Why do weddings cost so much?

You’ve been planning your wedding, and now you feel like suppliers add a zero to the price tag just because you’re getting married. This is a fair challenge; weddings are very pricey, but the inflated price is actually a misconception. Let me explain. When was the last time you threw a formal party for all your nearest and dearest? More often than not, you need to rent out a whole venue, book group accommodation, buy formal wear for your bridal party, hire entertainment, and feed all your guests a sit-down 3-course meal with wine and all the trimmings. Photographers, like the rest of your suppliers, have a huge amount of work to do, not just on your wedding day, but unlike most of your other suppliers, we have a huge job to do after your wedding, too.

Bride and groom walking to their wedding.

A wedding photographer’s value shouldn’t be underestimated. My many years of experience means that I can consistently deliver breathtaking results. I’ve never had a couple that didn’t absolutely love their wedding photographs. My skills have taken me all over the UK, to Paris, California, and later this year, to Soule in South Korea. I know it can be tempting to shop on price, but your wedding photos will be how you remember this day for the rest of your life; it’s better to save money on things with less permanent results. Think about it: the day after you tie the knot, your cake, flowers, and decorations will all be gone. All you’ll have are your rings, marriage certificate, and photographs.

The value of experience.

Are you good at what you do for a living? How long did it take you to build your career? I imagine it was a lot of hard work, right? I’m a modest guy, but I know I’m very good at my job; this is my vocation, it’s not my hobby. Developing my abilities as a wedding photographer has been a twenty-year journey. I’ve had my work in prestigious art galleries, photographed celebrities, and featured in international publications, including work I did in America gracing the pages of The Guardian. But my favourite part of my job is documenting weddings for couples, just like you two. While all the glitzy movie premieres and the international travel are amazing perks, making a document of a once-in-a-lifetime event for a couple makes me truly happy. It’s where I focus most of my energy.

groom carries his bride over the mud on their wedding day

I know many couples have never hired a photographer before, so I’ve made every step of working with me relaxed and straightforward. Everything that can be done online happens within a few clicks. I’ll ensure you know what to expect at every step without overwhelming you with information. And I’m a calming and friendly presence to have around on your wedding day. Following your wedding, I invest a lot of time in selecting and processing your wedding photographs so you'll get a gallery of photos that catch the vibe.

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The costs of being a photographer

When a couple hires me, they pay for my experience and time. But that’s not to say the tools of my trade don’t come at a cost. I roll into most weddings with around £15000 worth of equipment. In addition to my lights, cameras, lenses, etc., I also need to cover travel, taxes, insurance, printing, advertising, a computer, specialist software, and storage and backups. You can see that this all adds up fast.

Justifying the value of an experienced wedding photographer becomes a riddle of how we make a living at all. In fact, after costs, many wedding photographers earn less than minimum wage if you calculate hourly pay.

Wedding Photography packages

If you value how you’ll remember your wedding, I’d love to tell you a little about my services. I offer wedding photography packages to suit most budgets. My full-day packages start at £1440, and most couples choose to spend around £2300 or more. Most of my packages include a second photographer as standard because I want you to get the most bang for your buck. Couples get far more photographs in their gallery when I bring a talented second photographer.

Depending on your needs, you can customise your coverage by adding a story session, where I’ll document you at a location that's played a part in your relationship—maybe it's a local beach where you like to spend time together, the café where you met each other, or that trip to New York you still talk about all the time. Maybe you love the nostalgia of analogue photography, where you mark your wedding day with something special; film photographs capture the light from your wedding day in physical form; this light is chemically locked into the film forever by a professional lab. You can also add a highlight video, where I’ll take a hybrid photo-video approach to documenting your day. You’ll get a cinematic trailer-length video set to licenced music. Along with these unique customisations, you can also add prints, albums, engagement shoots, and more.

While I don’t currently offer full-length videos, I work closely with an exclusive list of videographers. Let me know if you’d like any recommendations on the best people to add to your team, and I’ll share some names.

Why is one day of wedding photography so expensive?

While it might feel like you’re hiring your wedding photographer for ten hours, we actually spend two to three weeks working on each wedding we shoot. That’s why we all work far more than the standard 35-hour week that our nine-to-five friends do. It’s the only way to shoot the volume of weddings needed to make a living. We do all the normal admin work you’d expect of someone running a small business: client calls, responding to questions, sending out quotes, filing taxes, etc. But, by far, the biggest commitment of time we make is to editing and post-processing weddings. Every hour we hold a camera, we spend four or five hours behind a screen. I approach every single wedding as if it will take pride of place in my portfolio. I really labour over my post-processing; I pride myself on my consistently high quality. I study each photograph carefully to ensure you get gold in every frame. This is why I can only commit to 30 weddings each year.