Wedding pricing?

[monkey_wrench]

I am certain this has come up more than a 100 times but how do you go about pricing for weddings I have done 1 already and because it was my first attempt i charged £150 i am more confident in doing another one after the first and am thinking of maybe doubling it to 300? which includes all p&p and printing. I work in digital and thought id come to the pro's for advice ;)

cheers

Dan

[monkey_wrench]

heres some of my images from my first wedding

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/tatton/LEEANDMICHELLEWEDDING221.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/tatton/LEEANDMICHELLEWEDDING117.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/tatton/LEEANDMICHELLEWEDDING314.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/tatton/LEEANDMICHELLEWEDDING202-2-glow.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/tatton/LEEANDMICHELLEWEDDING353.jpg

[tim]

Selective color is far too harsh, there's too much range in saturation. Make the background sepia, and reduce the saturation of the dress layer IMHO. That's just too much.

To me the images are nice snapshots. Where's the groom? Weddings are a big market, find your place in it.

[monkey_wrench]

Selective color is far too harsh, there's too much range in saturation. Make the background sepia, and reduce the saturation of the dress layer IMHO. That's just too much.

To me the images are nice snapshots. Where's the groom? Weddings are a big market, find your place in it.

The groom is on others but thankyou for the c&c she specifically asked for the selective colouring so i guess its what the bride wants the bride gets.:p

[monter]

They seem a bit soft to me. Have you worked with a pro yet as a second shooter or did you just jump in charging $150? Having been in your shoes and just now starting to do weddings on my own, I can say it's a HUGE difference shooting with someone vs alone and I am SOOOO glad I shot with someone for so many weddings. I started with him 2 weddings for free. then started getting paid based on the number of good shots then once he realized how awesome I am ;) he started paying me a flat fee. I'm still shooting second with him, but booking my own as well. I am just a fan of working your way up. Just something to think about.

[RobKirkwood]

There is no right price. You will find customers at all price points, but some will be much nicer to work with than others - so the price you charge will define the people you get to work for.

We couldn't possibly work for £300, but there are 2 of us, a good amount of kit (most of it not listed here), and we're a proper VAT registered business with an accountant and bank manager to support :lol:.

Rob

[Wedding Shooter]

Dan - did she ask for the dresses to be selective colour? I agree with Tim - it is too much.

In terms of pricing - I think you should look at getting a bit more experiance with a pro before you start doing this for money.

However, I am just going on what you posted here. How do you feel you went?

If you really want to do this then work out the time you need to shoot the wedding, process the images, meet the couple and all your expences. Then work out a $ figure per hour you want to earn and use that as a starting basis.

[wilky95]

We have just started charging £500 for our services and that seems too cheap going by the feed back we receive, and we are in a low income area on an Island:(

Martin

[Phil V]

Is £1000 a good price for a car (or is this not enough information?).

Take a look around the internet at the work your competition is doing, and what they charge. Then try a wedding fayre to do the same thing.

This is the best thing you can do for 2 reasons;
1 It gives you an idea of the QUALITY of other local suppliers, therefore you can measure yourself qualitatively against them. Try taking a friend along for an honest opinion of how you measure up against them. Now you can measure yourself against them you'll have a better idea of what is a fair price for your work.

2 It'll give you an insight into what kind of work the locals are used to, and if there's a niche you can exploit, or a product/look you can supply better, classier, longer, or maybe a little cheaper (bearing in mind the following)

If you're serious about this, you have to produce QUALITY work to succeed, there'll always be amateurs who are happy to shoot weddings for £0 - 300, so if you want a place in the market that's worth having you have to compete with QUALITY, trying to compete on price will just drive you and anyone else stupid enough to try, straight out of business.

Take a careful listen to the criticism above, Tim wasn't criticising selective colour per-se, he was criticising the rather unsubtle way it was done . This is a very subtle business at times and you need to be receptive to the smallest nuances in human behaviour and language. There's also sharpness issues, which may be due to the resizing, only you can see the originals, be honest with yourself about the quality of your work. You could also repost one of the selective colour pics and ask someone to show you how it could've been done better, you might be amazed at what you can learn here.

You can learn the business on your own, but most that do work for a long time for nothing. Think about it, is it easier to move from working for nothing - to charging the market rate, when you're ready. Or to get a reputation for working for very little then increasing prices, whether that's;
A, 'he used to charge £400 and provided the same fabulous service he now wants £2000 for, why should I pay him more - noone else had to'
or B, 'He might be only charging £400 but there's nothing special about his photography, I can get a mate to do the same for nothing'

If you're working for cost, learning your craft, you'll gain the experience without asking people to gamble by booking you. You can get a reputation for being a good guy, and when you start to charge (properly) it's easy to explain that you've now served your time working for nothing and it's time to take it seriously and to charge accordingly. Noone will think that's unreasonable.