When Brides Don't Order

3rdPlanetPhotography

Is it me or does everyone end up with a few brides that pay over a thousand dollard for a photographer to shoot their wedding... then they end up ordering NOTHING.

It's not too often but it happened to me twice in 2007. I would have rather had them give me the money as a donation then do all that work for nothing. :rofl

One of the brides even contacted me recently to see about shooting portraits of her new baby and I must say that I was in NO hurry to get excited to shoot her portraits. She thought I would shoot them for free and she'd get to order from the images but I sure wasn't about to do that when they didn't order not ONE single print for their wedding. :scratch


Well needless to say I quoted her a $100 just to even shoot them and I've not heard back from her.... go figure.

Do all of you get these lovley customers as well?

mercphoto

3rdPlanetPhotography wrote:

Is it me or does everyone end up with a few brides that pay over a thousand dollard for a photographer to shoot their wedding... then they end up ordering NOTHING.

I think that's why a lot of wedding photographers I've seen offer packages. They get their money up-front, rather than counting on reprints after the wedding. I've also heard that very advice as well. The proposed theory was that after the wedding is all said and done and the honeymoon is over they are reluctant to spend any more money. So, get the money BEFORE the wedding, just like every other vendor does. Makes sense to me.

I've only photographed one wedding for profit. It was my bank manager who admitted she had little money and originally had no intention of hiring a photographer. I charged a modest up-front fee and offered prints a la carte after. No orders. Lessen learned the hard way.

I recently got engaged and Amy and I went shopping for a photographer. Nearly everyone was offering various packages. Some were inexpensive, at roughly a $1,000 to do the shoot and offer a CD-ROM of all the images (go print yourself). Unfortunately for us we didn't like any of those shooters (do some guys have no idea how to correct for color casts???). Others were three, four, sometimes five times that. But in all cases, what I found were people offering various packages. It was obvious that everyone was getting their money up front and not relying on print orders later on to make their income.

Sam

Scott,

I just took a look at your two bottom wedding packages, and both come with high res files.

I think, they think, they have their photos.

Most people don't know the difference between what you might be able to get from a pro lab versus what they get from the drug store, and you might be surprised at the quality people can get with properly prepared files.

Sam

Sam

mercphoto

Sam wrote:

Scott,

I just took a look at your two bottom wedding packages, and both come with high res files.

I think, they think, they have their photos.

Aha. Sam has it. Can I ask, though, why it surprises you that they haven't ordered any prints? I have to say, if I was your customer, and I got a CD with hi-res files on it, I wouldn't be making print orders from you either. Change your packages.

3rdPlanetPhotography

Agreed... thanks for eveyone's advice... I'm going to change the packages now.