Hi All! I am a fairley new photographer, I have been going to school since last fall and I am at the stage now where my frineds are asking me to take their pictures, kids family etc. Just recently a couple I am friends with from my church ask if I would be their wedding photographer. This would be my first wedding and pretty much the only equipment I have is a 35 mm and a digital canon rebel a flash 3 lens (2 18-55mm and 1 15-200mm) and a tripod. My main question is what do I charge them? I have absolutley no idea. I have checked websites of other local photographers and it seems like the rates are pretty high, but then again they have been professionals a lot longer than I. If anyone could give me advice of rates that would be great! Any sdvice would be great at this point :)
Thank you,
Christy!
Ok, I've done one wedding...and hopefully that will be all I do though it was a big hit with the couple. :)
I would strongly suggest you do your first wedding for free. If not, you could do what I did...I charged $250.00 for the time. It was about 4 hours of time there, and I had my best friend helping. Then, I charged my normal price for prints. Weddings are VERY different from doing kids and family and such. Maternity and infant photography is a breeze in comparison to a wedding. If you are going to do it, please get a contract and specify in it that essentially this is a buyer beware deal because even if you say over and over to them that you don't guarantee you'll get a single good shot, they will still assume that if they are paying you they will get good pictures.
Especially if it is a formal wedding, you can be asking for trouble. Do you have a flash? Is it indoors? Can you even use a flash if it is indoors?
To be honest, pro-bono is how you should go till you know for sure that you will reliably be able to put out the professional quality images you want to.
Do you charge yet for your prints?
I don't have details but I am guessing it will be a semi-casual wedding. They won't be spending a great deal of money and thee couple and their families are more laid back.
I don't yet charge for prints. In the past I have given a cd with the pictures on it, then they can get the prints where ever they want.
When it comes to a wedding...don't guess ANYTHING.
My FIL is essentially a cowboy who had to move out of Texas to Oregon to go back and take care of the family farm after his parents dies. My dad is a pastor, but growing up he had thought he'd either be a pastor or a hobo. :) He's about as laid back as you can get. I'm very laid back, it isn't a frustration to me that I have young boys and it is safest to live in jeans and a t-shirt. My idea of camping is having to carry in everything with you and lug it back out again. I would rather own a horse than a convertible (and not just for gas mileage).
My sister's ex-FIL was semi-laid back but her ex-MIL was very uptight. My sister is very clothes oriented, she spends more on clothes for herself per year than I do for my family of four, plus throw in another 5 years worth of clothes for me and I still probably don't come close to what her budget is. There are a few girls at our church who laugh because all the clothes they get compliments on are ones my sister decided she didn't want anymore and gave to my mom to give away (probably about 1/3 never having been worn yet). My sister is very image conscious.
You'd think that my wedding would be semi-casual at the most and my sister would have a formal wedding. Well, my sister decided to give my mom and I 2 weeks notice for her wedding. She got a dress that was just a sundress at Nordstrom's, there were maybe 20 people there, and it was just a small little almost simply family get-together type thing. My wedding...250 people in a big church with a dress I'd designed. Did I mention you can't assume ANYTHING with a wedding? ;)
My wedding was insanely cheap in comparison to some of the more casual ones you'll see. I designed and cut out my dress. My mom's friend and my mom made the dress. I did my veil and all the favour boxes. Did all the artwork for the invitations, programs, announcements and things. I designed the brides' maids dresses. My mom and her friend and I did all the food (mostly my mom and her friend). My sister's friend did the flowers. You never know what they are going to do till you find out for sure.
To be honest...I would pretty much never offer a CD. You have no control of the quality of the images that will be printed. Then, when you do get to where you are charging more and are able to justify the expense, if Jack Brown hears that you gave Cindy Lou a copy of the CD because Martha Frank is the one who told Cindy about you and Jack too...well, how are you going to tell Jack that sorry...Cindy got the right to print pictures, but now I'm not doing it anymore but hey...you can pay me a sitting fee and my print price...aren't you lucky.
How many sessions with people have you done?
Here are a bunch of questions you need to know the answer to before you'll be able to confidently say "yes, I can do the wedding". Some you'll already know of course...it is just that I don't. :)
Does the venue allow flash. If yes...do you have a diffuser? If no...how wide open do your lenses go? Also, if no...do you have a reflector you could use for the bride/groom pictures at least?
How much memory/film are you able to take. When I did my one wedding, for 4 hours I kept swapping 2 gig cards...downloading from one while I filled the other.
Do you have an assistant? All that gear you'll need, an assistant will be pretty much a must. Because of my assistant I was able to rotate the cards. She hauled my laptop around (I don't yet have a better portable memory thing...plan on getting one before I go to the UK) and downloaded files then wiped the card for me. She handed me lenses, held the reflector, things like that.
Do they want posed shots before or after the wedding? What is the venue's position on that?
Can you do a practice run there around the same time of day as the wedding will be?
Is the bride getting ready somewhere else? If so...what is your transportation like?
How are you at handling relatives getting in your way, and others trying to tell you how to pose the people and telling the bride and groom to look at them and actually going up to the bride while you are trying to take pictures and re-adjusting the bride? It will happen. I'm a non-confrontational person so that is a big reason why I don't want to do weddings again. I don't like stress.
Hi Christy,
I used to work for a wedding studio in Detroit MI. I shot for them for ten years, the price issue can be a tricky one at best.
This being your first wedding, you do not mention anything as to what packages you are offering the couple.
If you are just documenting the wedding with no frills, and are wanting to get experience from this wedding might I suggest this approach, first of all what is minimum wage, keep in mind that your amount of time invested in shooting a wedding does not stop with the shooting itself, post preparation, and the material you need to complete the assignment need to be kept in mind, if you are making prints what is the total cost of the print minus your fee for each print, 8x10, 11x14, 4x6, are you keeping them in an album, take these things into consideration.
I suggest starting out small, document the wedding, 10 8x10, 100 4x6, and an album from Hallmark will be the minimum at a cost of about $300.00
They are not just paying for the prints, but also for your time, you can use the photo's for your wedding portfolio, but retain the copyright on the immages, if they request a C.D. to make their own prints the fee should be additional because you loose income from potential sale and resale of photo's.....if you have any other questions feel free to send me an E-mail....
Weddings are alot of fun but also demanding on time......
LarryBoy
I personally like not doing packages. I've always felt like you are forcing people to get something they might not want/need. I HATED that we had to get a package with our wedding (I also didn't like the photographer). We got less than we would have without the package because if we had gotten the package one step up it was too much so we had to settle for the one a step below which didn't have everything we wanted. We could have bought more later, but after looking at the ones we'd gotten we decided we didn't like them enough to buy any more...would have gotten more that first day though. :)
Obviously JMHO, but I like to be different anyway :2funny: My regular portrait customers though are thrilled with the fact that they don't have to buy packages. The only thing that I require is they buy 8 wallets per picture at one time since that is how many come on a sheet. :)