Wedding Photography
Wedding photography is a complex and essential part of work for those wedding photographers, over the past year or two we have seen a growth of more than 35% in wedding photographers and with the recession there has been a drop in weddings taking place as people have cut back on their budgets and “uncle bob” has offered to do the wedding photography for the couple for £100.00.
With the amount of pop up fly by night wedding photographers, we looked at the wording from ‘bob’s’ websites and found many to be unlawful, we also are aware of the growing legal cases taken against so called professional wedding photographers, who are offering a sub standard service. This of course gives creative professional photographers a bad name.
Making the difference.
When it comes to wedding photography and making your wedding packages you need to look at the true nature of photography to give the service that stands out of the crowd of photographers competing for the same work, we will look at some of the things that you can do to compete.
Price war
You can try to under cut with prices but you will soon find that this leads to a dead end and stops the essential growth of your business.
Bob is a weekend photographer and has two cheap lenses, maybe one semi pro camera, no insurance, and no overheads. He or she may has a full time job working in a production line and therefore does not need to cover the overheads in running a professional photography business.
Client will view cheap photographers (less than £500) as cutting corners and not offering the great service and quality as more costly photographers. Typically you will see this in the galleries and creativity of the photography.
Creative challenge
Getting creative with your photography is a great idea, many photographers will rely on the static ‘school photo’ poses for groups and really lack in the creative set-up for both the groups and bridal party and B&G photographic shoot.
When you start with arty print design, more creative poses for what many have the standard posing of groups, you will start to see your worth in the value of your photography that people will want to buy from you.
Service level
We all know that there is a lot to cover for a wedding and this can lead to a 15 hour day, with packages leading to sectional cover of the wedding, it is important to know what you are offering and the service that you will provide.
With the research we have carried out, the common cover of the wedding photography is (on the day):
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Preparation’s
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Arrival – to groups
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Wedding breakfast to cake cutting
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First dance
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Evening Reception
There are many variations to thewedding packages to what they include at set price margins that you can offer, there is also the consideration that the shoot time often means 4 times more editing work than the time spent doing the photography.
Photographer may include: Pre shoot, wedding rehearsal, engagement shoot or a couples photo shoot which takes place before the wedding. This has benefits for the photographer and client where the photographer will be aware of the Bride and Grooms reaction to being in front of the camera and can also lead to a better working relationship on the wedding day, the client will see and know how you work and are more prepared on the wedding day.
Rory offers a different outlook for wedding photography packages. Covering some of the planning stages of the wedding offers clients a complete picture record of the wedding rather than just the one day. His personal wedding service website is available in HD and SD and is broken down in to the parts of the pre wedding, the wedding day and post wedding photography.
Quality Products
While the wedding day and the photo shoot are important and you would work the crowd well and make the wedding enjoyable as possible, the finished product is the final point of the process of wedding photography. You will know this as the Preview gallery and the wedding album. There may be a slide show included with your wedding photography package or an add-on.
Photography by Rory Witham
Essentially All the guests will see the preview gallery and it is important that you show your work off to the best it can be. this will be the word of mouth sales for you, A combination of how you worked on the day and the preview gallery will make a large difference to custom. The wedding album will be seen more by close family and friends and therefore should stand out and be of the highest quality. Bad news spreads fast and will see a down turn in business.
We have found that brides and grooms like to select a complete package where there is little thought required in the designing of the wedding photography package from their point of view. Most will want a photographer just on the day of the wedding and not into the reception, they would also like a package with an the wedding album included with between 60 and 100 images.
If you would like to know the most common package that people ask for, why not view the National photographers wedding elegance website, and see the packages that are offered.
Essentially when you are competing with other wedding photographers there are a few main areas to consider:
Is the style of your photography appealing?
Are your prices value for money?
Do you offer the right choices?
Is your conduct and approach at weddings inviting?
What makes you different?
Related posts:
- Wedding Photography Payment Plans
- Wedding photography site
- Wedding Photography kit
- Picking your style of wedding photography
- Clearwell wedding photographer
