Real Cost of Wedding Photography

The Real Cost of Wedding Photography

You’re engaged! Hazzahs all round!

Excitement levels are through the roof. So they should be, moments of pure joy are all too rare, soak it up, indulge, party!

There are few things that bring you back down to terra firma quicker than having to budget for stuff. Whether it’s a house, a car or a trip to a fancy restaurant, there will always be a more expensive option. 

Budgeting for a wedding is tough, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. Remember, getting married costs around £200. A trip to the registry office is all it takes to become legally betrothed, everything else comes down to choice after that. Weddings are times to celebrate, it’s incredibly rare to get all your friends and family together in one place, so I agree wholeheartedly with having a mega party to celebrate. My wife and I did, we spent…quite a lot of money including the honeymoon, but I don’t regret it and I’d do it all again for the memories.

We spent most of our budget on the venue and the food and drink. It’s key when starting your planning to focus on what is most important to you.

If you love fireworks more than beer, don’t let the parents get inside your head. Have a burger van and a fireworks display, it’s your day, rock it how you want.

You want to have the best day possible, good food, good wine, good times. Spend enough time on Instagram and Pinterest and you’ll quickly realise there is no real upper limit to how much you can spend on a wedding. 

Enter the spreadsheet

It’s time to get formal, Excel has entered the building

If you’re going to have a wedding, chances are you’re going to need to budget for things like:  the wedding venue, photography, flowers, catering, cake, invites, decorations, gifts, dress, shoes, hair and makeup and suits.

What about a bouncy castle or a whiskey luge? Or a chocolate fountain? Or a silent disco…

When putting together a budget it can feel like a ridiculous task to begin with as you have no frame of reference for what things should cost. The time of year will of course be a factor, weddings are classed as seasonal so autumn and winter is typically less expensive. If you are getting married in the summer, there are annual events that take place that you should consider logistically before booking your wedding.

You’ve had your picture taken in the past, but who in their life has hired a photographer before?

You’ve been to gigs before as a punter, but who has hired a Jazz band?

Exactly. No frame of reference.

Personal recommendations are a good place to start as the likelihood is your friends and family are within similar income brackets and will perceive value on a similar level to yourselves. Beyond that, it can feel like a leap of faith, you have to trust your judgement and trust the suppliers you hire – this is why I always bang on about the importance of meeting suppliers before the day and how trust is the most important thing.

Let’s get into it and see if we can break it down to help guide you on your journey.

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY PRICES IN THE UK – The Averages

Each year, various wedding blogs conduct surveys amongst their members to gauge the average costs of services amongst its suppliers. Now, ‘the average’ can only tell us so much, namely, how much the ‘market’ deems to be a good return on investment.

The average cost of a wedding photographer in the UK in 2019 was £1590.

Are the pictures they produce for that figure any good? Who knows.

All we can say for sure is that the general population of the UK sees £1500 for photographs of their wedding as a decent return on investment.

The average price for a wedding photographer for 2019-2020 is £1,590. Below shows the average over the last 3 years.

  • £1,590 in 2019-2020
  • £1,560 in 2018
  • £1,480 in 2017
  • £1,450 in 2016
  • £1,520 in 2015

These averages are based on a full day starting package from a professional wedding photographer.

There is a drop from 2018-2019, tiny, but a drop all the same. Economic factors, fears over Brexit, changes in digital camera technology – who knows the real reason. Photography is extremely competitive, possibly 2019 saw a great influx of new photographers to the market offering cheaper packages?

It’s also worth noting that averages vary across the UK depending on the region. In the exact same way that house prices fluctuate from north to south, the cost of a photographer varies in the same fashion.

In the south east the average is £1600 – In the north east, £1000

You may find terms such as ‘luxury wedding photographer’ banded around, as if the person comes wrapped in silk for the day, if you see these strange buzzwords, expect the price to be anywhere from £1500-£2000 going up to and above £5,000.

Costs vary hugely depending on how many hours you require the photographer for. Other variables include how far they have to travel, whether you would like two photographers, if you’d like an album etc. we’ll get to those extra bits shortly.

HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU BUDGET?

The real question for me is – what is photography worth?

I always say to clients to look around their parents/grandparents homes. Look at the images previous generations have chosen to display.

We all get to a point in our lives where the vast majority of ‘things’ fall by the wayside, and we learn to cherish what is truly important. It tends to be the people in our lives, not the items that we own.

This is why the value of photography cannot be overstated. Quality images of your day will last forever. The pictures will adorn your walls, your mantelpiece and your bedside table. They will capture you and your friends at a particular moment in your life and frame your legacy. People may ‘engage’ more with video on social media, but the crucible of the photograph will forever be the family home.

That being said, in the real world, things cost money.

When it comes to weddings, you can’t afford for the mantra ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ to make itself manifest, as it will simply be too late.

The unfortunate fallout from this is that we end up way over budget because everything seems mega important.

The annoying consequence of all this? It’s really difficult to tell you how to spend your money and you have to trust your instincts.

 

BUDGET VS PRICE VS VALUE

Whatever your budget, photography is going to take up around 10-15% of it.

Most photographers, myself included, offer a scale of wedding photography services. Typically the most basic is a set number of reduced hours and the images to comprehensive all day coverage, with albums and second photographers plus some added pizzazz…in my case namely chocolate.

You’ve found a photographer that you like, but they are out of the budget you’d initially set aside. 

Enter value.

It will be much more valuable in the long run and a better investment to have a photographer of a higher standard for a shorter period of time, than a photographer of a lesser standard who is cheaper, just because they will cover more hours of the day.

Search Google or Reddit to find plenty of examples of couples who wish they’d spent more or at least trusted their instincts if you need convincing.

Going back to my earlier point regarding images in and around the family home, we tend to print and display only the images we deem most valuable to us. Typically it’s two or three from any given event, sometimes only one. If you are viewing photography as purely a transaction, then you should factor in that you are likely to only print a handful of the images. If you hire a very good photographer, the images will be of better quality and give you more to choose from.

Takeaway

  • More hours is not always better
  • Higher standard of photographer is a better long term investment
  • Albums and prints can come later, invest in getting the best images first.

UK WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER PACKAGE PRICES

Prices vary between photographers, that is a given. Few absolute standards exist. What you can expect to receive however, is some photographs, but even the delivery of those isn’t standardised across the industry.

Unless you hire a film photographer, then your images will be delivered in a digital format, this will take the form of a link to a website which you can download the images from, or a USB stick.

Some packages will include a wedding album, parent albums, prints, an engagement shoot, all increasing the package price.

It was once a given that cheaper rates and packages will exist for weddings that are ‘out of season’, however this also is no longer guaranteed. A photographer produces the same quality of work regardless of time of year.

WHY DO PHOTOGRAPHY COSTS VARY SO WILDLY?

 

It’s true across all mediums, genres and products – prices will vary.

Experience is going to vary the cost, the longer they’ve been in the game, typically the more they will charge. 

However, PHOTOGRAPHY IS SUBJECTIVE.

Yes, I’m sad to say, photography is a game of sales. Marketing, branding and execution of portfolios are all going to play a part in selling a vision to you. I hate ‘salesy’ talk, but there is a mega industry out there trying to get your money, so it’s important that you pay attention to the ‘product’ which is the photographs and not the branding of the photographer.

An experienced photographer is typically going to charge more money. You can check their experience level by browsing their business name in google and looking for old articles, old blog posts, old reviews to put your mind at ease, if you can find reviews from ten years ago on a legitimate platform, then you can be sure they have been around for a while honing their skills.

But! Longevity isn’t everything, some photographers who have been in the game only a few years are blazing a trail with innovative ways of documenting weddings, so once again I find myself repeating past statements – look at the blog! This is where the ‘product’ that you are buying actually is.

Why bang on so much about looking at the blog for full weddings? In the last five years or so ‘education’ services have been offered by photographers to photographers – if you browse for long enough you may see there’s sections on their websites. Typically they offer business and shooting advice, all good stuff. However it also gave rise to ‘shooting days’ where inexperienced photographers could attend days out with models in fabulous locations to build their portfolios. This is of course no harm when being used for practice, however it seemed to become a way to fast track oneself into the industry, it being seen that if you could produce pretty couple pictures, you could do the job. Sound a bit moany? Maybe it is, but weddings are seriously hard work, and I see a lot of couple pictures in people’s portfolios, when that makes up only 1% of the day, makes you wonder what the rest of the coverage looks like.

So Liam, you’ve had a rant, how do we mitigate against the warning you have given?

Look at the blog!! The portfolio shows you what the photographer wants you to see, the blog will show you a closer representation of the final product.

You get what you pay for – but is what you’re paying for, what you really want?

Photography is subjective, it’s important that you choose a photographer based upon their work alone. If it’s cheaper than what your friends paid, so what? You are going to hang the images in your home, so make your decision based upon what you like.

Takeaway – what can affect the cost:

  • Region – photographers on average are more expensive in the south, becoming cheaper as you head north
  • Photographers travel expenses
  • Inclusion of albums/engagement shoot etc
  • Second photographer
  • Length of time they are needed on the day
  • Discounts maybe available for weekday weddings
  • Discounts may be available for out of season weddings such as in Winter.

WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE, TAKING PICTURES ONLY TAKES A FEW SECONDS

– It takes a second to take an image; one second plus ten years experience – that is what you are paying for.

BREAKING DOWN WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY COSTS

To try to justify a career in a few sentences feels pointless, photography is either important to you or it isn’t. If you don’t have a connection to visual mediums, then who’s to judge? Don’t hire an expensive photographer if you prefer video, or maybe you’d prefer to hire someone to do some sketches or a painting? Is that a thing? It’s a thing, I’ve seen these sketch artists, and it’s really cool – spend money on what you value most. Asking a friend or family member to take pictures will of course get you some images, but you don’t have the authority in the same way to make requests, and then you couldn’t be mad at them after the wedding if they didn’t get all the images you wanted, because they weren’t being paid. It’s not worth potentially damaging family relationships for the sake of a few quid.

So what are you paying for?

You’re paying for knowing what to do in a crisis, you’re paying for peace of mind, you’re paying for having a positive experience with a person you like – not being barked at by some arse ruining your day.

How much does a wedding photographer cost UK?

How much does photography cost for a wedding? Here are some wild assumptions.

1. Student/starter/low-end/budget – £0-£500

2. Semi pro/mid standard – £500-£1000

3. Professional/good standard – £1000-£1500

4. Professional/Excellent standard – £1500-£2000

5. Premium brand – £2000+

It really is impossible to nail this down, and cost is not always an indication of quality, you may well find a talented individual only charging a few hundred pounds, who knows. The above list should give you an idea of what to expect. If your photographer is just starting out, then expect to pay a few hundred pounds, the trade off is the images won’t be particularly good. If the photographer you like is well known around the world and gives talks at conferences, you should expect them to be in the £2000+ region. There is an element of the more you pay, the higher the standard, but the average photographer in the UK charges £1500, so if you are keen on photographs and want high quality that will stand the test of time, then you should be budgeting between £1500-£2000. Don’t forget, it’s not just the photographs you are paying for. A higher price means better service, peace of mind that they have back up equipment and insurance etc.

Is a wedding photographer worth the cost?

Photography is subjective, the value is entirely dependent on how you perceive it’s value. Digital cameras on telephones have enabled us to take photographs whenever we like, with no fear of running out of storage. Has it devalued photographs? I believe it has. It has enabled habits of examining the image only in the context of the present and forgetting that photographs have long term value, they capture one’s likeness for future generations.

Aside from this, I think wedding photographs are definitely good value. I say this purely from the point of view that it is incredibly rare for your entire friendship group and families to all be present in the same place. This means you can acquire high quality images of everyone you love. The equivalent cost of paying for every guest to have a shoot in a studio would be significantly higher, so if you remove the emotional value of the photographs and look at it from a purely practical angle, it is incredibly cost efficient.

Why are wedding photographers so expensive?

It takes a considerable investment of time, effort and money to develop a skill. Photography is a career choice, not a side hustle to make money. There’s a reason why most of the really good photographers in the world are in their late 30’s – it takes time to get good! The other unspoken truth is that wedding photography is unbelievably physically challenging, which means it’s not a job you could realistically do until you retire. It’s a young person’s game, so the best in the world are able to charge a premium, firstly for their skill, and secondly, because they are excluding others to work with you.

Weddings are also seasonal. The vast majority of weddings in the UK occur on Saturdays in the Summer, which means there is a limited window in order to provide the service. If you are a wedding specialist (like me) then your earning window in a year is approximately 6 months.

Wedding photographers also have these main considerations to contend with:

1. From consultation to image delivery averages 70 hours – it’s much more work than just one day.

2. You only get one shot at it, so you have to be good.

3. Experience takes time, effort and money

4. Equipment is expensive, one camera can cost £5000.

5. Education – Degree/Practical courses/Workshops

6. Laptops, cars, accessories

7. Insurance – Liability and for equipment

8. Travel expenses

9. Marketing

Let’s examine all of the unseen work that goes into a wedding photographers job

If I charge £1800 for a ten hour wedding day fee and break it down to an hourly rate.

1 hours – Wedding Consultation if via Skype – 4 hours if in person accounting for travel

3 hours – Prepping for shoot. Washing and ironing, charging batteries, readying memory cards

10 hours – Wedding Day

3 hours – Average travel to and from wedding

40 hours – Post Production

3 hours – Admin Work (emails, calls, accounts etc)

That breaks down to £30 an hour, £24 an hour after tax. That total is also not taking into consideration – blog post creation, social media posting, website maintenance, equipment maintenance, meetings where clients choose not to book, etc. Being a wedding photographer is a lifestyle choice, it’s not a fast route to making money that some would have you believe. Expect to work very, very hard to make a decent living.

HOW MUCH TO SPEND ON A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

This is like asking how much to pay for a car, or a steak at a restaurant, or a house. Photography varies a lot by skill, talent, experience, popularity, demand, and items included in the package. There is no right or wrong answer. There will be some that are cheaper and some that are more expensive, just like buying any of the above, only you can decide what you like and what it’s worth to you.

How can I save money for my wedding photography?

1. Avoid paying for an album up front, this can always be made later

2. Don’t have an engagement shoot

3. Ask for contributions rather than wedding presents

4. Book years in advance and lock in a rate to avoid inflation

5. Book at the very last minute and ask for a reduced rate

6. Get married on a weekday

7. Get married in the winter

My top tips?

After deciding on a few photographers you whose work you like, meet them in person and go with the person who makes you feel most relaxed.

In order to create our pictures, we are standing in the moment with you. When you are feeling vulnerable or emotional, this relative stranger will be standing in the room with you, you need to be comfortable in their presence otherwise it will show in the images.

DO YOU PAY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS UPFRONT?

Typically there is a large deposit to pay, followed by a final payment in the month leading up to the wedding.

Weddings are typically booked years in advance, in order to secure someone’s services they need a daily large sum up front.

What is a reasonable price for wedding photographer?

Reasonable – difficult to define as everyone perceives value differently. Expect to pay between £1500-£2000 for a wedding photographer in the UK

How much is a wedding deposit?

Anywhere up to 50% is considered in the range of normal.

Do you tip your wedding photographer? Is it proper etiquette to tip a photographer?

I’ve received tips from guests at weddings before, but this is not normal etiquette. Buy your wedding photographer a drink at the end of the night instead.

That was a long one, hopefully there’s some decent info in there for you to digest. More questions? Feel free to ask!