Formals

[elsaspet]

Yes! I totally have this potential client who called me and was all worried and up in arms about how the photographer friend of their daughter's backed out of doing her wedding photography. He had originally quoted them $800 and I quoted them $750. They have about 2 weeks to find somebody and then I get this email from the dad trying to get me to lower my price since this is my "first real wedding" and also $70 an hour was a little high.
What? I don't know how he figured that it'd be $70 an hour since the post processing takes me just as much time as the actual time at the wedding and it really will end up being around $25 an hour.
I had to explain to him that the post-processing is a lot of work and that they are also getting a cd with all of the images with permission to print on their own. Also, I never told them that it was my first wedding so I don't know how they got that impression. So annoying!
Ugh...guess we'll see how it goes!

That happened to me on my very first gig. Keep in mind, when I met the gal, she drove up in a Porche and was wearing what looked like a 40K ring. This girl wasn't hurting for money, and she had GREAT venues. I was dying to get the job, and gave her the pricing on my 8 hour shooting package. She calls me back a few days later and tells me I got the job, to send her the contract which I do. (I had plugged in the dollar amount that we had agreed on).
Her fiance, an attorney calls me and no kidding says, "Hi, I am XXX, and I'm an attorney and XXX's fiance." Ummm ok..... I felt like saying, "I'm Cindy, and I'm a photographer", but I let it go.
Then he tells me that he will only need me for 6 hours, and starts breaking down my pricing according to hours of shooting time. I try to explain to him that the hours are just on shooting. Mr. Attorney couldn't grasp the fact. I told him ok, fine. No book, no processing, no slideshows......I'll give him a bunch of cards to download in RAW, and he can handle it himself. Unfathoming, he tells me that he has problems with the contract. He doesn't want to feed me, he wants me to release my copyright, he wants me to give him a money back garantee if it rains, and he doesn't want to pay me until he sees the photos. I told him to rip of the contract and find someone else. Keep in mind this was my very first gig and very hard to do, but I can't imagine the nightmare I would have faced (at a discount no less) if I would have taken the job.

 

[markc]

Sounds like a smart move to me.

And yeah, it's not like I process every frame. Even when I did film, it was nothing like $1 a frame. I either used cd images or 4x6s as proofs before I did anything. I've only done a couple of weddings though, so most of the time I was scanning myself and just used the neg as a proof.

 

[Sharkbait]

That happened to me on my very first gig. Keep in mind, when I met the gal, she drove up in a Porche and was wearing what looked like a 40K ring. This girl wasn't hurting for money, and she had GREAT venues. I was dying to get the job, and gave her the pricing on my 8 hour shooting package. She calls me back a few days later and tells me I got the job, to send her the contract which I do. (I had plugged in the dollar amount that we had agreed on).
Her fiance, an attorney calls me and no kidding says, "Hi, I am XXX, and I'm an attorney and XXX's fiance." Ummm ok..... I felt like saying, "I'm Cindy, and I'm a photographer", but I let it go.
Then he tells me that he will only need me for 6 hours, and starts breaking down my pricing according to hours of shooting time. I try to explain to him that the hours are just on shooting. Mr. Attorney couldn't grasp the fact. I told him ok, fine. No book, no processing, no slideshows......I'll give him a bunch of cards to download in RAW, and he can handle it himself. Unfathoming, he tells me that he has problems with the contract. He doesn't want to feed me, he wants me to release my copyright, he wants me to give him a money back garantee if it rains, and he doesn't want to pay me until he sees the photos. I told him to rip of the contract and find someone else. Keep in mind this was my very first gig and very hard to do, but I can't imagine the nightmare I would have faced (at a discount no less) if I would have taken the job.

Isn't it ironic that the rich ones are the ones that are usually nitpicking about every little nickel and dime thing? We had a wedding earlier this year in one of the ritziest country clubs in the city...$15K just for the application fee to this place. They gave us lunchmeat sandwiches way in the back corner of the room, as far out of sight as they could without actually putting us in the kitchen.

 

[AprilRamone]

That happened to me on my very first gig. I told him to rip of the contract and find someone else. Keep in mind this was my very first gig and very hard to do, but I can't imagine the nightmare I would have faced (at a discount no less) if I would have taken the job.

Sounds to me like you did the right thing too. I'm glad this wasn't my first wedding because I may have been tempted to bow down to this gentleman's demands, but thankfully, I have done some event photography and I know now how much time it really eats so I wasn't willing to just lower my price right off the bat. I calmly wrote him back and said that I understood wanting to get a good deal but explained that he really was getting a good deal and that I was only willing to go down a little based on the hours we were cutting off of the contract. Now it sounds like he is pleased and everything should be ok It's hard to remember that to the average person photography seems overpriced since no one really understands the amount of work that really goes into it.

 

[Christie Photo]

...I told him to rip of the contract and find someone else.

You should have billed him for the phone call. You can bet he does.

 

[ksmattfish]

I find most people don't want to take forever for the wedding day formal portraits, so I suggest to them to keep it to an hour or less. Then I emphasize that while I can work quickly, creative posed portraits take time, and if their list is too long (more than the B & G, wedding party, and their immediate family members) we will be reduced to "line up and say cheese." Some folks are fine with that; they want "line up and say cheese" because that's what's in their mom's wedding album. I tell the B & G that there will be opportunities for extended family and big group photos at the reception. People are having fun and are more relaxed, and have big, real real smiles on their faces.

 

[mysteryscribe]

As a follow up to matt...

I always found I could run the whole family at the alter in 30 minutes max... Honest Im not kidding... Also I had problems ever shooting groups at the reception. They always wanted the church background and I didn't really blame them....

 

[ksmattfish]

I think an important part of being successful in anything is knowing your own limitations. I know I do a better job if I take a few minutes to really look and think about what I am doing. Speed is important, and I have been forced many times by late wedding parties to get it done in 1/2 an hour or less, but give me an hour, and I'll deliver much more exciting portraits. I find most brides understand me when I say that the difference between good wedding portraits, and WOW!!! wedding portraits is just a little more time, or not trying to do too much in the time we have. If they don't understand me, they usually can see the difference in my portfolio. The line-up-and-say-cheese shots are fine, but it's the posed portraits that I took more time with that always get the comments.

My normal list has 15 groupings on it, plus assorted shots of the B & G. Assuming everyone is on time, and cooperating (ha ha ha! whoever heard of that happening at a wedding?), I'll spend 15 min with the B & G, and 45 min with the B & G, wedding party, and immediate family. That's only 3 min per pose. It takes 2 minutes just for Grandma to get to the altar! I could probably go faster if I had an assistant, but for now I'm working solo.

Many churches around here will only let me photograph in the church from 1.5 hours before to 0.5 hours after the ceremony. The extended family doesn't want to show up 2 hours early to get ready to have their photo taken, and after the festivities of the ceremony exit I'm lucky if I've got 10 min left before the church lady starts chewing my leg off. Besides, the B & G will have forgotten to tell the extended family that the limo drive off is staged, and that they will be sneaking in the back for more photos, so much of the extended family will run off to the reception, and we'll be taking their portraits there anyway.

 

[mysteryscribe]

You are exactly right, Every place and every photographer is in fact different... It's why customers shop around. Sorta like shoes have to find the right fit at the right price. All things are like that I suppose.

 

[elsaspet]

This is exactly why I tell the client the fastest I can move on formals is 5 minutes per setup. 10 formals=25 minutes, 20=40 minutes ect......then say, "The amount of formals is the amount of time you will miss at your reception". I'm not taking the heat later when everyone is griping about the wait time. Normally, I have 5 set ups or under. Otherwise it would be a freaking free for all up there at the alter (which is like the longest decade of my life at these shindigs).