Number of Weddings in Austin TX Vs. Number of Wedding Photographers, estimates?

[yhpargotohp]

I live in Austin, Texas and I am curious, does anyone in this forum, have any insight on a reasonable estimate would be for how many weddings take place here each week/month/year???

Also, how many photographers here do you think specialise in wedding photography?

I know the population of Austin is over 700,000 people. So it seems like there would be quite a lot of weddings here? (I haven't lived here a long time)

I did a search on google for wedding photographers and came up with about 40 or 50 of them. Does that sound about right?

I know I could go to the courthouse and pay a fee for wedding info, but I don't want to go through all that. I am just looking for a ballpark figure from someone here.

I'm just trying to determine how much demand is here for Wedding photographers, and how much supply of possible work (weddings) there is for such a photographer here.

[Phisch]

I think that 40-50 is a low number. I doubt that covers everyone. If you want a more realistic number---assuming you're looking into this to see if you would have lots of competition---you will need to include nearby cities like Buda, Kyle, Georgetown, Round Rock, etc. I only mention that because photographers in those areas often market themselves as working in Austin.

Welcome to Austin, btw :)

[yhpargotohp]

Thanks for the welcome, I love Austin so far.

Another thing I am trying to gauge is, how many weddings does the average photographer, in Austin & surrounding areas, do in Austin each year?

Yes, I am trying to see how difficult the competition here will make it to get work.
And I'm trying to calculate how many weddings would I need to shoot each year to earn a comfortable living.

I think knowing these variables will at least help me come up with a ballpark estimate of what to expect realistically.

[Phisch]

I honestly have no idea re: number of weddings/photographer.

Austin has the advantage (if you don't mind a drive) of being about 3-4 hours to two major metros: Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston. Add to that San Antonio.

I am guessing that success will depend on how much work you want to put into it. On the surface, there are a lot of photographers in ATX who do a really good job and do actively work on building their businesses so the competition seems difficult. A lot of photographers lately are posting their availability as 2nd shooters, if that's info that helps you.

The issue would be how much work you want to put into business development and differentiating yourself from the others. But I think that doesn't depend on *where* you are really.

[Tom]

Austin is a tough market, and can be made tougher based on your style. It is a very artsy town with lots of artistic people. The VAST majority of new wedding photographers are somewhere in the 20-30 range, and Austin has a lot of people that age.

While it is a benefit that you are close enough to book weddings in the other three major metros in Texas, the reverse is also true. I am booking a couple weddings every year in Austin, and I am based in Kingwood.

I am guessing that success will depend on how much work you want to put into it.

This.



But I would say Austin and then Dallas are the two toughest markets.

[suerenee]

There is a facebook group that has 500 members that claim to be Austin Photogs, there is another group that is a Austin wedding meet up (75), the emergency coverage group (57), and just yesterday I had breakfast with 30 local photographers. And not everyone who is a wedding photog is a member of those groups/and not everyone in the groups focuses on just weddings.

It's a big group of folks but everyone is friendly. You have to pay your dues (which I'm doing) and bust your hump.

Thankfully we're not as big a Dallas/Ft. Worth. I also have traveled to SA, Houston and will be going to Corpus this fall.

[SueGirl]

Several years ago {5} when at UT I did weddings and belonged to a small private social tech group of Austin Wedding Photographers.
The group stated marketing data in the area ...
There were over 200 photogs listed in various phone book and it was estimated
there were about 500 more who did not advertise in the phone book and wedding capable.
I did not advertise.
There were several long term established in the group that decided to quit weddings due to too many photographers and the new concept of lowest bidding for the job.
There was great fustration of the biz.
They contrasted 2007 market with that with 10 - 15 years ago when Austin had less than 30 in the phone book...

Now ... not being in the area ... with the explosion of digital photo and how ACC and many others put out ... I would venture to say tons.
Not sure on current # of weddings but with everyone doing digital photo ...
I would say that the concept of a pro wedding photographer is very blured and dimished with amatures and serious amatures and semi pro.
Your Uncle Fred's of the world may even shoot more weddings these days than what
some may who consider themself as a wedding photographer.
I am glad I manage the sell equipment to this market of photographers.
The place to be is behing the camera and equipment sales.
These wedding jobs did not go overseas they went the way of the digital amature duck.

See http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos264.htm#outlook for the US photograher employment market
and keep in mind that although there are apx 180,000 photographer positions there are 1 - 2 orders
of magnitude {10x - 100x} of photographers who want these jobs.

[suerenee]

To add to the amateur duck idea...

I have expenses the "new" or college student photographer doesn't have....I pay sales tax quarterly (most of them don't have DBA/tax-id). I carry liablity insurance and equipment insurance, I have over $13K in gear (most of them have a pro-sumer camera/kit lens) and I am investing in my education and technology (CS5 wasn't cheap!)

The key is finding the ideal bride for your business. I don't take $500 weddings b/c those folks don't value my work. I'm not quite to the point of getting the $5K bride yet...but I'm working on it. I don't want to kill myself and shoot 40 weddings a year. Most of the FT photogs in town only want to shoot 20-30 weddings a year. So the #s are tight, but not as tight as you might think.

According to my SEO guy there are 50,000 pages competing for the first page of Google under "Austin Wedding Photographer."

[phillip ino]

There are tons of wedding photographers in Austin, but luckily, there are plenty of weddings and clients to be had. I'll say that at least 50% of my clients live outside of Austin, but choose to have their weddings here for various reasons. There is plenty of money out there for those who are serious about their craft and profession to live a comfortable life. I wouldn't focus on the competition too much, especially in our uber friendly community here in Austin. We're all here to help the industry grow and prosper.

[yhpargotohp]

Thank you all so much for your honesty & input on this. Your info helps me keep things within reality and the true perspective, but also lets me know success is still possible and attainable if the hard work, determination and skill are put into the equation.

Yes people in Austin are so friendly here, that's one reason I love this place so much, the citys motto is "the friendly city" from way back.

The weather is great, seems to be opportunity here for anything a person would want to pursue, low to almost non existent crime here, cost of living is low, it's such a beautiful city, with so much to do and see, a city with such a unique personailty to match my own, a city filled with people that celebrate individualism and uniqueness and creativity, the arts. I love it here, I've been to over 25 states, and Austin is the only place in America I ever want to live from now own.

I went back to visit West Virginia a few months ago for a weekend, and I was so afraid something would happen to the plane or something and I wouldn't be able to make it back to Austin, seriously thought I was going to have a panic attack of some kind of weird thing happening to me, I don't know fall into another dimension like the Twilight Zone or Bermuda Triangle and not be able to make it back to my beloved Austin.

haha!

Seriously, I think I would feel uncomfortable and homesick just going to Round Rock to visit! haha, I hardly ever go to North Austin even, to me the heart of Austin as with any city usually is Downtown, but the SOUL of Austin to me anyway is South Austin.

I think I would have to work in a extra fee just for shooting something in Dallas, San Antonio or Houston or not leave Austin period! (well just kidding about that, kinda, haha)

I just found this forum yesterday and probably have been reading through all the old posts searching for different information from 10 pm until about 6 am this morning when I finally fell asleep! haha! I love this forum so far and the information it contains, and the helpfulness of the members like yourselves, at first I was nervous about posting any type of question here, because in other types of forums members are so quick to be rude, or attack, or just totally ignore a new member. But you guys are different. Sorry for the long post.

I will go back to reading more now of what's here, haha, I'm actually one of those rare members I guess, you know the one that actually trys using the SEARCH feature at the top of the screen before posting questions, haha, Thank you all again for making this a great forum and so freely sharing your knowledge of this business & art!

[Phisch]

Originally Posted by yhpargotohp

Thank you all so much for your honesty & input on this. Your info helps me keep things within reality and the true perspective, but also lets me know success is still possible and attainable if the hard work, determination and skill are put into the equation.

Yes people in Austin are so friendly here, that's one reason I love this place so much, the citys motto is "the friendly city" from way back.

Amen and amen!

[a2rob]

Originally Posted by suerenee

To add to the amateur duck idea...

I have expenses the "new" or college student photographer doesn't have....I pay sales tax quarterly (most of them don't have DBA/tax-id). I carry liablity insurance and equipment insurance, I have over $13K in gear (most of them have a pro-sumer camera/kit lens) and I am investing in my education and technology (CS5 wasn't cheap!)

The key is finding the ideal bride for your business. I don't take $500 weddings b/c those folks don't value my work. I'm not quite to the point of getting the $5K bride yet...but I'm working on it. I don't want to kill myself and shoot 40 weddings a year. Most of the FT photogs in town only want to shoot 20-30 weddings a year. So the #s are tight, but not as tight as you might think.

According to my SEO guy there are 50,000 pages competing for the first page of Google under "Austin Wedding Photographer."

++ DBA and Liability insurance, the craiglist and "the fly by nights" will not have this!!!

[hdctx]

I was looking up wedding demographics the other day for Texas, and the major cities average between 7 and 8 marriages per 1K population per year. I went to a PPA seminar this week, and they were marketing to college educated women between 22-30 only. As to the number of competing non uncle Bob photographers, check the ads in the Texas brides magazines, and the exhibitor list for the last few Bridal shows.

[xpherion]

Good information to know