Are less people getting married this year? (U.S.)

karamat · Mar 5, 2011

I have been doing wedding photography for a few years and have used the same advertising tools. But this year I am getting about half the inquiries. In fact the majority of my business this season is from referrals.

Is this happening to anyone else? Are less people getting married?

Robin Usagani · Mar 5, 2011

fewer

usayit · Mar 5, 2011

Weddings are expensive and people are living without them rather then go into unnessessary debt.

There was a recent news report speaking to it.

PhotoWrangler · Mar 5, 2011

We haven't had any MORE weddings booked than normal... but we have booked our largest package WAY more than we did last year. It seems those that are booking are spending more than they were last year or year before.

Bitter Jeweler · Mar 5, 2011

Yet another reason to legalize gay marriage...think of the money to be made from all the dinks!

PhotoWrangler · Mar 5, 2011

Bitter Jeweler said:
Yet another reason to legalize gay marriage...think of the money to be made from all the dinks!

Amen to that! Expendable income is a lovely thing...

vicanderson · Mar 6, 2011

Our business directly effect the earning of people.

People will do marriages as earlier but may be they are going to spent less on these expenses.

LarissaPhotography · Mar 16, 2011

We've been seeing a lot of couples getting married later in life. It's definitely more common to hold off for a while now.

e.rose · Mar 16, 2011

It may not be the number of weddings happening... but the fact that brides are becoming more "budget conscious". I got married last year and I was a "budget bride". Granted, we actually *did* spend on our photos (cutting back on other things I deemed less important, like decorations, real flowers, open bar [gasp!]), but I could link you to 15 girls' Facebook pages that got married last year, who were budget brides and didn't. They hired friends, family, or "pros" with shoddy skills but with pricing accessible to the budget brides.

Or maybe people *are* waiting. Who knows. :lol:

imagemaker46 · Mar 16, 2011

From a friend of mine that has seen his weddings drop off by 50% this year. He lives and owns a studio in a smaller city outside Toronto. "When I go out to shoot the weddings I am tripping over all these new photographers shooting weddings, the majority have one camera and one lens" You can ask if fewer people are getting married but the reality is more amateurs have stepped in to shoot weddings, it is an easy way to pick up good money without having to buy more than one camera. It doesn't mean the pictures will be any good, what it does mean is that people are settling for less.

Bitter Jeweler · Mar 16, 2011

Cool! We can argue about that "issue" here too!

Robin Usagani · Mar 16, 2011

You need to stop blaming it 100% on the amateurs. I would blame most of it to the clients for not doing their research and not putting photography as #1 priority. You get what you pay for (not 100% true all the time though).

imagemaker46 said:
From a friend of mine that has seen his weddings drop off by 50% this year. He lives and owns a studio in a smaller city outside Toronto. "When I go out to shoot the weddings I am tripping over all these new photographers shooting weddings, the majority have one camera and one lens" You can ask if fewer people are getting married but the reality is more amateurs have stepped in to shoot weddings, it is an easy way to pick up good money without having to buy more than one camera. It doesn't mean the pictures will be any good, what it does mean is that people are settling for less.

e.rose · Mar 16, 2011

imagemaker46 said:
You can ask if fewer people are getting married but the reality is more amateurs have stepped in to shoot weddings, it is an easy way to pick up good money without having to buy more than one camera. It doesn't mean the pictures will be any good, what it does mean is that people are settling for less.

Exactly what I was getting at.

Like I said, I know a *lot* of girls that got married last year (real friends, and the fact that I used to be on a married life forum) and upon seeing the photos that they uploaded as their "professional photos", I would have assumed were candid snaps taken by guests if not for the fact that they labeled them "pro pics!".

People are cutting costs all over the place as far as weddings are concerned, and unfortunately, photography is one of them. More girls are becoming satisfied with the sheer fact that the day was recorded, more than concerned with the *quality* in which it was recorded.

e.rose · Mar 16, 2011

Schwettylens said:
You need to stop blaming it 100% to amateurs. I would blame most of it to the clients for not doing their research and not putting photography as #1 priority. You get what you pay for (not 100% true all the time though).

I don't even think it's that. They just don't care enough about the photos... so when they find a cheap one where the images are at least identifiable... they hire that photographer.

e.rose · Mar 16, 2011

And I mean... I'm coming from the consumer side of the camera, because obviously, I'm not a wedding photographer, but like I said, I just got married last year... so buzz I heard (and am still hearing) is fairly recent. And not only are girls skimping on the photography part of the budget, they STILL expect to have 3,000,000 images on a CD for them within the 2 weeks following the event. :lol: