What is a reasonable price to pay for a wedding photographer?

What is a reasonable price to pay for a wedding photographer?

This is incredibly subjective and really there is no right or wrong answer, beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.  However I feel the perception of what is ‘reasonable’ is often based on monetary value rather than quality and being able to look at your wedding photos with great joy in 5 or 10 years time.  So whilst the bank balance is always at the forefront of our minds when booking a wedding photographer I not only believe, but I KNOW that it’s not the most important factor.  I’ll explain more below:

 

My own wedding

I married my beautiful wife Gaia (we now have a gorgeous 2 year old son called Leon too) 7 years ago, and most importantly this happened before I was a wedding photographer.  We found a photographer who had shot our venue before, their work seemed good and so we booked them there and then.  They were within budget and ‘reasonably priced’ (or so we believed).

We had met a photographer whose work we LOVED at a wedding fayre but they were a lot more expensive and we didn’t feel we could stretch that far.  We received our wedding images a month or so after the wedding, on a CD with our names scribbled on it in Sharpie (?!!), it didn’t work, so we got a replacement which also didn’t work.

When we eventually got a digital download the photos were so disappointing, we were barely able to separate them from our guests photos.  We could have spent another £350 on the photographer we loved, who still to this day produces beautiful work, we SHOULD have done this as we NEVER look at our wedding photos, they are a source of great upset and just not a good reflection of the most amazing day of our lives (prior to Leon’s birth of course!).

So did we end up paying a ‘reasonable’ price for our wedding photographer, or had we just stretched a bit further would we have paid a far more reasonable price considering we would have loved our photos and still love them today?

 

 

Transparency

I think it’s hard to know what exactly you want when looking at the 100’s of wedding photographers around, most look ‘OK’ when you load up their websites, however instead of just looking at one or two photos why not check out many of their actual weddings.

If they don’t have these on their website alarm bells should be starting to ring and very loud, why wouldn’t you be showing weddings from start to finish?  In contrast at the last count I had over 3,000 images on my website and my PORTFOLIO features a gallery of images from different weddings showing my style. It also more importantly shows many weddings from start to finish at various venues and at various times of year.

I believe in transparency above all else, if you like what you see on my website you’ll love your own wedding photos as it’s very clear what I do, how I work and the natural and relaxed documentary style I have developed over 5 years as a wedding photographer, shooting real moments as they happen with little to no intervention.  I’m not a traditional wedding photographer, I do shoot a few group shots if required, but you won’t have a line of people queuing up for an hour to have a cheesy group photo, they will be drinking and celebrating instead, and I will be capturing that candidly, really telling the story of your wedding day as it happened.

I also shoot portraits that are romantic, very natural and often quite spectacular, so you get a great mix of those real moments and beautifully relaxed portraits.  You can see all that in my PORTFOLIO as I’m incredibly transparent about how my work looks and my own unique style of wedding photography.

 

 

Love your wedding photos

2 years ago my wife’s Grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, her Grandad (or Opa as she calls him, he’s Dutch as is Gaia) was a very keen amateur photographer and we always have lots of great chats about the art of photography when we meet up, so on this special occasion he wanted to show me their wedding album.

Despite being 50 years old and all the photos falling out of the album when we opened it due to the glue having disappeared long ago the photos were amazing.  The quality was superb, they really had a great photographer!  Sadly Opa is blind these days and so couldn’t see the photos but he really brimmed with pride when talking to me about them, the quality they loved 50 years ago was still there in all its glory and it really hammered home to me that just 7 years after I got married I can’t bear to look at my wedding photos, yet 50 years on Opa was still as proud as punch of his and wanted to share them with me.

So coming back to the subject matter, the question of what is a reasonable price to pay for a wedding photographer… think long term, think about how this is one of, if not the most important day of your lives, book the photographer who’s work will make your heart sing with joy not just immediately after the wedding, but 7 years on, or even 50 years later when showing your photos proudly to your grandchildren (or their husbands!).  THAT is value for money, not the guy or gal who wasn’t as good but was £350 cheaper, no matter how tempting it is to spend less.  Less isn’t always more, sometimes it’s just… well it’s just less.

 

Love my wedding photos?  Please click HERE to get in touch and let’s work together to create memories that will last for many years to come.

Just a few of the people who LOVED their wedding photos:

  • “Andy’s service was the best that we had experienced in any industry. He is truly a genius in photography and captured all of our special moments. We have recommended his services to friends. – Marie & Matthew”

 

  • “Choosing Andy to capture our special day was the best decision we could have possibly made. His passion for photography and his bubbly, friendly personality put us at ease straight away and we felt lucky to have found such a unique photographer. – Nadia & Michael”

 

  • “Andy made our wedding day so special and we both feel very lucky that he managed to capture all of the important moments. I’m usually so critical of photos taken of me and I still can’t believe its actually me in the photos! – Maria & Richard”

 

  • “He really is the best of the best! – Laura & Simon”

 

  • “He didn’t feel like someone just paid to do a service (which he did brilliantly!). He chatted to everyone, put everyone at ease and really added to our day. – Melissa & Darren”

 

  • “Andy was fantastic from start to finish & we cannot rate him highly enough! Friendly, approachable and with a wonderfully creative imagination Andy is the best photographer we have come across. – Emma & Jono”

 

  • “Words can’t express how happy we are with our wedding photographs. You captured every special moment and the photographs are an amazing reminder of the fantastic day we had. It was a pleasure to have you join us and share our special day.  Thank you so much Andy! – Sarah & Richard”

 

  • “What a lovely guy! He made us feel so relaxed. We love the photographs! They are exactly what we wanted from our day and are an amazing reminder of our wedding – Kat & David”

Click here to hire me for your wedding

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