how many weddings a year?

mortallis288 · Apr 21, 2007

How many weddings a year is normal for a established wedding photographer? how about a starting off wedding photographer?

brighteyesphotos · Apr 21, 2007

Established, I'm not sure. I think some only like doing one a month for processing purposes. I believe those charge enough to get away with it. Starting out? Maybe a couple a year. I did one last year and have two scheduled this year, one potential and just helped a fellow photographer shoot a wedding today. I'm still breaking into the area, getting my name out there through word of mouth mostly. I would like to work up to one or two a month and make that my main work but I suspect that may be a bit off for me.

EOS_JD · Apr 21, 2007

brighteyesphotos said:
Established, I'm not sure. I think some only like doing one a month for processing purposes. I believe those charge enough to get away with it. Starting out? Maybe a couple a year. I did one last year and have two scheduled this year, one potential and just helped a fellow photographer shoot a wedding today. I'm still breaking into the area, getting my name out there through word of mouth mostly. I would like to work up to one or two a month and make that my main work but I suspect that may be a bit off for me.

I think you'll find an established photographer will do a lot more than 1 a month. Doing 12 in a year you'd need to be charging $15,000 (£7,500) a wedding to make it worth while!! I doubt many will be doing that.

Most established photographers will be doing probably one or two a week. Their post processing is very streamlined.

Some weekend warriors (as many of us are called) can do lots in a year. Some are busier than others. Wedding numbers vary depending on how good you are. Do work well for a family member and your name gets around. I completed 4 last year and have another couple booked for this year and one already for 2008. I'm hoping to get more booked. I also do commercial work for a graphic artist and a web designer which helps.

jemmy · Apr 22, 2007

I did one in January, one in March, am shooting my cousins in May and my sisters in June, then one booked for September. I have posted out a few packs so hope to maybe get some bookings through that too. Im happy with the steady flow so far, but looking forward to more bookings too x

darich · Apr 22, 2007

My neighbour runs a wedding photography business from home.
He told me about a week ago he used to shoot 70 or so a year but he's cut that back to around 30-40 now.
He's been doing it for years and is well established

JIP · Apr 22, 2007

When I was busy I would shoot a few before june mabye 1 in april 2-3 in may then from june to sep. I would shoot every weekend then I mght shoot 1 and if I was lucky 2 in november. This was when I was eorking for someone so someone might do a little less if you have to do allt the processing on your own.

mortallis288 · Apr 22, 2007

i was curious, thanks for the info! :hug::

msf · May 7, 2007

EOS_JD said:
I think you'll find an established photographer will do a lot more than 1 a month. Doing 12 in a year you'd need to be charging $15,000 (£7,500) a wedding to make it worth while!! I doubt many will be doing that.

I think alot of pro's would also be doing portraits and/or other photo related areas to help fill in the rest of the year.

So its not just income goal devided by number of weddings. And that $180,000 would be really worth while, but im sure you could charge less and still live quite comfortably.

The time of the year matters since there is generally alot more weddings in the summer than the winter, at least here. Also you can get wedding customers from portrait customers, and vice versa.

Something of interest, I read in rangefinder a while ago about this guy that targeted a certain age group of women in the hopes to get life long customers. Once he has reached this customer, he would possibly get engagement pictures from her once she got engaged. Then possibly wedding pictures. Then possibly baby pictures. Then family portraits every so years after that. Not to mention this woman would have other female friends that she could refer to you.

I think my goal for a wedding would be one per week. Im not positive, but I think I read somewhere that the average wedding is about 40 hours worth of work. This includes meeting with the potential client initially, meeting again to work out the details, doing the wedding, post processing of the images, sending the pictures out to be printed and picking them up/ or printing them yourself, and finally meeting with the client again to deliver the finished product.

EOS_JD · May 8, 2007

msf said:
I think alot of pro's would also be doing portraits and/or other photo related areas to help fill in the rest of the year.

The OP asked about Established "Wedding" Photographers. I think they will be looking to do more than 1 a week - however I agree that they will supplement the wedding photography with other work.

I'm not sure most Established Wedding Photographers could live on just one wedding per week though. Remember that even charging $2000 for a wedding is not a huge amount once you have taken off all your expenses.

One a week is fine if you are good enough to achieve income (after expenses) of $2000 per wedding.

I'd also be shocked if I spent 40 hours on a wedding though..... 20-25 hours is closer to the mark and I'm slow at editing.

Regards
Jim

darich · May 8, 2007

EOS_JD said:
I'd also be shocked if I spent 40 hours on a wedding though..... 20-25 hours is closer to the mark and I'm slow at editing.

I agree - i've done one wedding with a friend. We were on site for around 4-5 hours each and i did the editing on the images - no more than 10hours total.
My friend met the bride before and after the wedding and he arranged prints.
My editing time added to our 5 hours each on site is 20hours.
I know my friend wasn't in meetings with the new couple and arranging prints for another 20hours.

20-25 hours seems a reasonable amount of time for a wedding

elsaspet · May 8, 2007

I did 43 last year and I have around 40 this year.
More than one a week? OMG, no WAY! As it is, I'm putting 60 hours a week.
There are two philosophies though, crank 'em out with shoot and burn and do it cheap and lots, or do a killer job, charge a premium and have some pride.

EOS, you are FAST if you can process a wedding in 40 hours. Are you doing books and stuff in that time too?

EOS_JD · May 8, 2007

elsaspet said:
EOS, you are FAST if you can process a wedding in 40 hours. Are you doing books and stuff in that time too?

To be fair no I'm not doing albums but I do provide a DVD. I'm trying to get the DVD completed as a template so that I can drag and drop images in therefore saving some time but this is a slow process for me.

I must admit to forgetting about the design of the album although I know of a local pro who contracts this out! (She's so expensive she can afford to do this).

Maybe I should revisit my timescales

elsaspet · May 8, 2007

EOS_JD said:
To be fair no I'm not doing albums but I do provide a DVD. I'm trying to get the DVD completed as a template so that I can drag and drop images in therefore saving some time but this is a slow process for me.

I must admit to forgetting about the design of the album although I know of a local pro who contracts this out! (She's so expensive she can afford to do this).

Maybe I should revisit my timescales

Yeah! A great album should take at least a few hours. Then you have to count for the edit.

elsaspet · May 8, 2007

EOS_JD said:
To be fair no I'm not doing albums but I do provide a DVD. I'm trying to get the DVD completed as a template so that I can drag and drop images in therefore saving some time but this is a slow process for me.

I must admit to forgetting about the design of the album although I know of a local pro who contracts this out! (She's so expensive she can afford to do this).

Maybe I should revisit my timescales

Making your own albums is easyeasyeasy. I make a crapload off of albums, especially upgrades. Tack on $600 to my packages, and that is where I average. Albums, and parent albums are HUGE!

EOS_JD · May 8, 2007

elsaspet said:
Making your own albums is easyeasyeasy. I make a crapload off of albums, especially upgrades. Tack on $600 to my packages, and that is where I average. Albums, and parent albums are HUGE!

I actually have some very good page templates and designs. I bought a DVD from a scottish guy called Stuart Little (http://www.thelittlephotoshop.co.uk/index.html http://www.stuartlittlephotography.co.uk)

His DWA (Design Wedding Album) is very useful but I've shied away from making an album so far. i should add Stuart's software is actually very good and his actions really save a lot of time in doing the simplest of tasks. Some are worth a look.

If anyone has any ideas on where I could source good albums in the UK I'd appreciate ny comments?

I'm just about to get very busy with getting a web site together and have a busy personal & social life at the moment. Don't find much free time just now but I'm slowly learning as I go along.

Thanks for the tips Elspet