Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

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• 11-Feb-2010 11:46

  Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  MISSMAYFLOWER Joined on 05-Jan-2010 Halifax Posts 286

  Contact Hello everyone Last night, OH and I went to see a potential wedding photographer. She was recommended through a friend of my mum and we thought she was really nice - she seemed happy to take the photos we wanted not just the ones she wanted! The thing is, we're trying to keep our costs reasonable (aren't we all!?) and wanted to see what people thought of this? The package is £650 for 2 photographers from the bride getting ready to the wedding breakfast (so about 7 hours and including 2 locations) plus we get 200-300 7x5 prints. We also get full copyright. Its another £250 to have a CD with all the images on. Its also another £250 to have an album wiht 50 prints in (but I'm not sure we'll go for this as we think we can make it ourselves for less - what do you think?). I really like to idea of having the photos on CD so we can get more prints on our own but this will make the package £900 which does seem a lot. I guess I'm just wanting to know if people think the package is reasonable / expensive and whether its worth having the CD? Thank you :) Old Married since 25 June 2011

• 11-Feb-2010 12:04

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  MrsLunney Joined on 13-Jan-2010 Birmingham, UK Posts 212

  Contact we're paying £875 and for that we get...a pre-wedding shoot, 2 photographers on the day from getting ready to 11pm, 80 photos in an album, a dvd slideshow of the pics, and a 20x16 Canvas Wrap or Framed Print. For an extra £80 we can have all the images on a disc copyright free to edit and print for ourselves. i think we'll definitely pay the extra and get the CD as it'll be nice to have all the photos that were taken on the day and control over them too.

• 11-Feb-2010 12:08

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  Notts Lass Joined on 28-Jul-2009 Posts 4,134

  Contact Hi! We're doing a disk-only package as we wanted to do our own albums and have friends who are prof photographers who can use photoshop to edit for us, unfortunately we couldn't ask them to do the photos as they're involved in the wedding! We're paying £750 for 5 hours and we knocked that down by £100 from the usual price! We just fell in love with her photos and got our friends to check and they thought her work was beautiful! The albums are quite pricey but I think we'll make those ourselves as you were thinking too. I think the price you have seems fairly reasonable from what I've seen. As long as you love their style and previous pics then you'll be fine.   A 'respectable' married lady since 08/05/2010!

• 11-Feb-2010 12:17

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  jem179 Joined on 31-Mar-2009 Posts 2,505	Contact We're having a disc only package too.  We have one photographer for 5 hours and get all the images on hi-res dvd for printing ourselves and we're paying £495

• 11-Feb-2010 12:18

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  claire198421 Joined on 11-Jun-2009 Posts 4,894	Contact We are paying £700 from 9am - 1am. this also includes all photos on a disc and 100 printed ones. We are getting this so cheap though as I know the photographer so he has given us mates rates. This would usually cost £1.5k with him! I would say your package is very reasonable. We originally expected to pay around £1k before we thought of asking someone I knew x Became a Mrs on 28.08.11

• 11-Feb-2010 13:05

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  PhotographybyRiddell Joined on 10-Aug-2007 United Kingdom Posts 86

  Contact I think its extremly important that if you are going to play this game - What are we all paying and getting? - Is that you also give details about the photographer, how experienced they are weather they are a professional, have insurance and everything else. Perhaps include a link to their site (if its not against forum rules) The reason I say this, is that its not a very subjective discussion without first of all seeing the quality of the photographers work, but also the quality of the items such as albums they supply. Quality varies so much, it may sound great that you are getting a 100 page album, but that album maybe the cheaest thing literally brought from a market stall and then containing images printed out on someones home inkjet. Which is of course in complete contrast to a high quality professional album containing prints professionally printed at a pro lab.and so on. Also be vary wary of a photographer who is cheap and then offers a CD only package containing and guaranteeing  hundreds and hundreds of images. It may sound good, but whats the point of reciveing hundreds and hundreds of poor quality images that you simply cannot use or like? Much better to go with a true professional who'll probably give you a couple of hundred high quality post processed and colour calibrated images, that you'll absolutely love everyone of.

• 11-Feb-2010 13:14

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  MISSMAYFLOWER Joined on 05-Jan-2010 Halifax Posts 286

  Contact I think you are right PhotgraphybyRiddell. We don't want to go with someone cheaper and not be happy with the results. The photographer was recommended to us and has done about 50 weddings although they specialise in portrait photography (they are professional photographers). They are 2 female photographers and we know they have done weddings of friends of ours (although we've not been there) which looked great. They get most of their work through word of mouth or from people who have attended weddings they've been at and dont really advertise or go to wedding fairs as they can manage the workload as it is at the moment. So we're thinking they must be good to keep going on that basis as if people didnt like them they wouldnt recommed? We've seen some sites that just seem to do DVDs but often its just for certain images and like you say we dont want to have loads of images we dont like no matter what the price. The images we saw last night (and the album) looked really good quality and I think we might be best just going with it as it seems it is a good price for the qaulity. I think I just wanted my mind putting at rest but everyones comments have been really helpful and OH think we should just go with it as we liked her work. Old Married since 25 June 2011

• 11-Feb-2010 13:17

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  jem179 Joined on 31-Mar-2009 Posts 2,505

  Contact PhotographybyRiddell: I think its extremly important that if you are going to play this game - What are we all paying and getting? - Is that you also give details about the photographer, how experienced they are weather they are a professional, have insurance and everything else. Perhaps include a link to their site (if its not against forum rules) The reason I say this, is that its not a very subjective discussion without first of all seeing the quality of the photographers work, but also the quality of the items such as albums they supply. Quality varies so much, it may sound great that you are getting a 100 page album, but that album maybe the cheaest thing literally brought from a market stall and then containing images printed out on someones home inkjet. Which is of course in complete contrast to a high quality professional album containing prints professionally printed at a pro lab.and so on. Also be vary wary of a photographer who is cheap and then offers a CD only package containing and guaranteeing  hundreds and hundreds of images. It may sound good, but whats the point of reciveing hundreds and hundreds of poor quality images that you simply cannot use or like? Much better to go with a true professional who'll probably give you a couple of hundred high quality post processed and colour calibrated images, that you'll absolutely love everyone of.       Fair point.  Our photographer also does albums which are lovely but we are happy to create our own and he has given us recommendations for the best places to do this.  We have not been promised hundreds and hundreds of images as he explained this would not be practical.  Having seen about 20 albums of his work (both his own and those from the other places he has recommended) we are happy with what we will be getting.  We have met with him several times and he has been great, always putting us at ease which is something I felt was important, I really don't want to look uncomfortable in my pics... I am happy to post the link (please don't lynch me!!), I don't think there's anyone too near me anyway...http://www.storybookphotography.co.uk/

• 11-Feb-2010 15:41

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  aliaisp Joined on 20-Aug-2009 bristol Posts 982

  Contact PhotographybyRiddell: I think its extremly important that if you are going to play this game - What are we all paying and getting? - Is that you also give details about the photographer, how experienced they are weather they are a professional, have insurance and everything else. Perhaps include a link to their site (if its not against forum rules) The reason I say this, is that its not a very subjective discussion without first of all seeing the quality of the photographers work, but also the quality of the items such as albums they supply. Quality varies so much, it may sound great that you are getting a 100 page album, but that album maybe the cheaest thing literally brought from a market stall and then containing images printed out on someones home inkjet. Which is of course in complete contrast to a high quality professional album containing prints professionally printed at a pro lab.and so on. Also be vary wary of a photographer who is cheap and then offers a CD only package containing and guaranteeing  hundreds and hundreds of images. It may sound good, but whats the point of reciveing hundreds and hundreds of poor quality images that you simply cannot use or like? Much better to go with a true professional who'll probably give you a couple of hundred high quality post processed and colour calibrated images, that you'll absolutely love everyone of.     i agree! and also important to say where you are based because some of these prices are almost unheard of for the area i'm getting married (just outside central london)! x

• 11-Feb-2010 16:01

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  agentblackcat Joined on 01-Aug-2009 Posts 1,840

  Contact Gosh - this post has made me worry - we are paying a lot of money for our photographer but when we booked we compared his price to some others who were also on the same style and he gave us the best deal we are getting; 60 page photo album + 2 parent albums DVD with soundtrack On location engagement photo session 2 wedding photographers unlimited High Resolution images on CD, Married to Mr T since 09/07/11

• 11-Feb-2010 16:27

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  brideseekingblush Joined on 14-Sep-2009 Posts 1,878

  Contact The price can vary enormously, as can the standard - e.g. things like album quality and even photo quality. I think the most important thing is to meet your photographer, check out their work (our's brought whole albums of specific weddings down to see us rather than just their "best bits"!) and make sure they do what you want. I'm paying £495 for four hours, two photographers, professional wedding ones, good reviews and I like their pics - but I am just getting a disc, and I am just having four hours - so obviously for a full day and albums I'd expect to pay a heck of a lot more - I wasn't keen on their album approach (they did storybooks) so decided I'd rather mount them myself. Oh - and obv location makes a lot of difference!

• 11-Feb-2010 17:36

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  jj74 Joined on 12-Jan-2010 Posts 155

  Contact brideseekingblush: - but I am just getting a disc, and I am just having four hours - so obviously for a full day and albums I'd expect to pay a heck of a lot more - I wasn't keen on their album approach (they did storybooks) so decided I'd rather mount them myself. I have known brides who just got a disc and have never got round to having them printed, also I wonder whether quality of prints would be so good, as you would not be using a professional printer. Mounting is a very difficult art too, but if you are good at artistic things, go for it, but it will take a lot of time and effort to get right!

• 11-Feb-2010 18:14

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  emsa1 Joined on 26-Jan-2010 Gloucester Posts 435

  Contact i haven't booked mine yet, still meeting and researching (have met with 3 so far) however i have been warned off the CD only packages for similar reasons to the above, not getting the level of service, quality finish of the photos etc (although i'm sure there are some excellent cd only packages out there). i was thinking  at firstabout going down the CD only route but the prices i've been quoted for cd only in my area have still been around the £800-900 mark for cd only! i am expecting to pay about £1350 for a day's photography (ie bridal preparations until end of speeches)  with an experienced professional photographer including a dvd, pre shoot and queensberry album. this seems quite high in comparison to some others but the cheapest price i've been quoted (we're getting married in wales) has been around £600 which was cd only and only covering the ceremony and immediately aftewards (no preparations, speeches etc). compared to what i'd pay to put an album together afterwards and essentially only a couple of hours photography that seemed like a rubbish deal! essentially what i suppose i'm saying is that the photographer is one of the most important things to me so i'm happy to pay a bit more than i would probably like to!!!!!!!!

• 11-Feb-2010 19:00

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  videogal Joined on 17-Jun-2009 Derbyshire Posts 738

  Contact We paid £960 for our photographer and he and wife came to the bridal preps through to the mock cutting of the cake they then went so they worked from 10.30am  til 3.00pm.   So not long at all really and he was boring with the pics, missed out some lovely shots on a beautiful wood carved staircase but we have some lovely pics of chairs stacked up in our venue's conservatory as it was raining so pics were indoors LOL.   We got an album which is really nice plus our images on a cd which consists of 232 photos and out of that only 80 of them have been edited and they're the ones in the album and with that he didn't do much editing at all.   So it pays really to shop around and find someone who you are both impressed by good quality work , personality and attitude as you spend lots of time with them so its important that you feel comfortable with them. T xx  Wedding Videographers - Filming Nationwide   http://midway-media.co.uk     Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/midwaymediauk

• 11-Feb-2010 20:13

  Re: Wedding photographer - what are we all paying and getting?

  Peter Joined on 07-Jan-2005 Hertfordshire/Essex border Posts 8,581

  Contact brideseekingblush: The price can vary enormously, as can the standard - e.g. things like album quality and even photo quality.   That was roughly what I was going to post earlier today, although work sidetracked me....   It is worth remembering that kept well, professionally produced prints will last a lifetime. A Disk may well not and may become "unreadable" in a relatively short time, specifically if it is not kept well.his could result in losing all of your wedding images (always back up files) Ask your photographer about how long they keep the master files. Peter www.eternaldreams.co.uk