Wedding Photographer Rates in the UK?

Buddy of mine is getting web in the UK in May and has everything lined up except the Photographer. He lives in Western Scotland "where good wedding photographers are few and far between", his words not mine. Maybe it's because they have to travel around some islands etc but he was quoted around £2k for the day from three of the five photographers he's talked to thus far. I thought it would have been cheaper than that? My wife and I tied the knot in a chapel overlooking the Ocean in Southern Japan with a photographer from an agency that charged half that rate. Is that normal price in the UK?

Yup....

probably the average price yes, but if he keeps looking he will find someone willing to do i cheaper. Annie McD on here is from that neck of the woods, she may know someone??

Given the amount of work involved, what with planning, shooting, processing etc that is required to do a professional job, and the cost of good gear, £2K sounds very reasonable. We shouldn't be encouraging photographers to engage in a price-cutting war, it's hard enough to make a living with a camera as it is.

Keep looking around and you will find someone that will do it for less than half of that price...These days there are too many people prepared to do it cheap...but bear in mind you usually get what you pay for, be sure to see some of their previous work and make sure you have a contract with them..

For a competent professional capable of actually doing the job to a reasonable standard, to shoot a full day I would think that £2000 would be at the lower end of scale, especially in the Highlands and Islands. Travel is not always easy, or cheap in that part of the UK, and the population is pretty thin on the ground up there too. You need to consider that in the highlands and islands lots of things a much more expensive than in the rest of the UK. Interestingly I was looking at the carriage charges for the pro lab that I use, and while the rest of the UK can get next working day courier delivery with a 1 Hr time slot for £9.99 for that area of Scotland its a 1 to 2 day service and it costs £19.99, twice the price for half the service, and that is on the mainland too, just because it is remote. That will apply to just about everything that has to be sent to those areas. I believe that there are some places in the highlands where villages or towns might be 10 or 15 miles apart as the crow flies, but it is a 100 mile drive to get there, all on single track lanes. If you are working as a wedding photographer, and making almost all of your income that way you are not going to be making great money charging £2000 per wedding. Even if you book a wedding every week during the main wedding season in the UK that is going to be 26 weddings a year, since the season is about 6 months. That is gross takings of £52000, at which point one would have to wonder if charging "only" £2000 per event was actually sustainable.

Of course if you look hard enough I'm sure you could find a GWAC, or even a MWAC that will offer shoot and burn for £750 or even £500 maybe even less, but will they even be capable of doing that successfully? I got married back in 1987, and we went with a good mid range pro for the photography and IIRC it cost us about £500, for the getting ready shots, ceremony and formals at the church, the speeches at the breakfast, and then some shots of the evening do including the cake cut etc. I'd expect to pay about £5000 for that now.

Alan

£2000? FAR too cheap for a really decent job.
While "Western Scotland" covers quite a varied area (!), if you take into consideration these possibilities, it becomes apparent just why it's potentially expensive.

1. £2000 minus VAT (and any halfway decent photographer will necessarily be VAT registered) at 20% = £1667 actual fee.
   
2. "Highlands & Islands" will almost certainly involve very time-consuming travel (it's pretty difficult to average much more than about 35mph on the single track roads, especially in tourist season). Hence factor in at least half a day for photographer to even get to the location - plus half a day home again. Hence a day's "labour" charge with nothing tangible to show for the cost.
   
3. Because of the nature of Highlands and Islands locations, it's quite likely that there will be ferry crossings involved. CalMac (Caledionian MacBrayne Ferries) are notorious for their high ferry charges even for a 40 minute Oban/Craignure (Isle of Mull) hop. A car + driver costs about £70 return. If you're going to Lewis/Harris then it's rather a lot more - plus the time getting to Ullapool in the first place.
   
4. Flying (eg) Glasgow/Stornoway with sufficient gear to do a proper job would cost about £400. Then there's car hire, etc from Stornoway to the location. Oh, and airport parking
   
5. Other than Mull, it's likely that photographer would have to stay overnight both before and after the wedding - factor in another couple of hundred quid for that. Ferries run on their own timetables, not necessarily when "The Wedding" requires them to!
   

As the others have said, things are expensive and, generally, far apart and fairly inaccessible up here in the north-west of Scotland. However, as you don't specify which area it's very difficult to help - the wedding could be in the centre of Glasgow for all we know. Please provide more details and I may be able to help/advise/refer your friend.

Thanks for all the great replies I've passed on the copy and pasted input to my buddy. Annie, the wedding, or photoshoot at least, is taking place in a small town called Invergarry (sp)? Apparently quite isolated but the couple like an old Castle that's there to appear in their shots...

Cheers,
mark.

OK, here's your man! (IMHO) he's the best in the area and especially for environmental photos. Michael Carver Facebook or on Flickr. If the couple are going to all the trouble to go to Invergarry for their wedding, Mike will give them memories that will last for ever. I don't know what he charges but whatever it is I would advise that they book him. And he's from Inverness which isn't too far away.

BTW I've followed him on Flickr for years but have never met him, so no vested interest.