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Why Wedding Photography is So Expensive

When you book a photographer for your wedding day, many couples don’t realize that the time a photographer spends is a lot more than the 6-8 hours spent shooting your wedding.  A professional photographer does more than “just shoot and burn a disk.”

The wedding day is just the start.  The workflow after a wedding to process the 800 or more images can be extremely time consuming.  After performing duplicate backups, the photographer must select the best 800 or so images from over 1000s of images to remove duplicates and blinkers (those image having persons with closed eyes).  Then each image is adjusted for color balance, exposure, composition, cropping, and other enhancements as needed.  Finally, the photos are copied to a disk and a selection of images is made to place on the internet so family and friends can enjoy the photos.

A few months after the wedding, a review is scheduled with the couple to go over the initial image selection for inclusion into their album and to select prints.  A first album draft is made.  Revisions may be requested.  Plus, album covers and layouts need to be selected. All the appointments, lab expense, phone calls, and emails will add to the time required.

The bottom line – the 6 or 8 hours is usually over 40 hours of time.

Bride Walking Down Aisle

 

Wedding photos are a life time investment as they capture a new beginning in your life.  It’s the birth of a new family.  It records that day in your history.

Because a wedding as a whole is remarkably expensive, considering the preparation effort alone to become your most beautiful on your wedding day (with the cost of bridal gowns, shoes, undergarments, jewelry, hair, makeup and flowers), it would be foolish to not consider good photography to capture all of the beauty plus all of the events, all of the emotions, all of the memories of that day.  I can’t over emphasize the value that should be placed on your decision to choose great photography for this day.

One bride told my associate, “I’ve learned as a past bride, that you can’t really put a price on your wedding photography.  I spent about $1000 on my photos and wish that I had thought beforehand how I would feel about my wedding photos afterwards.  For the rest of my life I will regret that decision and my desire at the time to save a few bucks.”

 

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