Here is a guide, pulled together to help couples find the best wedding photographer for their own needs – written from my perspective as a professional wedding photographer.
First of all
The first point to make is that there is no standard pricing structure within wedding photography. Every photographer is different will have their own way to approach pricing. There will never be a true ‘like for like’. This can make it very hard to compare a wedding photographer based on their wedding photography packages. Of course, you need to be clear on what is included in the service you are being provided, especially as you don’t want any misunderstandings or unexpected surprises arising after the wedding. My advise would be to focus on the things that you really value personally when trying to compare one photographer to another (e.g. whether you will get unwatermarked images or whether there is an engagement shoot included).
Total Cost
Wedding photography prices vary widely across the world, it even varies massively on a local scale. Factors such as the services each individual photographer offers as standard, their additional services as well as the photographer’s experience make a big difference. It is also hard to get an exact figure on the industry data. Why is this? Well, as Wedding Photographers sell direct to couples there is very little data on the actual figures both in terms of wedding photography prices and the amount of weddings being done by each photographer.
Bridebook is a well established, popular wedding photography website which undertakes yearly surveys – their 2019 UK Market Report estimates that the total that couple’s spend around £1,200 on their wedding photography in the UK. This varies from London at around £1,500 through to the North East of England averaging at £940, including counties such as North Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland. However, this data doesn’t take into account differences between full day and part day weddings, and this figure may also include add on services such as wedding albums and engagement shoots.
This is only an average and it’s easy to find entry level photographers offering to cover weddings for £100-£200 through to the industry leaders such as Ross Harvey offering premium services and charging 5 figures.
Please be warned though, with wedding photography it is very much a case of you get what you pay for. There are many stories about hapless wedding photographers ruining a couple’s wedding day. You only have to do a quick Google search on cheap wedding photographers to find some of the horror stories.
Set A Budget
My main recommendation for any couple looking to hire a photographer is to choose a price range you are happy with and search for photographers within that range. It’s no good to be considering photographers way out of your price range. Many of the major wedding guides suggest your wedding photography budget should be between 5-10% of the cost of the wedding. In 2019, the average cost of a wedding was around £17,000 which would mean a wedding photography budget of £850 to £1,700. This particular budget range will easily allow you to hire a decent professional photographer (as 61% of couples do) and not risk your photos with a novice.
What Next?
To help you make sense of the different pricing structures and approaches you will find – I have pulled together some information which will hopefully help you to decipher the price lists you will come across.
Prices vs Packages
Most wedding photographers will have a number of different pricing options – usually referred to as ‘packages’. These are bundles of coverage and services for your wedding and may well also include tangible products such as albums. Some photographers prefer to set individual prices which will allow you to build up your own package. Whilst others may provide a small number of set options for you to choose from. There are no set rules when it comes to wedding photography prices and the wedding photographer will be able to answer any questions about their own structures.
Some of the most popular services you’d find in a package are:
- Duration/length of coverage
- Online Galleries
- Albums
- Prints
- Digital Images
- Print Release
- Same Day Previews
- Second Photographer
- Engagement/Pre-wedding shoot
- Canvases
- Signing frames
- Drone photography
Duration
How many hours coverage you need will depend on what you want from your wedding photographer. It is common place in modern times for wedding photographers to cover from the bridal preparations through to the first dance. You will find that nearly all wedding photographers will offer this option. Some wedding photographers will set a specific amount of time they will cover whilst others may say it is ‘all day’. Before hiring a wedding photographer, make sure you know exactly what is included in your coverage before booking. For example, if your ceremony is at 2pm, then the photographer might start coverage of the bridal prep 2-2.5 hours before. If your first dance is at 8pm then that would mean you’d need 9 hours coverage. If you have an earlier ceremony or something planned for later in the evening (e.g. fireworks) then you may need more coverage.
Online Gallery
Check whether the images are just for viewing or if they can be downloaded from the gallery. If so, you need to know whether the photographer is providing standard images (sometimes called social media images or web images which could be 900 pixels wide) or high-resolution images (which I would say should be at least 3,840 pixels wide and 300 DPI). High-resolution images are the ones that you want if you want to be able to print your images and some wedding photographers may have the requirement that you only order prints through them.
Wedding Album
Wedding albums are a beautiful way to display and protect your images for years to come. Trust me when I say that nothing beats the feeling of being able to actually hold your images in front of you. Make sure you check whether the album is a bound album with rigid pages or a hardback ‘coffee table’ book with thin pages.
Deposit
All professional wedding photographers should ask for a deposit to secure your date. The amount varies and it’s amount will be down to the personal preference of the photographer. It could be a fixed amount (e.g. £200) or as a % of the package price (e.g. 25%). This varies significantly depending on the photographer you are working with.
Balance
It is a standard thing for wedding photographers require payment in advance of the wedding. This can be a week, a month or 3 months before and is something that should be discussed with you as part of your contract. Some photographers may give you the option of paying the balance in installments too if that is preferable. Check before booking to avoid any surprises!
Contracts
Every wedding photographer should be able to provide you with a written contract for your wedding photography. Now that we are living in the online world, most are now delivered online for you to view and sign but sometimes these can be on paper and sent through the post.
Most wedding photographer’s contract will cover many different clauses and may seem quite overwhelming. However, this is not a bad thing. The more that is covered within your contract, the more the photographer has thought about the service that they are offering you.
From my perspective, if a photographer cannot provide you with a detailed written contract this would raise an important question as to their professionalism and approach. Please do not ever book a wedding photographer that will not send you a contract, it is likely to come back to haunt you! Remember this protects your rights as well as the photographers and should set out expectations from the word go.
Summary
I hope this post on How Much Does A Wedding Photographer Cost? has been useful. If you have any questions then please contact me.