Just wanted to throw this out there, as i've seen it floating around social media quite a bit lately: " HOW MUCH WILL A PHOTOGRAPHER COST FOR A WEDDING?: this can be answered with another question " WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY AND DO YOU WANT DECENT PICS?" .... there are people out there offering to shoot your wedding for $500 .... these people are what I like to call "FAKEOGRAPHERS " ... don't be surprised if they show up to your wedding with nothing but an iPhone or a point and shoot camera. They are seeing an opportunity to make some quick cash and handing you over crap images which are either unedited or horribly edited.. buyer beware! In photography the old saying " YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR " is VERY true.... If you're going to go the $500 route... do yourself a favour, go out and buy enough of those disposable film cameras for all your guests, hand them out at your wedding and let your guests fire off all the pics then take the rolls of film to walmart, shoppers, staples and have them developed, because this is about the same quality of images you're going to get but at least this way your guests got to have some fun with it and it makes them more apart of your wedding rather than paying some random to show up.
If you want great images, shot with a photographic eye, edited by someone who has spent years with photoshop, countless hours and money learning photoshop through tutorials, knows some photographic theory... then you're going to have to spend the money for quality. A decent photographer is going to have a portfolio to show you: either online, on an iPad, a Blog or a hard copy that they will show you, and it will have sharp images, fully edited, there will be some sort of style to them. They will have a DSLR some lighting, reflectors, umbrellas... keep in mind not all photographers use flash.. some shoot natural light only, but they will still have a DLSR camera and reflectors. They will schedule a meet and greet session with you, they will have a website and be able to supply you with some positive references from past clients... you will even hear about them on social media. As for a price range... it varies.. there are some really good photographers out there who don't quite have the experience with weddings and are just getting started with them so they have great imagery but charge a little less to compensate for their lack of experience in the wedding field.... they will charge somewhere around the $1200-2500 mark. Then you have your experienced wedding photographers who will charge you $2500+ .... Usually, there will be packages to choose from.. these packages will include 3 levels or more .... each level will have different coverage time, a certain amount of images, either a CD of your images or Prints. Keep in mind, photographers are a business..... they are calculating their packages on their lives... they need to pay bills, pay for equipment ( which is no where near cheep... one umbrella is $200... for a damn UMBRELLA!!!! ), gas for their travels to your shoots, their time shooting and editing, photographers spend countless hours editing your images... it's not just about taking pictures.. we go home load your images.. we have to catalog them, transfer them onto 3-4 hard drives so if one crashes we still have back ups of your sessions, then we have to go through and pick out all the good, usable, edit worthy ones, load them into an editing program, then edit.. it can take an hour per image sometimes depending on what they are doing with your images.. if your package says you get 500 images... well.. you do the math at how long they are going to spend in front of a computer, day and night editing. They have to pay for their cell phones, which is how you contact them to book, internet for email and websites and business cards, accountants, lawyers for contracts, computers and editing software...... so expect to pay for the service... you wouldn't walk into a clothing store expecting to walk out with a $500 leather jacket for free would you?
So please.... if you're picking a wedding photographer, and you want someone who can provide you with great images expect to pay $2500+ at least... or $1200 for someone who has a great portfolio and is new to the wedding world... anything under $1200 you're shooting yourself in the foot.... lets get rid of these "FAKEOGRAPHERS " who are constantly degrading the quality of photography, stealing work from actual photographers who love the art form and are actually passionate about getting you, the client, what you want.
Kevin Vyse Photography
Photographer.
www.kevinvysephotographs.com