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Can anyone recommend pro traditional leather wedding album suppliers?
GerryDavid
Registered Users Posts: 439 Major grins
Its time to step things up in my business again and take things to the next level. I want to offer high quality leather *italian maybe* wedding albums in my middle wedding package, and I was hoping I could get some recommendations here. I suspect these will be in the $500-$1000 price range? Although if I can get an awesome deal that is cheaper on something that is high quality that would rock! 
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Im looking for the type of album that was the only choice 10 years ago and you can charge $3000 for with pictures.
I'll be offering the press printed albums in a lower package but right now im focusing on the higher end stuff for the packages that I want to sell.
I think what you are looking for is from TAP.
Just follow the link:
http://www.albumsinc.com/miraalbums.aspx
Hi Andy!
Do we get Pro pricing on wedding albums from Bayphoto for wedding albums we buy through owner buy when logged in to SMUGMUG?
Trying to see what works the best. Haven't heard a lot about Blurg for professional quality wedding albums. Bayphoto is very good for all the printing I have done.
10 years ago I was getting more than $3000 for an album with pictures! I'd sure as hell want a LOT more than that now.
Just my opinion but having a $1000 album in a $3000 package seems disproportional and not very good business to me. How much are the albums going to cost on your high end packages if you are going to drop a grand on the middle of the range ones?
I was never big on these top of the line Albums. To me they didn't make good business sense. How much can you mark them up? I could never get near the profit per 100 on albums I could make on prints or pages.
I always use the magazine style albums from a local manufacturer just down the road from me who does them in a very realistic looking faux leather or a genuine leather cover.
The popular faux ones are about $150 and come with 80 pages. All I do is put the pics in with the proper double sided tape.
I get $150 per side in my albums and printing costs on a page are about $10 on average. If the average client is spending $5-7K ( or only $3K) it makes no sense to me to make -maybe- 20% or less on the cover when you are making 150% on the pictures.
I can put much more in my pocket with an album like that than one of the expensive leather types that don't usually go with any modern style of work anyway. I have had a few people over the years ask for the traditional type and I have supplied them but I lock them in to the amount of images first so they don't cut back on the pics and my profit. From there I mark them up plenty because they take so much more time to put together.
When people have limited budgets Which is almost everyone regardless of what that limit is, I don't see the point in raising your costs and lowering your profits on the album when you can sell 99% of clients on less costly but high quality albums.
I have been at this game a long time and have yet to even hear of a client that booked a shooter because of the album itself. Clients come to check out your photos not your albums and if the work is not to their liking, they are not going to overlook that because of the covers it's in.
I didnt say the $1k albums would be in the $3k packages.
I plan on offering the press printed albums for the $3k package, then higher end traditional albums for my $5k and $7k packages, starting with 20 pages for the $5k one and more for the $7k.
I dont shoot many weddings, the extreme majority of people around here are happy with the $200 shoot and burn "wedding photographers". But I want to up the quality of my wedding packages and services because ive done that to my portrait packages. It doesn't make sense to offer $1k wedding packages when I have people spending that on a senior portrait.
Even nicer if they add in another 10 or more pages!
That's scary!
There was a guy round here a few years back getting $2K for a shoot and burn coverage of 4 hours.
He was keeping quite busy with them as well.
For $500 an hour, I'd be happy to get regular work with that deal as well.
$200 a job is just crazy though. No wonder you are not doing many weddings if that is the popular choice around your parts.
I had a very good business going some years back in re-shooting weddings.
The clients were people that for whatever reason had hired cheap shooters, got a friend or relative to take their pics, the shooter never showed or the shooter was a twit.
Sometimes they had been married 3 months ago, later on when word got around, it might have been 10 years.
I met one of my very closest and dearest friends friends as a client who booked a reshoot. That was 20 years ago next month.
His high priced photographer pulled a no show when he found out my mate and his wife were getting married because she was pregnant. They were in their late 20's so were hardly unaware of what they were doing. 3 kids later, they are one of the happiest couples I know and adore each other.
Funny enough the shooter has had 2 failed marriges and has no kids nor is he anywhere near as successful as my mate.
I ended up promoting the 2nd shoots and also 2nd weddings for people who wanted some nice pics on the day without the whole package drama. I did very well out of it.
Once people realised the mistake they made the first time round, they were always happy not to make it the second time. parents tended to contribute generously for those that didn't have much money and the ones that had been married some years earlier were always better off financially then when they did get hitched.
The shoots were portrait sessions with the woman dressed in white and the guy in black. Never had anyone else except parents in the pics a few times.
They paid very nicely though.
Yep, go where the money is and don't lower your standards.
Are seniors portraits a year round thing or just at the end of the year before they leave school?
I have seen some seniors folios on the net and it looks like the shooters must spend days and travel hundreds of miles to get the pics. I saw once somewhere recently and there were pics of the kid in the forest with a Deer he had shot holding his gun, another taken from a 2nd boat of him water skiing and another of him with a Kart at a race track.
I was wondering over what time frame the shooter took the pics and how much time and travel was involved?
About 20 years ago they tried to get the seniors photo concept going here in Oz but it never flew.
Just not something ingrained into the culture yet.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
You might want to Google about the Integrity Album. I personally have one, 10x10" 16-page on silk photographic paper with an ivory leather cover. Really, really nice. The one benefit over the Pacific album is the design is gutterless.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Well it would also include 7 hours of wedding coverage, a bonus bridal portrait *so I can make cards for the wedding for my promotion* and a few prints. Each package they go up has cheaper print prices to encourage them to go for the $7k one. I dont plan to ever do a $7k wedding but ya never know. Cant get it if you dont offer it.
Im sure it was a bit more than 4 hours work though, he probably processed a few pictures.
I really like this idea! I dont know how many people ive talked to that regret going for that $200 photographer! And the best part is if something happens like the phtoographer gets sick, you dont have to worry about a lawsuit like you would with a wedding since it can be rescheduled! I get the occasional kidney stone which is one reason I dont seak out the weddings. I have a couple photographer friends in the area that ive talked to about covering me in a situation like that but thats not a situation I want to get into.
You could even try to work out a deal with a local dress/tux rental place to get a slightly better rate and include it in the package price, and maybe alter the dress so it will fit better, at least from the front.
Seniors are year round, but the majority of them seem to be between spring and fall. Not to many in the winter. Im inspired by Sue Bryce so I am working on getting new examples of Beauty portraits. Its been more difficult than I figured trying to find some hmua that I want to work with and getting appointments scheduled that works for both customer and hmua. But once I get those I have some marketing ideas to get it rolling for the winter months. Ive been working on my studio this summer getting it ready for the winter to make it more appealing *better strobes, new backgrounds, better wall print examples* So hopefully Ill be able to get more seniors interested. It doesnt usually snow here in the witner, its just cold and gloomy outside so that hurts the portraits a bit as well, which is why I focused more on my studio.
No!
That was the thing, it was a straight out shoot and burn. No editing, no prints no nothing other than 2 or 3 ( forget which) disks.
I was surprised he got it but I do know he was getting a very good amount of work.
I know you have snubbed the idea before but You really would do well to look at greens screen with this market.
Imagine putting the kids on a balmy beach/ island background when it was cold and miserable outside.
You could do a deal on them getting a spray tan as well! The kids could go to school and tell their friends they went to Hawaii for the weekend!
There really would be no need to go outside your studio to get any background or theme you wanted.
If other shooters in your area are not offering this, seriously you'd be an idiot not to run with it.
There is no more editing in it than i'm sure you do now and even if there was, the trade off of the work and extra income you would get would make it a non issue.
I'm damn sure If I could get the money you are already for this type of work I'd be promoting the guts out of it and milking it for all it was worth. You will want to hit it hard though because I'll bet every other vulture in town will be doing it in 12 months from when you do but you would have the market ripe for the picking otherwise.
No matter if it is being done already, it would still give you an infinitely better variety of backdrops to work with and creative possibilities and bring you up to par with the other studios that are offering it.
It is not hard to do, editing intensive or has any other drawback I can think of there are a load of positives to it though.
Up to you though.
I didnt snub it, its just not high on my priority list. I plan to get a blue/green screen eventually and buy some quality digital backgrounds, I was just focusing on other things first. One of my flashes is failing so it looks like I'll have to invest in two more strobes *I want the kit so I can get a backup transmitter for them and it comes with the stands and softboxes which is an additional $100 savings*.
You're going to rock up to a hospital with Clients and start shooting portraits in the cancer ward waiting room???
Geez, I thought I had some hide but I gotta hand it to you, that's a whole lot more gall than I have got!
You never fail to amaze me that's for sure!