Most people get confused when they start looking for a wedding photographer. You know you want pictures to capture the memories, and you know you want a few prints to frame and maybe an album. But prices for wedding photography vary all over the map – from as little as free (if you have a friend or relative do it) to as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars. On this page I'll answer these questions:
- Do you need a professional wedding photographer?
- Does it matter whether the photographer uses a film or digital camera?
- What photographic style should your photographer use?
- How do you understand the various pricing models used by different photographers?
- Since photographers use so many pricing models, how do you compare prices among different photographers?
Click on a topic to go directly to that part of the web page.
Amateur or Pro?
Use an amateur and you'll probably regret it. Here's why ...
Let’s start with the basic question, “Do you need a professional wedding photographer at all?” Computers and digital photography have empowered a lot of us to attempt photography that we previously left to experts. It’s tempting to try to save on the cost of wedding photography by having a friend or relative take pictures. I generally advise against that, and here are my reasons.
- Most amateur photographers are capable of taking an occasional good picture. But that’s not what’s required at a wedding. A wedding is a live event, and moments at a wedding are irreplaceable. If you miss a critical shot, you don’t have a second chance. You have to be prepared, both mentally and with the right equipment. Most amateurs aren’t prepared; they lack experience, and they don’t have good enough cameras, lenses and lighting equipment. They’ll probably get a few good images, but that’s not what you want. You want all of the images to be good and as many as possible to be great. For this reason, when evaluating a wedding photographer, look at an entire album for a single wedding – not just a few really great shots from a few weddings. Make sure that the overall quality is consistently good [Even better, for a look at the entire set of images from some of my weddings, click here.].
- Most weddings are in churches, and it’s hard to take good pictures in a church, especially when the church imposes restrictions on photographers to prevent disruption of the wedding. Flash is often banned during the ceremony, and so photographs have to be taken using available light, which is usually much dimmer than most amateur photographers are used to. Special high-end cameras are required, along with special (and expensive) long lenses with large apertures (fat lenses with lots of glass to let in the light).
- If your wedding or reception is outside instead, most amateurs have problems in getting properly exposed images on a bright sunny day. Bright sunlight is harsh on people's faces, and a good wedding photographer knows how to use flash outside to fill-in harsh shadows and make people look their best. A good wedding photographer also knows how to use “raw” mode on a digital camera to better handle unusual lighting conditions.
- It’s traditional at weddings to do group photographs. Large groups require special lighting and equipment to avoid the usual flash effect that makes people look like they were lit by a searchlight. Large groups also require the use of wide-angle lenses so you can take a picture of people at the front of the church that doesn’t show the pews. But probably most important, group photographs benefit from some direction from the photographer to tell the individuals in the group how to hold themselves to maximize the “naturalness” of the photograph. I know that sounds contradictory, but in fact people look more natural certain ways than others, and good photographers know how to provide subtle direction to help people look their best.
- The time spent on photography at a wedding is just the tip of the iceberg. Most wedding photographers spend a lot more time after the wedding doing post-production work than they do taking photographs at the event itself. This isn’t like amateur photography where all you have to do is load the images onto a computer. Most wedding photographers make adjustments to the images to compensate for low light, weird color balance caused by fluorescent lighting or mixed incandescent and daylight, and the high contrast between white wedding gowns and black tuxedos. This adjustment ensures that professional photographs are all good. But most amateurs don’t do this type of adjustment, and they typically don’t have the expensive computer software that's required to do so.
- When you hire a wedding photographer, you’re not just paying for the photographer and his/her experience, you’re also paying for the use of the photographer’s equipment. High-end digital photography gear is expensive; it’s fairly common for a wedding photographer to use $10,000 worth of equipment for your wedding. If you tried to rent that equipment, you’d probably find that the rental cost alone exceeds the cost of the photographer.
- Professional wedding photographers know that despite proper care, equipment failures sometimes happen. Because of this, professionals carry duplicate or spare equipment. Most amateurs can’t afford to carry spares, so if anything goes wrong then you won’t get photos at all.
- Outsiders are more likely to be taken seriously as photographers by guests at the event. When a friend or member of your family asks you to pose a certain way, you’ll probably resist. But people trust a professional photographer to know how to pose people to make them look their best.
For all these reasons, I don’t recommend the use of a family member or friend to do your wedding photography. When wedding couples do so, they may save a few dollars but they end up regretting the decision. And often the poor result jeopardizes the friendship between the amateur photographer and the wedding couple.Many of these same reasons also apply to amateur photographers you may meet who want to do the wedding photographs for you at a really low price. If they’re going to try to apply their limited experience and inadequate equipment to “help you out” then believe me, they’re doing you no favors. Will you get your hair done for the wedding by a student hair stylist at a cosmotology school? No? Then why would have you your wedding photography done by a student photographer?
Film or Digital?
Digital is just as good, and better in many ways.
You’ll find that some wedding photographers use film but the majority use digital cameras. Should this affect your choice of a wedding photographer?This is much less of an issue that it used to be, simply because there are so few wedding photographers these days who use film.
At one point, in the early days of digital cameras, film was better than digital. But that hasn’t been true for several years, and now there’s almost no advantage to using film. The image quality is better with digital, digital cameras can be adjusted to handle extremely dim or bright light, digital images can be corrected much more easily, and it costs nothing except the photographer’s time to take as many images as you like. Why would you want your wedding photographer to use film?
Now you may be thinking, “Wait a minute. I’ve got a digital camera (or my friend does), and the photos aren’t very good at all; they’re always too dark or too light. Not only that, there’s a huge problem when you’re trying to capture a key moment: You press the shutter button and the photo isn’t taken for a second or two. You miss important photos.”
The problems you’re describing are those associated with low-end inexpensive digital cameras. There’s a huge difference between a low-end digital camera and a high-end digital camera. Low-end cameras have tiny sensors to capture the light: often smaller than the fingernail on your little finger. Even though these tiny sensors may have lots of pixels (individual points on the sensor that capture light), those pixels are crammed so close together that it’s very difficult to get a good image (which is why the number of “megapixels” isn’t a very good measure of camera quality). Furthermore, these low-end digital cameras often have problems with a long “shutter lag” (the time after you push the button before the picture is actually taken) because of short-cuts taken in the design of the camera to keep its price low.
A high-end digital camera, on the other hand, typically has a sensor that’s the same size as a 35mm negative: about an inch by an inch and a half. This is up to 72 times bigger than the smaller low-end sensor. And even though a high-end digital camera typically has more megapixels than the low-end camera, it’s the difference in pixel size and the sensitivity of the pixels that make more of a difference. And as for shutter lag on a high-end digital camera, it’s basically non-existent, so you can be sure that your professional photographer will be able to capture all of the key moments of your wedding.
So why would any wedding photographer use film? In most cases it’s because they’ve used it for years, and they haven’t bothered to change their methods to accommodate new camera technology. Just don’t let them try to convince you that the wedding photographs will be better because they use film. They won’t.
Style: “Traditional” or Photojournalistic?
It's about what you want.
A wedding photographer’s style is important – not because it makes that much difference in price, but because it’s important for you to choose a photographer who will give you the type of photographs you’re looking for. There are two basic styles of wedding photography: traditional and photojournalistic.
Traditional
Traditional photography is a continuation of the kind of wedding photography used for your mother or your grandmother. In those days all cameras used film (which is expensive), and small low-tech lenses made it difficult to take indoor pictures without flash. So the wedding photographer focused on what was considered “the important stuff”: mostly posed pictures of the bride and groom with various members of the wedding party and family. If you look at a wedding album from those days you’ll see a series of these posed pictures, together with just a few candid shots – maybe just a picture of the bride and groom leaving the church.These days traditional photography still emphasizes posed photographs, even if the photographer uses a digital camera. And let’s be honest: most wedding prints that are purchased are these posed photographs, so there’s some justification for the traditional style.
Photojournalism
The photojournalistic style of photography has its roots, as the name suggests, in photography done for newspapers. A pure photojournalistic photographer is the proverbial fly on the wall of a wedding – he or she watches what happens and unobtrusively picks out interesting moments to capture as images. A pure photojournalistic photographer doesn’t pose anyone, and just assumes that when people get together informally in groups then the photographer will capture an image. On the other hand, a photojournalistic photographer will typically shoot a lot more images (particularly if using a digital camera), and those images will usually do a good job of recording what really went on before the wedding, at the wedding, and at the reception. Maybe no single image will have all of the members of a family together, but you can be sure that the photojournalistic images will be more likely to capture the way family members really act. As mid-20th-century Italian novelist and poet Cesare Pavese said, “We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Photojournalism captures the significant moments.
Portrait Journalism: An alternative that's the best of both styles.
So far I’ve described traditional and photojournalistic styles as if wedding photographers are totally one or the other. But some wedding photographers are a mix. My own style of photography is photojournalistic in that I’ll capture hundreds – maybe thousands – of images that show what went on during the event. But I also know how important posed family portraits are, and so I make a point of getting various groups together to capture a posed image. I also make suggestions to the wedding party, and when there’s a break in the action, I’ll help people pose for portrait-like images. My blend of traditional and photojournalistic photography is sometimes called portrait journalism. The result is a large number of images that tell the story of your wedding in a series of portrait-quality photographs.
Which Pricing Model?
Pick the one that gives you what you really want at a reasonable price.
You’ll find that most wedding photographers – no matter what style – use one of two pricing models, which I’ll call “back-end” and “front-end.” It’s important that you recognize the difference so that you can avoid financial surprises later, and so that you can properly compare the true cost of wedding photography between two different photographers.
Back-end Pricing
Back-end pricing may appear to be less expensive at first glance. It’s kind of like those book or DVD clubs where you get the initial books or DVDs for phenomenally low prices (or even free), but then you pay a lot more later as the charges keep rolling in. In back-end pricing, a wedding photographer will quote you a low price for doing the wedding. But once you hire the photographer and have this person take your photographs, you’ll discover that your memories are being held for ransom. To get a print will cost a lot of money. To get an album will cost even more money. And in most cases you don’t have the option of just buying a CD or DVD with your images on them and then making your own prints. The photographer owns your images – not you – and you can’t legally make prints (or even copies of prints) without paying the photographer every time.
Why do many photographers practice back-end pricing? Because quoting a low initial price gets their foot in the door. You may initially think that you’ll only buy a few prints and you’ll skip the album. But people get emotional after a wedding, and all logic and financial conservatism goes out the window. The photographers know that you’ll change your mind and order lots of prints and albums. So they make their initial price low, knowing that they’ll make up the difference on the back end.
Back-end pricers often surprise you financially, but another problem with back-end pricers is that they get very territorial at weddings. Every photograph that friends and family members take with their own cameras is viewed by back-end pricers as taking money out of their pockets. After all, why should such a family member pay an outrageous amount for a print if the family member already has an almost-as-good version of the image in his own camera? Some back-end pricers even go so far as to contractually require you to restrict photography by family and friends during the event. This restriction is not something you should tolerate.
Front-end Pricing
Front-end pricing may appear to be more expensive than back-end pricing at first glance. But in most cases the front-end pricing will include things that are optional or omitted by back-end pricers. For example, some front-end pricers offer a CD or DVD of images and let you get your own prints made wherever you want [I include this for $250 extra]. Maybe they’ll include Internet downloads or an album in the price [I allow free downloads of small 1200x800 pixel images, and you can get a large 20-page album for $560, including album design], or they’ll let you order prints at lower prices [For example, I let you order 4x6 prints at 30¢ each, 5x7 prints for $1.75, and 8x10’s for $4.50]. That’s not to say that you can’t come back after the wedding and order more, but the front-end price is high enough that front-end pricers don’t have to jack up the back-end prices to make a living. Therefore any items ordered after the wedding are more likely to be reasonably priced.
Packages
Many photographers offer packages of products and services. It may appear at first glance that you're getting a discount by buying a package, but take a look at what's included in the package and make sure that you really want all of that stuff. Often the packages are padded with items that offer a higher profit to the photographer, but are not necessarily things you care about. It's kind of like car pricing where you have to get fancier wheel covers in order to get the sunroof.
Although package pricing may appear to make decisions simpler for you, the packages usually end up costing you more money. Figure out what you really need and want (see the next section), and then compare prices for those things, ignoring the "free" stuff that you have to pay extra to get.
How do you compare prices?
Here's a list of questions you need to think about.
Be realistic and make a list of what you really want from the wedding:
- How many hours of photographic coverage do you need? You need a photographer for the wedding and reception, of course, at least up until the point when the bride and groom leave the reception. But add some time before the ceremony for casual portraits and "getting ready" photos [I usually suggest 2 hours or more before the ceremony]. Four hours of total photographic coverage is a minimum, but you may need six or eight hours, or even more if there's a meal at the reception, or if the reception location is some distance from the wedding.
- Do you want an album? About how many pages? Look at the albums of friends and family to get an idea on the number of pages you'll want. Some photos deserve a two-page spread, and remember that pages are counted just like book pages: the front and back of the same physical page is counted as two pages. [for a description of my album design process, including a typical allocation of pages in a 20-page album, click here]
If you'd like to make your own album then think about how you'll be able to share the album afterwards. Scrapbooking is great, but it's a lot of work to make an album for yourself plus albums for parents or grandparents.
- Do you want extra copies of the album for parents, grandparents, or members of the wedding party [I offer extra copies of a large 20-page album for just $60 each, and small paperback versions of the 20-page album for a very low price: only $30 each]
- Do you want "paper proofs" (prints of every image taken by the wedding photographer)? [My low prices let you order 4x6 prints of every image for my regular price of just 30¢ each. And these are real prints you can keep – they're not marked with a copyright symbol across them, and you don't have to return them to the photographer.]
- How many prints will you get? What size? Count the ones you want to frame on the walls of your home and maybe your parent's home. Also remember the prints that you'll want for the desk in your office. And don't forget prints you'll give to friends and family. If prints are inexpensive enough, they make a great addition to Thank You cards.
- How many prints do you expect your family and friends to order directly? This may not come out of your pocket, but it contributes to the total cost of wedding photography.
- Do you want a CD or DVD of images, with the right for you to print them yourself without additional payment? [Many photographers won't provide this, but I will.]
- Do you want smaller downloadable images that you can easily email to people? [I offer these for free]
- Would you like a DVD “slide show” of images set to music to show on your TV or computer?
- Would you like a “storyboard” photo that's like a framed album, capturing multiple images from the wedding in one print?
- Would you like other merchandise with your images on them? [I offer puzzles, magnets, tote bags, T-shirts, buttons, mugs, and lots of other items]
Now take your list of what you want and figure out what it will cost using each photographer’s pricing. Make two different estimates: one for the bare minimum of things you want and the other one for an extravagant list of everything you want. The real amount you spend will likely be somewhere in between.
Remember that cheaper isn’t the goal. The goal is to get the best photos you can at a reasonable price. Save too much money, and you’ll pay for it in regret. Spend more money for higher-priced products and services if you want, but make sure you’re paying for quality – not a “name brand.” Twenty years from now you won't remember the name brand, but the quality of your images will speak for itself.
