Wedding Photography

mgbradsh · Oct 9, 2006

Hi. I haven't been here in a while.

A couple friends and I are thinking of starting a business for wedding photography. I'm currently going through the whole wedding planning thing and thanks to my fiancee

have had to look at a fair amount of photography sites. At very least we're hoping to spend the weekends taking pictures (something we do anyways) and make enough money to buy some good photo gear.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has gotten into this and how it worked for them or any problems they came across.

Oh, and I live in Calgary, Alberta in case anyone is worried about competition.

ladyphotog · Oct 9, 2006

Have you ever shot a wedding before? You can make some great money at it but it will soon comsume your life. It is very stressful because every shot must be great and you don't have alot of time to set up for it. The best thing I can tell you is to get a game plan down and follow it. Make sure that you have a good contract that covers you if something happens because it will and that you have good reliable equipment. Good luck.

mgbradsh · Oct 9, 2006

ladyphotog said:
Have you ever shot a wedding before? You can make some great money at it but it will soon comsume your life. It is very stressful because every shot must be great and you don't have alot of time to set up for it. The best thing I can tell you is to get a game plan down and follow it. Make sure that you have a good contract that covers you if something happens because it will and that you have good reliable equipment. Good luck.

One of my friends has done 3. The nice part is there will be 3 or 4 of us doing each wedding, so if one of us misses something the other ones should get it.

But yeah, it's one of our big concerns. Thanks though.

Peanuts · Oct 9, 2006

I have never shot a wedding before, so I should be the last person to comment, but as a hypothetical client, I would have some concerns that the price would be increased to simply accomodate the 3 or 4 individuals shooting.
I have actually had a flip through quite a few wedding portfolios of photographers in Calgary, and while there are a handful of outright fantastic (some here: http://www.discovercalgary.com/Calgary/BusinessIndex/Photographers-Wedding/) for instance Alan Maudie and Dave and Quin Cheung, photographers, there are some that I am certain with shadowing and such that could easily be 'overtaken'.

That wasn't very helpful (none of my posts are. :lol:

They usually start out with a purpose and dwindle to rambling) but it throws out a few things to look at.

mgbradsh · Oct 9, 2006

My fiancee and I got a wedding photographer who will stay from 8am until 12am, so all day, for about $1500. And we get the "digital negatives" on a CD. He takes great pictures too, and he's pretty nice which is good. When we were looking around for one, he really jumped out because of the price and the quality, and 16 hours of picture taking. As a customer, I was pretty excited about finding him.

That's really what we'd plan on charging for about the same hours and services. To start at least while we build a name for ourselves. We all have other jobs, so we don't have to rely on weddings for money so we'd be careful not to charge an arm and a leg for pictures.

Swiss · Nov 11, 2006

3 or 4 photographers are probably too many. You will be in each others way and lots of pastors or the couple get distracted easily and won't like more than one or two photographers around. I would recommend a test shoot with friends of yours, that dress up in their wedding costumes and pose for you. That way you can figure out, what you should do better next time and also have a number of photos, that you can show to your future customers and convince them, you're good

.

Big Mike · Nov 11, 2006

I'm currently taking a 'designing wedding photography' class. (I think that Dave and Quin Cheung, took classes from the same teacher).
One of the most important things that we have learned...is not to undercharge. If you are planning to shoot all day, with 3 or 4 shooters...for $1500...you are not charging enough.

Think about it...8 hours of shooting (x4 shooters is 32 hours), you are looking at editing many many shots...maybe thousands, so that's maybe 10-40 hours. Now look at all the other time consuming things...meeting with the client (maybe 2 or three times), going to the venue before to check it out, maybe meeting with the church official, maybe travel time. You would only be charging them $10-15 dollars an hour...and that does not include your overhead...things like equipment, income tax & business expenses (you are planning on running a legitimate business aren't you?)...now at the end of this...what is left for you to take home?

There is a lot of money to be made...(and even more if you don't care about doing a good job)...but you have to be careful. Lets say you give the client everything you can...for $1500. Then what can you possibly do to justify charging $3000?

I suggest taking a class, if you can. It's a good way to get some direction and make contacts.

JIP · Nov 11, 2006

Here we go again "I take pictures I think I will shoot weddings for a living how hard can it be" why don't you try shadowing a photographer a few times mabye assist or at least crawl before you get up to run a marathon. Look wedding photography can be lucrative but like any other craft it takes time to learn how to do it right so before you say you want to start a business try to mabye learn if you can do it.

guitarkid · Nov 21, 2006

maybe a little less harsh next time.....

Jeepnut28 · Nov 21, 2006

I just shot my second wedding this past weekend. First one I shot alongside a "pro". This one I did on my own. My take on it, is you definately need a second shooter. I worked off of a shot list the bride put together for me. I told her, that there was NO WAY I could get all the shots she wanted, some of her shots would require me to be TWO places at the same time. I have one more wedding booked in Vegas (should be easy, no shot list, clients just want me to be creative and want me to party with them).......after that I am NOT doing another wedding unless I can find a damn good second shooter.

guitarkid · Nov 21, 2006

glad it went well. that's my take on it as well. i don't know what these brides think...or people for that matter. if you know you have from 3-330pm for altar shots at the church but you need to get outdoor shots of you and your groom from 3-330, and also get people leaving the church at 3pm....what? am i 3 people....there is no way. you just explain to them that a 30 min. window is not much and what do they feel is the most important. i always work with a 2nd shooter. it makes it so much better. we watch each others stuff, it doesn't get as monotonous when you are staying until midnight, and you get many more shots to work with. if you don't get the shots...chances are they did. glad it's working out.
steve

Jeepnut28 · Nov 21, 2006

guitarkid said:
glad it went well. that's my take on it as well. i don't know what these brides think...or people for that matter. if you know you have from 3-330pm for altar shots at the church but you need to get outdoor shots of you and your groom from 3-330, and also get people leaving the church at 3pm....what? am i 3 people....there is no way. you just explain to them that a 30 min. window is not much and what do they feel is the most important. i always work with a 2nd shooter. it makes it so much better. we watch each others stuff, it doesn't get as monotonous when you are staying until midnight, and you get many more shots to work with. if you don't get the shots...chances are they did. glad it's working out.
steve

I am pleased with what I did. I did miss a couple of shots I really wanted to get though.

DocFrankenstein · Nov 22, 2006

I've tried doing weddings for friends. In my opinion, it's much easier to pay for gear with just a waitering job at 10 bucks an hour.

The amount of gear, advertising, post processing and stress that goes into shooting a wedding is enormous. And I didn't even have to deal with the clients' bull**** because it's all friends and nice people.

Also - photography gear for a hobby costs much less than the one needed for the wedding. It makes no sense to shoot for money to pay off pro gear which you didn't need to buy in the first place.

Also the amount of schooling you have to go through is tremendous. There are shooters who think that buying a camera makes them a photographer. But their porfolios are weak and vulgarly display their incompetence. Just like mine.

If you do it - do it all the way and invest in equipment, training and time to become good. There's no other way.

guitarkid · Nov 22, 2006

Great comments Doc. Although i agree with you on everything, it is possible to just get there on your own without much schooling. if you have an eye for it, you have an eye for it, and no amount of schooling can give you that, i believe. just my 2 cents. but, i have said the same stuff....get a few gigs to pay for stuff i really didn't need if i wasn't doing these gigs! it's an endless unecessary evil loop!!!

SHUTTERtoSPEAK · Nov 27, 2006

I have been involved with photography for about 10 years of my life. I am 23 and have taken classes and am always continuing my learning through reading and seminars and so forth. In 2004, I started my own home-based photography company and didn't really take it seriously. I was too afraid to mess up someones important day and questioned my skill level. Because of that, my company focused primarily on sports leagues and informal portraits. It wasn't until this year that I decided to take the plunge and to get into wedding photography. My fiance and I (she is a photographer and was my former assistant) both work the wedding. Our first 2 weddings were for couples who didn't have themselves a "typical" wedding. They didn't want to pay a fortune for a photographer and word of mouth led my company to them. I charged them a measly $300 for all day coverage in exchange for the digital photos and a release form. In return, I could use the prints for marketing and whatever else I needed to spawn my wedding business.

Both jobs went without a hitch. I got myself a great portfolio. I went above and beyond and made a DVD slideshow of the images and one of the brides was so impressed that she wrote an email out to all her co-workers (every teacher within the school district) and let them know how amazing my compay was.

I am booking for next year already and have gotten more clients through word of mouth and now from clients who just so happened to have viewed my website when searching for a wedding photographer in Buffalo, NY.

Some will say that charging so little was stupid but it was either that, or spend a ton of time "trying" to assist an already established wedding photographer in the area and hoping that they will let me take some shots to use in my portfolio. Fat chance of that, so charging a little to get my feet wet is already showing like it will pay off in the long run.

My advice:
Start small and work up! Make sure the company can survive and that all involved work well together. Do special events, do portraits, do sports leagues, do band photography.. .whatever it is. If you have pro equipment then great! otherwise, use the profits from the small things to buy better equipment. Nothing would be worse than opening a business and have it get split or have people leave. Make sure the company will self-survive so you won't get sued in case everyone ends up backing out while couples booked their wedding and paid already.

Get a digital SLR (& backup batteries) and decent lenses (fast lenses! More money but worth it)
Get ample flash units (and lots of batteries! and chargers)
Get large memory cards and a lot of them (3+ @ 2 gigs minimum)
Backup your memory card regularly
Read as much as you can about the business and techniques
Look at your competition and see their talent and skills. See their portfolio and see how they market themselves.
Get a portfolio of your own one way or another!
Go above and beyond for your clients
Get into photo editing and become a decent user of applications like photoshop so you can touch up the brides and grooms and do effects that they will go crazy over.(hide wrinkles or blemishes, convert to black and white, selective coloring and stuff like that)

That should be about all.

In your case, I would try a similar technique and get maybe 2-3 for each wedding job you do. Do NOT get all 4 photographers at the same wedding to shoot. Have one take turns being the "boss" while the others capture candids and photojournalistic stuff. I noticed that with 2 photographers they can sometimes get into eachother's shot. You get some great shots but they need your partner to be digitally edited out!
Rotate business partners in so everyone gets chances for the same wedding

Charge less for a couple to get a portfolio, each person could use their shots for their own portfolio.

Look into free website advertising and getting a website and getting business cards and anything like that to get the name out!

Oncce business picks up you could book 2 weddings on the same day and have 2 at one and 2 at the other or any combination. 4 Weddings with one at each even! That is $6,000 for the company per day!

Start the studio out of your house so you dont have to pay the overhead of a separate studio until you make enough to easily pay for renting a place and the utilities!

That should be all, email me if you have any specific questions or if you need any advice or little tricks of the trade or things like that...