Wedding Pricing

Thanks Lloyd for the complements

Definitely plan on doing some crazy lighting when I have the chance to - the last few I've wanted to learn the ropes a little and just lay low.

Totally off-topic, but how do you mount your flash + pocketwizard + hot-shoe to PW chord on your lightstands?

Without doing a bunch of reading I can't really comment on prices, but I have a couple of general thoughts:
- I like real albums instead of books. Remember wedding albums should be around for grandchildren to look at, books might not be, but i'm confident my Queensberry albums will be good in 100 years.
- Never say unlimited anything. Your first ethnic 20 hours straight wedding will teach you that. I had one wedding with prep starting at 6am and the reception finished around 1am, 19 hours. Luckily I didn't have to cover the whole thing, and I over 8 hours i'm on an hourly rate.

Thanks so much for the comments Tim

tim wrote in post #3959284
- Never say unlimited anything. Your first ethnic 20 hours straight wedding will teach you that. I had one wedding with prep starting at 6am and the reception finished around 1am, 19 hours. Luckily I didn't have to cover the whole thing, and I over 8 hours i'm on an hourly rate.

Good point, I forgot to mention that. People WILL take advantage of "unlimited."

Okay, Lloyd convinced me too. I guess you do pick your market (when you're good enough to). The clincher was that I myself think exactly the way he said about skipping the low and mid-range stuff. You are good enough to choose to shoot for the people who care about their photos and will be looking in the $3K+ range. Especially since you probably already have a great portfolio from second shooting. Man, Lloyd should be on a debate team.

I haven't any suggestions for you on wedding things..in the same boat myself. But I had to say I love your work!!! And ask: You ever shot at the Guild Inn, in Toronto?

Aray_Of_Art wrote in post #3959887
I haven't any suggestions for you on wedding things..in the same boat myself. But I had to say I love your work!!! And ask: You ever shot at the Guild Inn, in Toronto?

Well thanks so much!

No I haven't shot there yet, in fact, I haven't heard of it to be honest, is it nice?

I think 8 hours coverage might was well just be unlimited coverage at that point. I think you should break down the hours as 4 hours, 6 hours, and unlimited (8 hours). I don't think there should be a time limit on engagement pictures just say "engagement session" (1.5 hours). I also don't like the idea of giving them a big stack of 4x6 prints. What are they going to do with them? put them in a box in the closet. Do online proofing and give them an inexpensive album for the smalled package (TAP, Flora). I personally would not include an album in the smallest package and I think you might take a loss including a graphistudio album in the middle package. Like what lloyd said keep it at 3 packages: basic, complete, over the top.

jamiewexler wrote in post #3958137
Depends on how much you want to work.

I shot a year of bargain basement weddings ($500 - YIKES), to achieve market penetration and gain experience. Once I had a year of weddings under my belt, I raised my prices by a significant amount, then raised them again this year.

I got 27 weddings at that price my first year, and worked my tail off for less than $14,000. BUT, I got a LOT of experience and built a really nice WOM network that has laid a solid foundation for where my business is now. OTOH, I was way too cheap - I could have started at twice that and booked the same amount of weddings.

On the flip side, I know quite a few photographers that started out at market rate, and have built their business VERY slowly. Sure they matched my gross income in 5 weddings, but they also only shot 5 weddings - I was FAR more experienced after my first year...

Both valid starting strategies, just depends on how much you want to work.

I can soooooooo relate to that !

Me and Jon started last year with one freebie wedding and we will have shot about 20 by the end of this year all at a budget price (£600 for 2 of us, so about $1,200) and we definitely should have raised our prices sooner as we have ended up with some cheap ones for next year as well ...weve bumped our prices up a few times now and were at £1,650 for 2 of us (about $3,300) and wil probably raise them again before xmas but we should have bumped them up sooner because we already have 20 bookings for next year.... quite a few that will be at lowish prices. As Jamie has already said its a great way to get a lot of expereince in a short time but we could have probably got away with charging quite a bit more and still getting the same number of bookings.

One of my problems was that I didnt feel we could justify raising our prices even though the bookings were pouring in because we didnt get the opportunity to shoot our second wedding until april this year... at which point we had over 20 bookings already! If I had that same time again I would definitely tie my prices more closely to my bookings even if I hadnt shot another wedding, so after 5-10 bookings bump it a bit, after 10-15 bump it again etc.

One thing thats worked for us is to always be charging more when we shoot the wedding compared to when we booked it (which is easy to do with weddings because of the usual delay between booking and shooting) .... the B&G think they got a bargain becasue the price on the website is more than what they paid, the guests just see the current price and so dont know any better but can see your busy shooting weddings so are obviously worth your price and the same for new website visitors, they see your busy with work and so you must be worth your price. Any referals that mention price along the lines of "ohh my friend booked you for this price" we counter by explaining that we increase our prices periodically so although we cant offer that price any more they can take advantage of our current price which will shortly be increased ..... so when we shoot their wedding next year they will have also got a bargain for booking early.

We have tended to be in a constant state of "just about to raise our prices" this year.... seems to have worked so far though but I am intersted to hear how other people price, do some people offer the same price for the year ? and then if someone wants to book for the year after they have a different price ?

picturecrazy wrote in post #3957979
I think the starting point at 1400 for 6 hours is good, though I would drop the prints and keep it minimal. You don't want your lowest package to be enticing at all. You want to get people to jump up to your middle or higher package.

$2000 for your second package is a good price... but again, you are giving WAYYYYY too much for it. Drop the prints to something like 2 5x7 for the e-shoot and two 8x12 (I HATE 8x10 with a passion) for the wedding. Drop the signature matte... most have their own ideas anyways. Drop the album altogether. When I look at your $2000 package compared to your $1400 package, all I see is you LOSING OUT. You are giving tons more, and it's all at pretty much LESS than your cost! The time shooting, the time in PP, the time in album design all costs something, and TIME is the MOST valuable thing in any industry. So basically you are making LESS profit than your $1400 package, but working more. Doesn't make sense.

Also keep in mind that albums are not cheap at all! If you present them to your clients as something that's easily thrown together and cheap to produce, they will believe it. If you tell them that it's an ultra-premium book crafted in Italy (they say oooooo to that) and shipped here, of very high quality, lasts 75 years, has thick pages to resist rough handling, and that many of the worlds best photographers also use this book, then they will also believe that. I sell my top album just like I mentioned above and they all agree it's worth the $2800 I charge for them.

What I see here is you are selling with the wrong mentality. You are selling to give value for your dollar. This is not K-mart or Zehrs type of shopping, this is a once in a life event. You gotta sell this as a full experience, not a product per dollar.

You gotta make it so after meeting with you, they'll think, "damn!!! we MUST have Bryan no matter what it costs!! He's awesome and now I'm sooo excited for our wedding and our pictures! If we drink less starbucks for the next 3 months then we can help make up for the $1500 more we spent today than we originally budgeted for!"

The LAST thing you want to do is sell your products by value... then your bride and groom will leave the meeting thinking, "hmmm... soo.... we can get 300 4x6 prints from bryan, but joe's foto said he'll give 600 4x6 prints and shoot for 8 hours and he's only charging $1500. I think joe is a better deal..."

no no no no

I know you are a student, so you may be in the student mentality where you want max value for your dollar, and don't think people will come to you if you aren't a good deal. Well... FORGET ALL THAT!

When people are established in their careers, and are comfortable financially (not even rich... just comfortable) and have gone through the 'student mentality' of value per dollar, their mindsets change. They are now looking for "we know what we want and if it costs a lot, then we'll pay it, because we know we want it." I know when I was a student it was hard for me to comprehend this mentality but it is SOOOOO true and it's out there. The Golden Horseshoe is STUFFED FULL of these people. This is who you want to sell to, to appeal to, to shoot. Evidence of this is everywhere!! Why buy American Eagle when really, department stores have clothes that look similar? Why buy starbucks when 7-11 coffee tastes good too? When I look at the houses north of Lakeshore Rd in St. Catharines, there are a lot of Lexus, BMW, and Benz cars there. Why buy those when a chevy cavalier will also get you from point A to B? You gotta BELIEVE they are out there, and you gotta sell to them.

If I were in your shoes, this is how I would structure my packages.

Package A $1600
4 hours coverage
photos on CD
online gallery

Package B $2000
8 hour coverage
photos on cd
online gallery
ONE hour e-shoot
4 8x12 or 10 5x7
Basic album can be added for $1000 (not a graphi book... more like an asuka)
Premium (graphi) can be added for $3000

Package C $4500
Unlimited coverage
photos on cd
online gallery
ONE hour e-shoot
More prints than B
AMAZING ULTRA PREMIUM Italian-made 20 page custom designed book.

This is all about SELLING THE SIZZLE, not selling the steak. You might look at this list and think it's retarded, but it works. Focus your marketing on selling the sizzle, and you will do well. Bookings might start slower, but the name you are putting out will be known more as high quality than a good deal.

Hi...so I never post here...and I'm not even a photographer...BUT I am a bride. I come to this website at least once a day to look at all of the beautiful photos that you all take...so I just thought maybe a Brides perspective would be helpful here....

Bryan...You're one of my favorites here, and I love your work. I'm getting married in October of 08. I'm not rich. I don't make a Ton of money...and I can assure you, as a bride, that Lloyd is right in everything he says here. When i shopped for my photographer, I did all my research on the web first. I then found a photography company that I thought was amazing and I love their work. Photography, you will find, is one of the most important things to a bride. Every single one of my friends who have gotten married, has shelled out more than their buggest has allowed for a great photographer. My package with my photographer is a little over $6,000...and it's not even the BIG package. I'd say it's simular to your largest package, but does not include nearly as much. It had the engagement shoot...not prints included, but we did recieve a full set of proofs. Any prints we ordered were extra. It then includes unlimited wedding day coverage, a few prints (not a lot, and I don't really remember how many..but no more than 8..and I don't even think it's that many), an album (it's a really nice album!), 2 smaller parent albums, 100 thank you cards, full set of proofs, and the high-res digital files on CD, they call these the Digital Negatives.

The point is, I didn't even shop around once I found someone who's pictures I loved. I booked my photographer before I even had a set date or picked a reception hall. They were nice enough to hold 2 dates for me until I decided.

Anyway...just one more thing. My cousin had an amazing photographer at his wedding as well. He charged $2500 just to show up and take pictures, and then everything else was extra..and their package ended up being about the same $6000 that I payed...AND HE HAD A BUDGET WEDDING!!! Don't underestimate what your work is worth, it's the ONLY thing the Bride and Groom have to look back on to remember one of the most important days of their lives.

Sorry I got a little carried away. I realize that I'm in the Northern NJ/New York market, so prices will be more here...but don't give your work away for free! Price it right for your market, but make sure you are making a nice profit, because trust me...I'd have pad $6000 for you to shoot my wedding if you were in my area!

Kristen

Hello Kristen, It is so nice to hear from a bride. Thanks for posting. You are correct about Brian and I am so glad you are encouraging him. Please do post more.

Bryan,
A lot has been said in this and I am a little late to this thread but want to offer some simple advice. Don't be shy about asking for more. Many times we fall into the trap of trying to compete with the low ball people with a camera. If you feel your work is worth a certain amount let others know that. Asking $10K for your work is simply having belief in your work and skills and delivering more than they expect.
I had a funny story of a bride calling me yesterday interested in what I could do for $500. I was able to turn a call that most people would of hung up on her to a $5,000 wedding. She was so thrilled that she booked immediatly.
So never be afraid to tell them what you can do. Most brides decide to work with the person. Once that is decided working out the price is pretty easy. Once you have them sold you need to work out a package that fits them and generates income for your business. I am someone who believes in under-promising and over-delivering. You will get a lot fo referrals out of this simple philosophy.
Go get em!

Bryan,
Kristen is an internet stalker! She is completely right though...I was going to wait until I had more time at work to give you a better reply since I'm using the same photographer as her(hint hint!).

I think you could definitely get away with more. Your work is great.

arch1tect wrote in post #3963591
Bryan,
Kristen is an internet stalker! She is completely right though...I was going to wait until I had more time at work to give you a better reply since I'm using the same photographer as her(hint hint!).

I think you could definitely get away with more. Your work is great.

I was going to try and stay annonymos (sp?)..but yea...I'm mike's fiance! We think you take great pictures!

Well thanks Kristen and Mike! I appreciate the encouragement