Cheap Wedding Photography
So, you really want cheap wedding photography?
Cheap Wedding Photography - wedding's are expensive. No getting away from that. The average wedding in the UK costs around £20,000 give or take.
It is obvious that couples are going to want to look at ways of reducing costs and reducing expenditure, but is going for a cheap wedding photographer really the best way? This couple in the US didn't think so...
US couple suing their wedding photographer
A very similar thing happened in the UK last year some time:
BBC website: Couple sue wedding photographer
BBC website: Newlyweds compensated for wedding photos
BBC website: How hard is it to photograph a wedding?
Be careful what you pay for...
In the UK example the wedding photographer was a member of the SWPP, which is the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers. Just goes to show that even with 'professional' membership you may just end up with a duff photographer or duff photos. Being a member of the SWPP isn't in itself a mark of a professional - any one can pay £99 and join! (Correct the last time I paid my subscription fee - I am no longer a member)
If your wedding photographer looks too 'cheap' compared to the others in the local area offering the same service and package then there is going to be something wrong!
£395 for a wedding...?
Ask yourself this question. "How much would I charge to shoot a wedding to earn a decent living?"
If the answer is around £395 then you have to be shooting 200 weddings a year to make £79,000 in sales. That is before the business costs of travel, materials (albums etc), car insurance, camera insurance, professional insurance, Tax, VAT, National Insurance as well as marketing. Add in your living expenses such as mortgage, utility bills, food etc and that £79,000 doesn't go a long way. What worries me though is the 200 weddings a year bit!
200 weddings a year
200 weddings a year is a little over 16 weddings a month. That is 4 weddings per week! How do you control the quality of your work when your so busy? How do you ensure that the work is edited to professional standards when it may take 30 minutes or more to edit one image?
There is one local photographer whose website says they will have photographed about 158 or so weddings this year (2010). I think that is a scary number and very risky to be photographing that many weddings a year - even with four photographers
Shooting and editing that many photographs and maintaining quality would be a nightmare for me - I just couldn't do it. I couldn't outsource the editing of the images or the albums to anyone else either (that just costs more anyway) as I have no control over the quality of the images or the albums.
The Wedding costs breakdown (2011 figures)
The key to everything is to pay attention to the average wedding cost percentage figures in the right hand column, not the average wedding cost figures in the centre column.
| ITEM | AV. COST | AV. % |
| Insurance | £110 | 0.6% |
| The Service | £520 | 2.8% |
| Reception (venue, food & drinks) | £4,000 | 21.5% |
| Evening Reception (venue, food & drinks) | £1,700 | 9.2% |
| Entertainment | £850 | 4.6% |
| Flowers | £685 | 3.7% |
| Balloons & Decorations | £460 | 2.5% |
| The Bride’s Outfit | £1,590 | 8.6% |
| Hair and Beauty | £170 | 0.9% |
| The Groom’s Outfit | £200 | 1.1% |
| Attendants Outfits | £575 | 3.1% |
| Photography | £905 | 4.9% |
| Videography | £905 | 4.9% |
| Transport | £480 | 2.6% |
| Stationery | £465 | 2.5% |
| The Wedding Cake | £370 | 2.0% |
| Wedding Rings | £630 | 3.4% |
| Gifts | £205 | 1.1% |
| Stag & Hen Nights | £280 | 1.5% |
| Honeymoon & First night hotel | £3,400 | 18.5% |
(above table taken from www.weddingsday.co.uk)
An updated (2015 figures) article on Brides Magazine can be found by clicking here
Thanks
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