Wedding Togs Listen Up - Rant Alert ;)

Why dont you all just decend whenever the time may be, Ill provide the beer :D
 
a f*****g big, very high quality album - beyond that I ain't really sure. I never said I offered it, or thought it worth paying

Hugh
 
candlestick said:
but he was definitely advertising himself at prices running well into the late hundreds I think,
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How much did they actually pay, and what are they getting for it?

Much as I hate to see camera owners masquerading as wedding photographers, I would suggest you wait for the bride & groom's views on the results before you start to influence their opinion.

If their pictures are vastly inferior to the samples they saw when booking, then they probably have grounds for recompense but I have actually heard one of my own portrait customers say of the photographer they booked for their wedding "I hope OUR photos don't look like the ones he showed us, or come in a plastic album like his sample".

They booked him because he was cheap, and frankly, got what they deserved.
 
Have a look at Queensbury if you think £500 is expensive Steve. :)

I did have a right go at the editor of Practical Photography about a year ago when they ran a 5 page article saying that you could go and shoot a wedding armed with a budget DSLR, a cheap suit, a cereal bar and a stepladder. (I'm serious)

It's that kind of shoddy press that has helped fuel the small army of seriously underequipped and undertrained so called professional wedding photographers out there. It has undoubtedly driven prices downward at the bottom end of the market and it is infested with poor quality products. Which makes it an absolute minefield for the poor Bride and Groom who have to wade through the poor quality and downright dishonest.

Right, off out to shoot today's wedding, hope the clouds go by 12! :)
 
tijuana taxi said:
2 grand for some photos!! what does the rest of a wedding cost then?

Utter madness, never understood the need for a big church turn out especially when the couple aren't even religious

Don't pay the bloke if they are rubbish, unmerchantable quaity and all that
Get some good snaps from friends, the OP sounds like he will have some

That big old book will only end up covered in dust on a shelf anyway
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We spent a bloody fortune on the photography package, somewhere around £2k in all I think. The tog and her assistant were superb, the albums are fantastic and we still look at them now - we got one huge italian jobby laid out superbly and about 8 mini albums of the same layout to give to various people. Even with what I've learnt over the last few years I'm over the moon with the quality. Sometimes you get what you pay for. I believe that one of our pics came 4th in a global wedding competition and a few of our shots are in "Wedding" Magazine this month funnily enough. Yes, it was a lot of money to us, but my bestmans brother is an unbelievably great tog (now he charges serious money!) and he recommended her to us, and we are both so glad he did.
 
Like I said - you get what you pay for...
But if you do charge this kind of money, you have to deliver the results!

As I mentioned earlier, it was more work, but tended to be less stressful - I was part of a well-orchestrated event rather than feeling like an afterthought...
Sometimes I'd have to co-ordinate with a proper wedding organiser, who would do all the logistics for me on the client's behalf - even less stress then...
From a £2k fee, about £1,000 would be pure profit - and that was in the days of shooting film with all the associated processing costs...
 
swanseamale47 said:
One of the popular A3 Italian leather albums costs us over £400 and thats nowhere near top of the range.
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Hmmm.

I was lucky as I had my wedding photographed by the photographer who my father worked for (weddings mainly) for no charge.

I have about sixty prints in a cheap album and that's all I would ever want so I suppose there is a market for all styles and budgets.

I don't think I would pay £400 for a whole wedding!!


Steve.
 
I don't think I would pay £400 for a whole wedding!!
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Nor would I, especially when you have two or three of them.

Just seems crazy when a lot of young couples are struggling for cash yet they spend mad sums on one day.
The whole church thing bemuses me, why bother when you are not religious, same with christenings too

Still from reading this, keeps a good few people in money even the charlatans
 
Did the photographer show the couple a portfolio?

Are the photographs in the portfolio of a similar standard to their own photographs?

If yes not much can be done......If no then something could be done.


If no portfolio was seen...why not?
 
Arkady said:
Like I said - you get what you pay for...
But if you do charge this kind of money, you have to deliver the results!
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this is exactly the posistion i have found myself in, i am an improving photographer and student, i was approached by someone who had seen my photos online (not wedding ones) and because she liked the whole etherial faery thing, she asked me to do her wedding... Now i was really unsure what to ask for money wise, i would have said 600 was a fair price if i were sure i would get great results, but probably not so good when i am not sure exactly what i'm doing - now i did my dads wedding last summer, that was before i started my course and before i got my metz mz70 so i am uber better now and the photos from that came out okay...

i decided to charge them 350 with the option to sell prints to friends and family if they needed them after the day,i reckon with doting relatives wanting a shot for the album i might squeeze another 50 out of it, its great experience and they arent that rich un stuff. i know i have sold myself short a wee bit, but they dont require many prints, they are happy to give me permission to print for the family and they dont want an album.

plus they have a buiness running pagan handfastings, birthing ceremonies and stuff which they will suggest me as their resident photographer ;)

its happening July 31st and i am dead excited!
 
tijuana taxi said:
Nor would I, especially when you have two or three of them.

Just seems crazy when a lot of young couples are struggling for cash yet they spend mad sums on one day.
The whole church thing bemuses me, why bother when you are not religious, same with christenings too

Still from reading this, keeps a good few people in money even the charlatans
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i agree, at 24 i'm in talks with the missus about getting married soon but we don't want a church because we ain't religious and neither do we want the registrar office (missus is a dentist and i'm on my way to qualify for the same thing) so what we want is somewhere nice, regardless of price with only close friends and family and regards tog, i'd ask on here for samples and quotes first then explore others whose work i may have already seen
 
p.s - the point of that was, that if you dont KNOW if your going to produce tip top results, dont charge SO much, i dont think there is any shame in that ;)
 
feeb said:
this is exactly the posistion i have found myself in, i am an improving photographer and student, i was approached by someone who had seen my photos online (not wedding ones) and because she liked the whole etherial faery thing, she asked me to do her wedding... Now i was really unsure what to ask for money wise, i would have said 600 was a fair price if i were sure i would get great results, but probably not so good when i am not sure exactly what i'm doing - now i did my dads wedding last summer, that was before i started my course and before i got my metz mz70 so i am uber better now and the photos from that came out okay...

i decided to charge them 350 with the option to sell prints to friends and family if they needed them after the day,i reckon with doting relatives wanting a shot for the album i might squeeze another 50 out of it, its great experience and they arent that rich un stuff. i know i have sold myself short a wee bit, but they dont require many prints, they are happy to give me permission to print for the family and they dont want an album.

plus they have a buiness running pagan handfastings, birthing ceremonies and stuff which they will suggest me as their resident photographer ;)

its happening July 31st and i am dead excited!
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That's the right position to take at your level - I was referring to 'established' Pro Wedding 'Togs who do this every weekend as a full-time job...
They're the ones who have to deliver results if they're setting themselves up as professional Wedding Photographers...

No-one could expect a flawless shoot from an inexperienced, but accomplished amateur...unless you're familiar with the whole Wedding-thing, it's inevitable that there will be glitches...
 
so what we want is somewhere nice, regardless of price with only close friends and family
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Good few places are now licensed for Weddings or maybe look abroad

Colleague at work went off to Hawaii and got married on a cliff top, keeps all the old family scroungers away too.
Her reasoning was you get a nice holiday for a fraction of the big church wedding cost.
 
tijuana taxi said:
Good few places are now licensed for Weddings or maybe look abroad
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great idea although the father in law is suffering with circulation problems so we limited to homeland. we are looking at a few licensed halls atm
 
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