I have been asked this so many times... does the wedding industry inflate prices when they hear it's a wedding?
Here is my honest answer (as a former wedding photographer)... NO. Did I charge more for a wedding than a 50th birthday party or a family portrait session? Yes, absolutely. I charged A LOT more for a wedding.
Was I taking advantage of the emotional sell? Absolutely not.
The main reasons I charged more for a wedding were: the unseen amount of work involved in the 12+ months leading up to the wedding, the skill level needed on the day, the INTENSE pressure to create perfect "portfolio level work" no matter what the reality of the situation- but mostly it is to compensate for the time AFTER the wedding in post production.
Little known fact about wedding photography - the real job is sitting at a computer editing photos. Photographers spend many hours behind the computer carefully selecting and editing photos. They make adjustments, crop, and adjust colors to ensure each image it's best. Don't forget the time it takes for batching, renaming, importing, exporting and uploading the photos and preparing them for delivery.
Do you think this justifies why photographers charge more for weddings than for other types of shoots?
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Are you surprised by the cost of wedding photography? I was a wedding photographer in downtown Chicago for over a decade and my prices increased almost every year. This was not about inflation or operating costs, it was based on my experience level and level of quality. The first wedding I ever photographed was for $1,800 (a loooong time ago!) and the last wedding I photographed (with a team of 3 other photographers, 3 days of events, 3 huge wedding albums, plus more.. ) was $22,000. The budget of the wedding weekend for that client was $1.5 million.
The bulk of my career had an average photography package of $8,500 per couple.