Pricing for Wedding Photography
budman101
Registered Users Posts: 158 Major grins
I'm pretty sure that this has been answered in other forums but would appreciate some guidance here. My son's wife is a recent grad of RIT. As a side job from her regular staff photographer for a small newspaper, she has been shooting some weddings on the side. Her work is very good and she is pretty busy. She is thinking about going into a partnership with a pretty busy and suceesul wedding/event planner. As part of her desire to incorporate I have offered to write a buisness plan. Part of the plan includes pricing structures. After I asked her what she charges for a photo session all I got was "I sort of negoitiate". Wrong answer....! I know from other plans I have written that I need to incorporate a pricing structure to project her 5 year profit/loss so she can get a start up loan. Primary would be pricing for weddings. I can make some guesses on the other fee structures.
www.joemallis.com
"Most time its not the gear that makes the shot"
"Most time its not the gear that makes the shot"
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Get a copy of John Harrington's book Best Business Practices for Photographers. there are some great worksheets in there for figuring out what you SHOULD charge based on your real cost of doing business. It includes an allowance for the photographer's "salary" plus retirements savngs etc. which then works out to a day or hourly rate. THEN, you can play with the numbers depending on the circumstances - but at least you're starting from reality.
There's really no point in using other people's pricing because circumstances vary. I live in a small rural area in eastern Canada. I offer three wedding packages that range from $750 to $1500. In a large metropolitan and more affluent area, those same packages would probably range from $1500 to $5000 or more. But, my CODB is lower because of where I live and the market can only bear so much.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
Im trying to figure out my pricing structure for weddings as well. I dont think negotiating is the right way to go either, unless you purposly start of high, and going down to the price you would normally charge, making the customer think they are getting a great deal. : )
The way I calculated my wedding packages was the following. Probably not the best way, but im still learning this part of photography.
First I tried to think of the hourly wage I would like to achieve.
Then I would add up the hours required to do the entire wedding.
- the number of hours the wedding will take, including an hour before and after.
- different packages will have different number of posed pictures. I will probably do some extra's than what they expect to buy, after all you cant sell what you dont have. They may change their mind and decide they want more. And knowing how long it takes to process wedding photo's on average, add that many hours to the total.
- plus a couple of hours to talk to the customer before and after the wedding
- then I would add different print packages, say $250 worth of prints and album at my set print prices.
for example, a lower end package may look like the following:
5 hours at the wedding and ceremony
customer wants 50 processed images - total time to process may take 10 hours between narrowing the pictures down, tweaking the raw to make it look the best, etc.
3 hours of communication
and a $250 package for prints and album of their choice, and provide them a price list. I know this wont cover a really nice album, but so far I havent been able to find a good album supplier. Plus I like the press printed coffee table style books.
Total at $35 an hour would be - 18 x $35 = $630 + $250 = $880
You do have to budget for equipment, but you dont need to buy top of the line equpment. A good photographer can do a great job with basic equipment, its the skill and know how that gets the great image, not the equipment. Better equipment just makes it easier. Calculate what equipment you need each year, and I factor that into the hourly wage that I need. This probably isnt the best way considering you dont always get 40 hours of work a week if you just do weddings.
While it would be great to shoot a wedding with a pair of Canon 5d Mark II cameras, a long lineup of L lenses, etc, you can get the job done with older equipment. And just starting out, its probably best to keep expenses down. Im trying to start up with out getting a bank loan, why pay interest. I can shoot a wedding with $2500 worth of equipment. $1500 if I rent the $1000 lens for $50.
You can get the job done with a pair of Canon 20D - $350 ebay each, Canon EF-S 17-55 lens - $1000 new or $50 rented, Canon 50mm F1.8 - $100 new, Canon Speedlight - $450 new, Vivitar Flash for backup - $100 new or $60 used, and $150 worth of accessories like wireless transmitters, cords, memory cards, batteries.
For now I rent the EF-S 17-55 lens, but I do plan to buy one once the budget allows for it. And I plan on getting a couple newer dslr's as well. Eventually a the 5dmII and 50d. The reason why I want those is it would be nice to have a full frame sensor to get wider shots for weddings, and for other types of photography that I want to do. if it wasnt for that, I would probably just go for a pair of 50d's, I like the lower noise and higher iso's, great for weddings.
Plus you dont need a $5000 super computer to get the job done either. I like to get a new machine every couple years, and wait for a deal for around $200 to $300. I know emachines have a bad reputation, but they have done a great job for me. I just picked up a $296 acer laptop *clearanced* thats better than my 2 year old desktop. Once I get a usb keyboard, I wont actually mind using it for photoshop.
The cost of living here is pretty low, and we can live off of $20 an hour comfortably. So thats why I calculated $35 an hour, due to income tax, equipement, etc. For comparison, the national average income is $42k, and this area is $28, so the hourly income for a 40 hour week is $20 an hour for the nation, and $13.46 for this area. Also because this area is so much lower income, I cant charge what I could 5 hours from here *DC*.
Right now I dont have a permanent studio. Im focusing on the types of jobs that dont require a studio, and I prefer the personal touch that not using a studio has. But come winter, I will have to consider renting a place. As it is, I have access to a few locations that I can setup a temporary studio, which is a bit of a pain setting up the background, mostly the pain is the ironing. So for now, thats one less expensive I have each month.
Thats my method of calculating my prices for weddings. Im sure there will be a few people telling me my prices are to low.
You can find 30D's for $350. You can find used 580EXII for $350 or you could use all vivitars for much less. The lens that has treated me VERY well is a Tamron 28-75mm 2.8. I've found that it gets wide enough for everything.
Other Gear: Olympus E-PL1, Pan 20 1.7, Fuji 3D Camera, Lensbaby 2.0, Tamron 28-75 2.8, Alien Bees lighting, CyberSyncs, Domke, HONL, FlipIt.
~ Gear Pictures
Where have you seen 30d's for $350? I checked ebay right after I made the post out of curiousity and the 20d's were around $350 to $400, normally with out a lens. Then I checked 30d's and the cheapest I seen was $500 body only. both of those were buy it now. I wasnt having any luck with regular auctions when I got my 20d so I stuck to buy it nows and kept an eye open for new postings that was cheap. : )
Plus with buy it now, you can get cash back through microsoft's live.com. At the time I got the 20d, I got $40 back from the $350 buy it now. I think its down to 8% now.
I normally dont think 17mm is wide enough sometimes, so I doubt I would be happy with 28mm. A couple situations would be inside the church, trying to get a picture of everyone on stage, and you can only go back so far because there are occupied pews behind you, and no balcony to get a better view from. Another situation might be outside, taking a picture of everyone that attended the wedding, you dont always have alot of space to back up. : )
I think my first choice for a lens would be EF 16-35 F2.8L II. People are becoming more informed about photography and slr's, and as the hired pro, its good to have better equipment than uncle bob.
A lesson I learned when I rented the EF-S 17-55 is to not let it hang from the neck all day. I had a sore neck for 2 weeks after that wedding.
I find the 30Ds on craigslist. I just sold an excellent condition one a few weeks ago for $400 but that took heavy marketing to even get a bite on the sale. I'm seeing them for $350 now. I also think it fluctuates a lot. Next month they may be back to 400.
I don't have the problem getting the whole group during the ceremony, every church I've been in has lots of room to back up. After the ceremony I instruct everyone to sit a few rows back. I would do this anyways because I wouldn't want to have someone bump into me, or trip on my equipment.
The thing I like most about the tamron is it's weight. That is a light lens! I could not imagine using the 24-70L all night.
BTW: I do have the 10-22 Canon. I pull it out once during the ceremony during a boring part and get a quick shot of the whole church. Then at the end of the reception I may get everyone who's left together with BG and do a crowd shot with it. I don't mind that it's for a crop sensor as I may have the 30D as a backup for a while.
And never worry about uncle bob outclassing your equipment. There is always an uncle bob with lots of money and a big camera. I was at a wedding where uncle bob had a Nikon D3x, sb 900 and who knows what lens.
Other Gear: Olympus E-PL1, Pan 20 1.7, Fuji 3D Camera, Lensbaby 2.0, Tamron 28-75 2.8, Alien Bees lighting, CyberSyncs, Domke, HONL, FlipIt.
~ Gear Pictures
The craigslist in your area must be a good one.
Im not to concerned wit the uncle bob that has the money to buy top of the line equipment, its the average uncle bob and cousin joe that all have dslr's, want to stand out just a bit from the crowd.