Why is Wedding Photography So Expensive?
and answers to other questions you didn’t know how to ask
The topic of wedding photography cost is both tip toed around and beaten. Why is wedding photography so expensive? Where does this number even come from?
I get it - with out the tangible product, the services seem to get a bit muddy when talking about time versus money. It’s honestly a topic among many of us in the industry as well! Wedding photography is for sure an investment. But is it really expensive? What are you comparing it against? What makes it considered expensive? What you thought the cost would be? What the cost is versus a family session? What the cost if versus what your bestie paid?
There is a term all small businesses understand (and if they don’t they should) called Cost of Doing Business or CODB. Long story short - you figure out what you need to survive your life in the style you please, estimate how much that will cost, and that is how much you need to make for the year. Photography (as wonderful as it is) gets shorted right off the bat by having limited availability. Especially those in the wedding industry. Although there are a few unicorns - but for the most part weddings happen on the weekends. But not the full weekend… mostly Fridays and Saturdays. That means I have 104 days of the year to make what I need for the year. Well sort of… I live in Pennsylvania so there is a very distinct wedding season that starts in late April and Ends mid November. Again, yes some weddings happen outside of this range but not many. That 104 days is already cut down to about 60 something. All that being said - THAT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CLIENT!
In fear of rambling on for days and days about the amount of time wedding photographers have to make a living, let’s change the course a little. So picture this - you walk into a store and spot a bomb ass shirt that you know would make you look like a baddie. You walk over and peep the price tag and it’s more than you were expecting. You now have two choices, say f*ck it and buy it anyway because you recognize the value and know it’ll make you feel good or put it back and move on with your life. At least that’s how most people function in a big box store owned by multimillionaires. Nonetheless, with interacting with small businesses there is an ingrained annoyance that says “haggle them! Get them down! Show them their product/service isn’t valued as highly as they think”. Ya’ll I’m going to let you in on a secret… ready? We small business folk aren’t out to get you. We survive on client relations. We NEED your business to make our dreams a reality. We understand that our product/service may not be for everyone and that’s okay! What’s not okay is the comparisons. You not going to walk in Gucci and tell them to give you that $2,500 bag for $10 because Walmart sells a $10 bag. They are not the same bag. Maybe you’re okay with the $10 bag? That’s okay! But you’re not going to get it in this store.
Okay - I digress again… lets get into the time versus money which I feel is where a lot of people go to when considering package costs. One package I offer [at the time this post is being written] is 8 hours for $3,200 and includes two photographers. Of course there is tax but that goes directly to the state so we can just skip that part. That breaks down to $400 an hours which I agree with you is an absurd amount! Let’s break it down further.
First things first, the second photographer has to be paid of course. Standard in my area is $50 per hour. Sure… I could find someone for less but would you go below standard on something this important? Would you hire the D student over the C student (and that’s just the average). So $3,200 becomes $2,800 or $350 an hour which is still beyond amazing.
There is then travel to be considered. In my area I travel anywhere from 1-3 hours for a wedding on average. We will break that in the middle and say 1.5 hours. Adding on 3 hours round trip to your 8 hour package then becomes 11 hours or about $250 per hour. Still a super good deal! I do add a small travel fee to handle gas but the saying is “time is money” not “gas is money”. Your wedding coverage doesn’t end at just driving and photographing, there are thousands of images to be handled!
On average it takes me around 10 hours to import, back up, cull, edit, fine tune, export, and deliver a gallery. Every session that I photograph is backed up onto two separate external hard drives costing about $100 each and I need 4 in a year. But we aren’t talking about gear yet. So the 11 hour day is now up to a 21 hour day which breaks down to around $130 per hour. I’m still not saving lives here.
Oh shit! I almost forgot about the time it takes to plan with you! From the moment a couple inquires to the day I deliver their final gallery that takes about 5 hours of timeline planning, invoice managing, emails, questions, phone calls, walk throughs, texts, or whatever else the couple needs because I’m super hands on. So the 21 hour day is now a 26 hour day (I know that’s not possible… just stay with me). Okay - Down to $100 per hour.
Now that your wedding day is just about accounted for - don’t forget that every one of my wedding packages is inclusive on an engagement session. The shoot itself is about 2 hours and we will say the travel is around 1. then there is the time to handle the images as mentioned before but on a smaller scale so we will say around 3 hours. All in all the engagement portion of your payment will encompass another 6 hours - 32 hours all in all. That leaves us at $87 per hour for your wedding day.
By this point in my career I have created templates and forms that, while they took time to create, don’t take me as much time now to share. The time for trial and error and creation of such resources has not been included - we will just write that into the back end of things that go unnoticed by clients and consumers.
Now the fun part! On to the gear! My favorite part!
On your wedding day I will show up with 3 camera bodies ($6,000 give or take), 6 lenses ($7,000 give or take), 3 flashes ($500), 6 camera batteries ($400), 30 rechargeable quick recycle AA Batteries ($100), 8 memory cards at a minimum ($400), styling details ($200), two light stands ($300) and a bunch of other small things that will go unnoticed by you such as bobby pins, makeup wipes, a pen, bobby pins, clear umbrellas for the rain, etc. We just will leave them out of price. All of this comes along with my in my bag ($300) and my sling bag ($60). We are close to $15,000 to show up on your wedding day and that’s not including the normal things people need like clothes and hygiene - All things to be considered in the CODB that I mentioned before.
Once I get home with your images I use my iMac with a huge screen so I can edit around every pimple and fine line if requested ($2,000). Plugged into that I have a card reader which was cheap so ignored, and back your images up onto those hard drives I mentioned before ($400).
I then have to use programs to try to increase my work flow so those hours mentioned before aren’t even longer than already outlined. The programs I use all come with their own yearly or monthly fee and come out to around $400.
After that I have my website which is how your found me - $300 per year, the gallery which you will get your pictures through $288 per year, and my domain name which thankfully is only about $15 per year. What are we at now? I’ve lost count.
Oh I almost forgot - I also have a laptop ($1,500) because as I mentioned before I prefer to be easily accessible for my clients and when I have both my kids home with me they don’t allow me the time time to go upstairs into my office and work. Did I talk about the office yet? It double as a home studio which I spent about $5,000 to paint, finish the floor, and transform the space into a dream world for client shoots rather than the spare bedroom in my house. Yeah… I’ve 100% lost count. It happens easily in the mind of a creative. Number aren’t my strong suit. I think we are around $23,400 give or take.
Just the gear and programs alone means I need to book 7.5 weddings at my lowest package to cover the cost. Those 7.5 weddings will also need 7.5 engagement sessions which usually happen on weekends because most people have “normal jobs”. So off the bat I’m out 15 of those 60 something days that is the "good season” for photography. That’s not profit at all yet. If I were to offer the same 8 hour package for $1,500 I would need to photograph 15.6 weddings and with an engagement session would take up over HALF the available days of my business’ “ideal photography dates”. Again… all without any profit. This is where that CODB comes in that I mentioned before. I have a family - 2 kids, a house, a car, a belly, a phone, and hint of a personal life - all things that require a constant inpouring of money in some capacity. Other things that go unmentioned until now are education, workshops, social media, marketing, google listings, business licensing, camera calibrations and cleaning, insurances, gear updating and everything else that I know I’m forgetting. All of those things that take time and money to accomplish.
Do I think I have the best job in the world? FACK YAASSS! I love what I do. But this is just a peek into why it costs what it costs to hire a professional for your wedding. This is my passion. This is my dream. This is what it costs. I know I’m not for everyone, and I’m sure there are lesser experienced and cheaper people out that just like there are more experienced and more expensive people out there. Your job (which might be the hardest of all while planning a wedding) is to find your perfect match! All I can do it hope that’s me!