Pricing

[Robert Paredes]

Hi everyone
I'm going to shoot my first wedding next month, so I dont know how to price it? Can anyone give some advice on pricing. And any pointers on shooting the wedding? I will greatly appreicated very much. Thanks in advance.

Robert

[Disney Chick]

That depends on a lot of things. How big is the wedding? You said it's your first wedding; is it also your first photo job, or have you done portraits or other events?

[jcarouth]

i'm always confused by threads such as this. did you already get a job and not discuss the pricing of said job? do you have a signed contract that states "entity x (you) will provide service y (photographing wedding) for entity z (the wedding party) at a rate that shall be disclosed on or before the date of the wedding (next month)"

here's how i would do it:

figure out your competence level. how many events have you photographed? how long have you been a photographer? you can also compare your work to other photographers in your market. look at their websites. can you produce that quality of work?

look at what the job entails. is it a 45 minute wedding with an hour reception or a 12 hour event. are you contracted to shoot posed pictures (family, bride, groom, both, yada yada yada) and do you have the necessary equipment to do so (off camera flash, backgrounds if needed, etc). do you have a second photographer? what about a second body? what if one breaks.

in other words, your pricing should reflect your ability to perform the job to an acceptable level of satisfaction.

if i were asked to do a wedding tomorrow i would charge about $200 considering i will be working with the kit lens and a little over a month in experience with not a single real event under my belt that produced what i would consider quality photos.

hope this helps, even if just a little.

[CobyPhoto]

Originally Posted by jcarouth

i'm always confused by threads such as this. did you already get a job and not discuss the pricing of said job?

Such wisdom from one so young...I agree 100% and I do this as my full-time profession and have about 20+ years invested.

How can you even TAKE the job in the first place without know what you are going to charge? Not sure what your Day job is, but did you just decide that you were going to be an 'accountant' (insert your day job here) and booya...the next day you are doing someones taxes? You have to have some education and basis on which to work with, not to mention knowledge of the industry and the going prices for the work.

There is so much more to being a professional, SUCESSFUL photographer other than taking a photo and calling yourself such. (I can't think of a single one that I know that has less than 15 years invested in a full-time career of photography.) And when I say 15 years, I mean in full-time photography...no other way to pay the bills. (While you are spending all your time being the best (insert your job again) to pay your bills, SUCESSFUL pros in this business are doing the same thing with PHOTOGRAPHY. Not a day job. There is quite a difference here.)

I really hope the person you have take the job for understands your experience level. (For both of your sakes!) If that is the case then there isn't any issue. If they aren't aware, you are asking for a mjor headache if something goes wrong.

I would suggest you get with someone that shoots wedding regularly and see if you can tag along. There are so many things to know about shooting and returning your client with a product that I can't even list them all.

CJ

[Robert Paredes]

Well I have done portaits, but never done a wedding. I have not taken the job yet, I wanted to get some feed back first.

[Robert Paredes]

NO I have not taken the job yet, I was doning some research first.

[Norma_S]

The very first wedding that I carried a camera to was as a tag-along to see how things were done. I shot my first wedding solo for free for a fellow photographer friend and gave him all the images on CDs. The next wedding I shot was also solo for a paying (just barely) client as a favor to this same friend. Afterwards, I calculated how many hours I spent doing the photography and doing all the post work just to get them the images on a CD, I made a little above minimum wage! Looking back, I think they got what they paid for but not much else.

The next several weddings I shot was all as a second or third shooter and I didn't get paid at all in a monetary funds, just experience. Now, I charge for this as well as charging a client to photograph their wedding but there's a big difference now in what I can bring to the table in experience and equipment vs. those first few weddings I was part of.

There are SO many variables in pricing a wedding that others have mentioned. Figure that regardless of how many hours you actually spend with a camera in your hand the day of the wedding, you may be spending probably 4-5 times that many hours altogether before you have fulfilled your obligations to that client.

Norma

[ngoduyviet]

Originally Posted by Robert Paredes

NO I have not taken the job yet, I was doning some research first.

I'd heed the advice from Jeff, Coby & Norma. Get some experience first before diving in head first or you'll find the pool is empty

[MicWayWal]

Originally Posted by Robert Paredes

Hi everyone
I'm going to shoot my first wedding next month, so I dont know how to price it? Can anyone give some advice on pricing. And any pointers on shooting the wedding? I will greatly appreicated very much. Thanks in advance.

Robert

Robert,

Let me see if I can help you to answer your question. I spend an average of 50-60 hours of work per wedding and I know what I'm doing. I don't have to waste time trying to figure out the best way to handle proofing, streamlining your work-flow, designing an album, getting orders collated so they can be produced together, getting the orders finalized and finally putting the album together. If you have to figure a lot of those things out for the first time, it could easily be two or three times that amount of time.

Basic costs involved may be equipment you have to buy or rent for the wedding. If you put the images on the web it could cost between $45 and $100. Album printing cost could be anywhere between $100 and $1000 depending on what the bride wants. I assume you know what prints cost.

BEFORE the wedding find out what the bride wants in an album. Determine your fixed costs and then charge what you want per hour of work. Now you have an amount of money from which to base your charges. As you can see if you are not careful you can be working for minimum wage.

The best advise I can give you about shooting the wedding is two things.
1. Meet personally with the bride a week to 10 days before the wedding. Spend at least an hour going over the wedding details with her. Find out exactly what she is expecting of you and WRITE it down. Talk with her about what you would like to do creatively as a photographer for her.
2. Have an assistant at the wedding whose sole responsibility is to make sure you accomplish the list from the bride and remind you of what you wanted to do at the wedding. That will take a lot of the pressure off. Then you can relax and be creative.

God Bless you. As a wedding photographer you will need it.