Wedding photography has become an important part of any wedding. But nowadays it doesn’t come that easy. It has become a luxury for some weddings and it will cost you a fair amount for a good wedding photographer. Sometimes you might need to cut off costs from catering or food to pay for photography. Now, the question is why is it so expensive and is it worth the money?
Today we will uncover the reasons behind wedding photography costs and expenses.
Reasons wedding photography is expensive
There are several things that make wedding photography so expensive. These are some of the reasons coming from a photographer’s point of view. Getting to know these will surely help you comprehend more to the photographer’s psychology of pricing.
The initial investment of gears
One of the primary reasons why wedding photography is so expensive is the initial investment photographers make. The investment photographers usually make on their gears is a huge amount of money. Camera, lenses, lights and other additional accessories cost a lot. Just having a camera doesn’t/can't really give you the professional quality you expect. That’s why for delivering the best quality, photographers need higher performing gears. Otherwise, they can’t match up to the standards of professional photography. So, many times the charges for wedding photography depends on the gears a photographer usually uses.
Quality of work
This is basically the reason for choosing a professional photographer for wedding photography. You can have the gears but the skill and experience won’t be there. Photographers spend years to perfect their skills and gather experience in the field. That experience leads to gaining uniqueness and creativity in their work. And that has value. You can’t replace that with just having a camera in your hand. A more skilful and experienced photographer will surely charge you more money. That’s how it should be in the first place. So, you are basically paying for that value rather than the photographs.
Editing
Wedding photography isn’t just an on the spot work. The post-processing involved in wedding images is critical. Some photographers have their own styles and people choose them for that reason. So, maintaining that style becomes a priority to these photographers. For that purpose, they have to spend hours in front of their computers to get the best output. Editing takes a lot of their time and it’s an integral part of wedding photography. Some may even spend their whole day to capture the true essence of the photographs. As wedding events involve a lot of elements it is very difficult for them to edit the pictures. That leads to a lot of hard work and time towards the work. They can outsource photo editing services but that also costs money. So, you aren’t just paying for photographs you are also paying for the editing.
Business expenses
Professional photography isn’t just about investing once and enjoying the fruits. As a professional photographer, you always have to keep upgrading yourself. To be in the competition it’s necessary to have the latest gears with high quality. And when it comes to the best gears in photography, they cost a lot. Also, photographers need to have the best graphics for your monitor and PC. So, they constantly upgrade their computers as well. There are many things related to the photography field. For example, all the editing software actually cost a lot. Aside from that there are sudden expenses such as a broken lens, broken lights, malfunctioning camera body etc. Accounting all these expenses will probably make the photography charges seem legitimate.
Additional expenses
There are various expenses involved in the field of wedding photography. Photographers need to get to a certain location to cover the wedding. The further the destination more expensive it gets. They have to provide some additional services such as photo albums, pen drives or HDD, compact disks, etc. All these add up to a decent amount of expense. So, when you are hiring a photographer, they are charging you for all these things as well. It’s usually all included in the cost. This eventually leads up to making photography a bit more expensive than usual.
The difficulties in work
Wedding photography is a lot harder than it seems. It’s hard to take photos in a room full of people. It is quite obvious that there will be people wandering all over the venue at weddings. This makes it very difficult for photographers to get their desired shots. So, they have to work extra hard to get the pictures they want. And if your photographer is dedicated to their work then they will try to give you the best memories with all their effort. That’s something you should be wary of.
Time
Lastly the thing that makes photography a business is time. A wedding can go on for 7 to 8 hours at least. And the photographers have to work through all those hours continuously. They can hardly take a break for the complete 7 or 8 hours. They are constantly putting effort into getting pictures from all over the event because they don’t want to miss any special moments from the event. That’s why they are there for. So, it’s only fair that they charge you money for all the hours they spend doing your work. You are basically paying for their time. It’s just like any other wedding service such as the wedding planner, musicians or entertainment.
Conclusion
Well, now you know why is photography so expensive. Aside from all those reasons, there are some things still unspoken. For example, the amount of money photographers spend on learning and going through photography courses. Nothing comes free in this world. So, they have to spend quite a lot to get to become professional photographers.
Now, considering all these factors you aren’t actually paying too much money to the wedding photographers. The amount is decent if they provide quality pictures. Just think about capturing memories and reminiscing them now and then. You can’t really put a price on that. And they help you get something that you can cherish for the rest forever. After all, it’s the most special day of your life.
By Kelly Bird
