This has been sitting on my desk for sometime now, waiting for when I had a little free time to formulate a proper response to this Craigslist post for wedding photographers :). While I’m sure this particular bride will never see the response, I hope other brides and/or grooms with the same nagging question will get to see a response from at least one photographer who has been in the industry for 10+ years now.
A few weeks ago as I was contemplating raising our photography prices, I decided the first thing I needed to do was breakdown the time spent not only at the wedding but all the time spent before and after the wedding with post production work. There’s this fabulous myth that wedding photographers only work the 6-10 hours one day a week while earning a large sum of money. Unfortunately that is only a myth and not a reality. It was much to my own dismay I realized I made less than a part time McDonalds employee flipping hamburgers!
Now those of us (I’m included in this at the moment) who charge less than $2,000.00/$3,000.00 are the photographers who lack the strong business skills and eventually learn in order to have a healthy business that can properly care for their customers and supply an adequate income to pay for the basics of life (roof, heat, food) that we need to charge at least $2000.00 in order to survive.
Many of the photographers who are in the price range that this particular bride is looking for are only part time photographers who hold down full/part time employment and because of these demands on their time they are unable to pursue training in photography and have little time for editing which leaves brides waiting 6 months or longer for their photographs. That is one of the common complaints I hear from our brides is that this is what has happened to their friends and they want to be assured they don’t have to wait as long or get images that are substandard.
Another downfall of these photographers, is they get burnt out and fold their business, sometimes before a bride ever sees her wedding photos. How high on the priority list do you think your wedding is to them now?
Now how many brides say “On my wedding day I hope there is rain, snow, driving wind or fog”, no one! So living here in the Northwest means that most weddings occur during a three month window. Now take into consideration that weddings most often are on Saturday this means that you can expect around twelve days a year to make the bulk of your yearly salary.
Then we have to remember that we are now entrusted by our customers to preserve their memories on one of the biggest life changing events in their life. What an incredible honor to be selected to photograph this amazing day for our couples! With that honor comes a huge responsibility, there are no ‘do-overs’, no second chances to get this right! With that responsibility it means we have to know our camera inside out, meaning being technically proficient while being creative on the fly. Uncle Bob, simply doesn’t have this experience!
As a professional wedding photographer, it means we are small business owners that not only go to fun weddings to photograph the event, we are also the photo editor, accountant, website designer, the marketing guru, customer service department, and so much more, it’s a surprisingly large amount of work involved for one day of photography!
We haven’t gone into the expenses of owning the business! The gear, the training, the gas to drive back and forth, the taxes, insurance (for the business and our health) and other miscellaneous expenses that come along with owning a business. I’m not going to breakdown each of those expenses, there is no need to bore you with those. However, I assure you they certainly add up and take a good portion of the money received.
With all that said, it’s true we have an AWESOME job! We get to go to wonderful weddings to photograph people looking their best, meet some amazing people, be creative, be our own bosses, and have the joy of preserving your wedding day memories!
In closing, many couples have no hesitations in spending over $5,000. for a wedding dress, thousands just to have the right venue, plus several hundreds on wedding cakes and guest favors, etc.. Yet they are willing to cut back on the photography and video, which is the one thing that preserves those special memories!
~ 253-970-5689 ~ info@familyaffairphotography.com ~ www.familyaffairphotography.com ~
