business are not full time photographers. Most of these people are not familiar with the concept of posing people. For many of these people, there is no understanding of manual lighting techniques.
For those wedding photographers with experience, who make most of their income from photography, this group is charging at least $4,000 for 8 hours of service, two photographers, and albums.
The couple dismissed the idea of looking at photographers charging less than $4k. They felt the lower pricing indicated a higher element of risk.
The other interesting discovery that came from this meeting was the couple’s desire to see a consistent display of work by the photographers they interviewed. They wanted to see all of the photography from a number of recent weddings. They wanted to know that the person they hired could consistently deliver good wedding photography.
The reason for this was that the groom’s brother recently got married, spent over seven thousand dollars, received two thousand photographs and was not happy with the quality of the work delivered. He didn’t receive the quality that he was shown. He felt that the work shown was cherry picked and that if he had looked at full sets of work he would have seen the lack of consistency.
When you look at my pricing (which is on my website), you will notice that I offer an hourly rate. This pricing is for couples requiring a limited number of hours of coverage. Many older couples take advantage of the hourly option. These couples are looking for a limited amount of coverage usually four or five hours. They usually do not want an album, just good coverage of the day. Their is a caveat. With many of these weddings, their are children. The couples usually always state that they would like some well posed portraits of their new family.
I like these weddings because they are typically compressed with more happening in a shorter period of time. With these weddings most of the attention is on good images of the service and nice family portraits. They are not as interested in the reception party.
Yes, I work harder and there is an intensity that is different, but when you like what you do, and you enjoy photographing families and groups, the emotional rewards that come from photographing these weddings is worth it.
I think my hourly plans offer a great value for a specific group of clients. The hourly plan is not right for everyone, but it is a great value for many.
Younger couples usually want full coverage of the day and our best leather bound albums. I use Leather Craftsmen, because they are the best. My album packages start at 24 pages, starting with 10×10’s. And I do not limit the number of images per page, but I do require that we design a tasteful album. By sitting with you as the album is designed, you are assured of a wedding album that you will treasure for years to come.
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