When you’re looking for a wedding photographer for your big day, you may ask yourself: Why are wedding photographers so expensive?
Wedding photography might seem unreasonably expensive at first glance. You may think photography is easy. You might feel like the eight or so hours shooting your wedding don’t add up to the expense.
But wedding photography is much more than taking beautiful photos of your special day. Far more time and effort are involved, both before and after the wedding day. Photography is also an expensive business, and work is typically inconsistent and seasonal.
When setting their prices, wedding photographers must consider business costs, hours worked, and profit margins. Let's dig into this post and learn more about what goes into wedding photography prices.
Wedding photography is an expensive business to start and maintain. The price of photography must cover the many expenses of operating a photography business.
Good cameras cost $500-$1000 minimum, and most photographers have at least one backup camera as well. Photographers also pay for equipment like memory cards, film, lenses, filters, external flashes, backdrops, and stands, strobes, and tripods. Maintenance, repair, and occasional replacement of equipment are also costly.
Photography equipment alone is expensive, but a photographer’s expenses don’t end there. Additional costs may include:
Your wedding photographer must charge enough to cover these expenses. Otherwise, they’re essentially paying to shoot your wedding. And if their pricing doesn’t allow for a profit on top of business costs, the photographer is working for free. None of us would work for free, and we shouldn’t expect photographers to do so either.
Photography prices also factor in hours worked. On average, a wedding photographer may shoot for about eight hours per wedding. That’s a full day’s work, but it doesn’t start or end there.
As a rule of thumb, one hour of shooting equals about nine hours of hidden work. Hidden work before the shoot includes marketing, client communication, planning the shoot, and setting up equipment. After the shoot, hidden work involves breaking down equipment, culling images, editing and retouching, sending proofs and making adjustments as requested, administrative tasks, equipment maintenance, and more.
This means that you aren’t paying for just the time spent photographing your wedding. You also compensate the photographer for the hours working on pre- and post-production. These extra hours ensure a smooth shoot and beautiful final photos. And each of these hours represents an hour spent away from family and friends, downtime, and enjoying other hobbies or activities.
What value would you place on your time? Wedding photographers—and other small business owners—must make this important decision daily.
Finally, wedding photographers consider profit margins when setting their prices. Photographers typically run at a profit margin of 19% to 25%. Even for a one-hour photoshoot, a photographer who charges $1,000 only pockets about $250 in profit.
Add in the nine hours of hidden work, and that comes out to $25 per hour before taxes and health insurance, which business owners pay out of pocket.
With taxes and insurance paid for, the photographer earns closer to minimum wage. Both the wedding industry and the photography business are seasonal, so these earnings aren’t guaranteed every week.
Your photographer isn’t trying to set expensive prices. They are simply trying to be profitable—and profit is the purpose of running any business. Ultimately, it’s not the photographer that’s so expensive. It’s the photography business.
Wedding photographers don’t calculate their prices to take advantage of soon-to-be-married couples. They make logical decisions based on their expenses, hours, and profit margins.
Just like you, me, and everyone else, wedding photographers strive to earn a living. Their pricing must allow them to afford housing, feed their families, and keep the lights on. In the seasonal and expensive business of wedding photography, cheap prices won’t provide a livable income.
Your wedding photographer invests their time and talent to provide you with a priceless service: preserving your special day with gorgeous, lasting images. They deserve to make a solid living and set prices that allow them to do so.
While those prices can appear expensive at first, understand that your talented photographer is only charging what they need to survive and thrive.
Wedding photography might seem unreasonably expensive at first glance. You may think photography is easy. You might feel like the eight or so hours shooting your wedding don’t add up to the expense.
But wedding photography is much more than taking beautiful photos of your special day. Far more time and effort are involved, both before and after the wedding day. Photography is also an expensive business, and work is typically inconsistent and seasonal.
When setting their prices, wedding photographers must consider business costs, hours worked, and profit margins.
