How many photos do you give/guarantee for a wedding?

I have been asked to do my first solo wedding in 2016 and I am trying to make up my mind if thats a step I am ready to take and getting my ducks in a row by drawing up a solid contract. One thing that came up in initial discussions was images. Guaranteed and fully edited images from other photographers she talked to, range from 100-1000, is what I was told.

Any input or advice would be much appreciated.

Quality over quantity.

Promising picture numbers is a ridiculous practise, designed for the client to divide the cost of the wedding by the numbers of pictures.

"$1000 for a hundred pictures is $10 a picture, is that what we are willing to pay dear?"

It puts you in an awkward situation when you promise 100 and only get 99 really good ones, and then you have to pad it out with some rubbish just to hit your target, because it lowers the overall standard of your work.

If you want to be commodity based then sure add a number to your contract.

I show my clients an album that has 180 pictures in during a consultation. They have never said "Is that it? Don't we get more pictures than this?"

So when I deliver double or triple that amount on the USB they are overwhelmed.

Tell someone a thousand and deliver a thousand, do you think the clients will be impressed? No you will have fulfilled the contractual obligation.

Tell them that you spend time looking at every single picture, deciding which ones make the clients look their best and enhancing them even more, or just getting rid of the ones that have someone photo bombing them, or have uncle bob in the background picking his nose.
Then the client gets to understand that you are not just going download everything and mail it of to them, but you are going to carefully spend the time looking at each and every photo, and that your work doesn't end when you leave the wedding day, but continues on for many hours, and that you are proud of your final product.

We are a service industry, shoot and burn's are like MacDonald's.
Other people are like that family restuarant that serves ok food, large portions and are budget friendly, but nothing really WOW.
Then you get the high end restaurants, finest ingredients, perfectly presented, formal table service, the works. But you pay through the nose for such service.

And obviously you get people all in between, and overcharging quacks or underrated geniuses, at every level.

At a fundamental level, clients do understand this concept, but the more you charge the more quality you will have to deliver and the better service will be expected.

If you really struggle getting that across, as them;
You: "how many wheels does your car have?"
Client: "4, why?"
You: "If I tried to sell you a three wheeled car, you might tell me it doesn't have enough wheels, right?"
Client: Errr yea, of course, three wheel cars very often toppled over!"
You: "what about a car with 5 wheels?" (not including the spare obviously)
Clients: "why would I need 5 wheels? How would that work, how would it be better with 5 wheels?"
You: "Exactly, you only need the pictures that do the job without compromise, not too few and not too many"
Client: "ooooh, right, I see..."

Clients are trying to break it down financially, a bouquet costs $50, an invitation costs $4 each.
But that stunning venue costs $10,000 just to hire the venue, before food and service costs,because it has amazing views and evokes an emotional response from the couple.

Which are you, a financial decision or an emotional one? Even budget photographers have to be chosen from the multitude of other people at each price point, how do you think that final pick is chosen in the end?

My contact states approx 500-800. Setting expectations is far from ridiculous, quite the opposite in fact.

It is more than possible to deliver both quality and quantity despite what some photographers think. And as for the commodity stuff... I'd ignore that. You're just managing expectations.

I disagree with most of what jimeuph1 said... but their view is one many photographers have however there are plenty of us who shoot and burn and do exactly what they say doesn't work yet it works a treat.

Memories has put an approximate number on his contract, the key is that it is approximate.

500-800 is a rather broad stroke number, leaving plenty of wiggle room.

Memories is also very experienced and he knows that each wedding will guarantee him the number of pictures he promises, and no doubt he can over deliver on that number.

On an 8+ hour wedding I would say that is pretty much spot on, but also remember that to put 800 pictures in a decent size, into an printed album would be extremely expensive. So many pictures are simply bonus ones, that live only in a digital form.

You are doing your first solo wedding, you cannot guarantee anything, so you shouldn't be giving any specifics. At this stage your managing expectations too a much lower standard than seasoned photographers, even though your first paying client might not be paying very much, you still don't want to even risk under delivering.

I would advise against putting it in the contract or packages, by all means you can give a nice conservative approximate number during a consultation to manage expectations. That is my method, and it works for me, your mileage may vary.

If after a few weddings you are seeing a pattern of number of deliverables, and you feel that you need to put numbers into your packages, because it is a concern of your clients, then it is your decision, but at that point it will be a number you can be 100% confident in.

Personally it was a question I have come across once, I only had a few weddings under my belt, and I couldn't give a truthful number, because each wedding I was getting more and more, I told them what the highest number I had given so far, and was said I was more concerned with giving clients photo's that were of a higher standard and that I could be proud of and that they would enjoy.
That ended the concern and they booked then and there.

Your bride in question, has had such a huge variance in numbers of pictures, did she also tell you the huge variances in prices of those photographers, did the ones who promised more charge more? Did she actually talk to any photographers? Or is she squeezing you for a figure so she can work out price per photo? That is commodity analysis, you have to stir them towards service analysis, do they like your work and your personality? Are you being so thorough, that they have no more questions for you?

The physical album and USB are the commodity, everything else is the service, the service dictates what your mark up can be. This is my view on the subject.

Maybe my car analogy was a bit flippant.

The internet gives clients a huge list of questions to ask your photographer, have a look at those lists, prepare what your honest response would be if asked. Be prepared for non of those questions to actually ever get asked.

Let a few weddings go past then revisit the topic, at least then if you decide to go the price per picture route, you can do so with the utmost confidence.

I don't really see the point in promising a certain number of pictures, especially in a contract. I've been asked to put it in a contract once and I did it, but it's not something that normally ever comes up. They ask how many on average they'll get and I tell them it depends on many factors. I'm not going to get 500 keepers if the wedding isn't very long, doesn't have a ton of guests, etc. It all depends on the size of the wedding and the length. Sometimes the reception is 4 hours long, sometimes everyone goes home after an hour or so, you just never know. And as such, I'm not going to put a certain number in a contract. I will give them an approximate number based on guests, timeline, etc. and I've never had anyone question it or ask for more. They also know upfront that they will only be receiving edited files and not the RAW files, as that has been an issue before.

I don't promise any number. My contract states an "unlimited" number of photos.

No hard number in contract.
Approximately 400-600 stated in faq
Typically 700-900 delivered

I is tough to determine a number. I shot a two hours wedding last year.. Doubt I could deliver 800 images *L*

No hard number is the contact, but I usually delivery about 400 images for a typical 12-hour wedding.

I say 800-1000 in my advertising, but at the meeting I tell them depending on length it could vary, and that historically my lowest has been 650 and my highest has been 1700

Size of ceremony also can have an impact.

Thanks for the responses all. I've been looking at the market and there a lot of photographers in my area that supply "all" the images from the day.

Well that statement is either a blatant lie, or a horrible car crash of the truth!

You should only hand out work that you can hold to a certain standard.

Sounds like spray and pray JPG's and hand the card over to the couple before running off into the sunset.

My clients always look happy when I explain the time and care that goes into the final selection.

I deliver around 500 from a full day which often is way too many.

jimeuph1 wrote in post #17428464
Well that statement is either a blatant lie, or a horrible car crash of the truth!

You should only hand out work that you can hold to a certain standard.

Sounds like spray and pray JPG's and hand the card over to the couple before running off into the sunset.

My clients always look happy when I explain the time and care that goes into the final selection.

I don't want to get into it here but just as an example this showed up on my wife's Facebook feed the other day from a lady in town.

"Ceremony, formals, 2nd shooter provided and all images on USB stick - $200."

I'd say there are easily 10 more of those I could find without really trying.