I have been asked this so many times... does the wedding industry inflate prices when they hear it's a wedding?
Here is my honest answer (as a former wedding photographer)... NO. Did I charge more for a wedding than a 50th birthday party or a family portrait session? Yes, absolutely. I charged A LOT more for a wedding.
Was I taking advantage of the emotional sell? Absolutely not.
The main reasons I charged more for a wedding were: the unseen amount of work involved in the 12+ months leading up to the wedding, the skill level needed on the day, the INTENSE pressure to create perfect "portfolio level work" no matter what the reality of the situation- but mostly it is to compensate for the time AFTER the wedding in post production.
Little known fact about wedding photography - the real job is sitting at a computer editing photos. Photographers spend many hours behind the computer carefully selecting and editing photos. They make adjustments, crop, and adjust colors to ensure each image it's best. Don't forget the time it takes for batching, renaming, importing, exporting and uploading the photos and preparing them for delivery.
Do you think this justifies why photographers charge more for weddings than for other types of shoots?
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Here's my story: I photographed a wedding where the FOB unexpectedly passed away 3 months before his daughters big destination wedding. They cancelled the destination wedding, but ended up having a more casual Chicago wedding at the last minute. The bride felt that her dad would want them to have the wedding, but it was such an emotional day. At the reception her brothers asked the DJ to play a special song and each took turns dancing with the bride... and then all the important men in her life cut in and took a turn dancing with her instead of a Father/Daughter dance. It was the sweetest, kindest thing I have ever seen. What a way to honor her father.