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Why are wedding photographers so expensive?
If you’ve landed here, you are probably in the middle of making a huge decision:
Who will take the wedding photos that will get me a bazillion likes on Facebook?
Who will take the wedding photos that showcase the memories you will cherish forever of the most important day of your life?
You know you want both: Meaningful memories and excitement that you just can’t help but want to share!
But you are probably also thinking: Why are wedding photographers so expensive?
Your wedding photos are a big deal; they are one of the only things from your wedding day that will last forever. No one will remember whether they ate chicken or steak at your wedding reception in ten years. (Sorry, caterers, we love and appreciate you!)
Not to mention, your wedding photos will preserve all the other important decisions you are making while wedding planning:
- The friends that will stand by your side
- Family that surrounds you with love and support
- The colors you choose
- The florals designed just for you
- Your stationery
- Your jewelry
- Your cake
- The sunset at your venue
- The party!
Your wedding photographer plays one of the most critical roles on your wedding day, and you may have noticed that the investment in quality wedding photography will also be an essential part of your budget. I’d like to give you a bit of perspective to consider as you are interviewing photographers and comparing pricing packages:
It’s not just the hours of coverage on the wedding day that are important.
Don’t be tempted just to compare hours and dollars. There is so much more to creating a complete wedding gallery than a set number of hours booked on the big day.
Before the wedding day
Before the wedding, you want a photographer willing to truly understand what photo style you are looking for and what shots are important for you to capture on your wedding day. Any photographer can show you a sampling of their best work, but you want to make sure you see an example of a complete gallery.
An engagement session is an excellent opportunity to get to know your photographer and see if you have a good connection. (It is also a great chance to give your wedding make-up artist a trial run.) You’ll never regret capturing this special time in your life when it is just the two of you! Plus, it is a chance to get comfortable taking directions, posing, and practicing to be the center of attention!
Your wedding photographer should want to know all about your big day! The date, the venue, the timing of the ceremony and the reception. A great wedding photographer wants to know your colors, the attire, and who the other vendors are. (They might even have recommendations if you need them.)
Knowing these details can help ensure you get the photos you want!
What if you choose your wedding photographer based on all their gorgeous light and bright outdoor wedding portraits, but then you plan a church wedding followed by a reception at a venue with little outdoor space? You might not get the gallery you were hoping for. An experienced wedding photographer pays attention to all these details and will bring it up during the consultation and show you photos that reflect the ceremony you are planning.
The Big Day
Of course, on your wedding day, you will expect to get the hours you agreed on in your package. You may also get a second shooter included in your package. You may also get a wedding photographer team that functions as part wedding planner and part party planner. It just depends on the day, but great wedding photographers often jump in to help out where needed and make sure the day goes smoothly.
You probably don’t want to hear about all the equipment and photo storage that goes into the big day. But there is a lot. Besides snapping thousands of photos in the day, your experienced photographer is always focused on the secure storage of your memories.
You can read more about how I feel about wedding days in my blog post: Why Weddings Don’t Stress Me Out.
After the Wedding
It may sound like a lot of time has already been invested in ensuring you get the wedding photos of your dreams, and there certainly has been. But the editing stage is where the hours rack up, and the expertise comes into play.
Most of the hours in a wedding photography package are spent culling, sorting, organizing, and editing your wedding photos. Wedding photographers love what they do, but this process is tedious! Turning thousands of photos into hundreds of photos that tell the story of your big day is a serious task.
You can imagine it isn’t the kind of work that can be done in one 8-hour shift. There is a reason that it takes a few weeks to turn a complete wedding gallery around and deliver it to a client. Attention to detail happens when a photographer is well-rested, well-fed, and in a good mood! This is accomplished with time management and top-tier self-care skills honed from years of experience.
Good news: This Missouri wedding photographer loves a sneak peek as much as anyone, and I do my best to make sure couples get a glance at some of the best moments captured within a week or two of the wedding day.
Remember while interviewing wedding photographers
I’ve shared the factors that go into my pricing and what I hope couples understand when they see my wedding packages start at $3600. Don’t just compare prices and hours in packages. Ask if your wedding photographer has processes in place to ensure that before, during, and after the wedding, they are taking all the necessary steps to ensure that you get the kind of wedding gallery you can’t wait to share.
So, why are wedding photographers so expensive?
It is about a lot more than just the hours of coverage on your big day. Your memories are priceless, and you don’t get a second chance at this one. I trust you’ll know when you find the perfect wedding photographer!
If you’d like to schedule a complimentary chat to see if I’m the wedding photographer that is the right fit for your wedding, you can contact me here. In the meantime, look at my Instagram to see my most recent work.
Bailey Morris of Morris Imagery is a wedding photographer from Lebanon, Missouri. She loves telling stories through authentic imagery and catching those unexpected in-between moments that turn into favorite photos. You can connect with Bailey here.
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