You. Okay, so your best friend is officiating for you and you’re worried they’re going to go rogue and throw your timeline off track and make the whole thing maybe all about them. I’m Nicole. I’m a wedding officiate and have been for 15 years. So let’s talk about this. The way that you can help your friends stay within the boundaries of what you want them to do is there’s two options, I think one is contact your local officiates. We often will give a coaching session to a friend who’s officiating for you so you can tell us what you want those boundaries to be. And then we can be the bad guy, per se, and give your friend a coaching lesson on how to perform the ceremony, what the expectations are and what that day should look like for them, what their role truly is, knowing that we’ve gotten that information from you. But also we do this for a living, so we can give them very valid and important information for the wedding day that’s going to help the both of you. That is what I would say. If you don’t want to hire an officiant to give that coaching session, then I would say write down what your expectations are for that person so that they have it in writing, because oftentimes it can be overwhelming when you’re officiating for a friend and you don’t really know what the expectations are. So just tell them, say, hey, our venue allows for a 30 minutes ceremony time. We’re really hoping for, like, 2025 minutes. So, please, when you’re writing the ceremony, keep that in mind. Second, we want to see the ceremony, so when you have that written or if you’re helping them write it, when we’ve got that final draft, we want to sit down and go over that final draft together so you know everything you’re saying, we know everything you’re saying. There’s no surprises and everybody’s very comfortable with the day. So that way that will hopefully set some boundaries, but just in a soft way for you guys. Good luck.
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You’ve got 3-5 seconds to stop the viewer’s scroll. Be creative… start with a phrase like:
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Give them your hot take, and don’t hold anything back.
check out how Sal nailed it in this video and so did Megan in this one and Nichole told it straight (from her car).
Do you feel like the industry charges more “because it’s a wedding” and they know it’s an emotional purchase?
Do companies think that they can charge more for weddings since the bride and groom may be willing to spend more on their dream wedding?
Hey wedding pros – is this higher price tag justified? Why? Do you charge more for your service if it is a wedding?
This is a taboo topic, whispered but not discussed… until now.
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2 comments
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?
Couldn’t agree more! And on the videography side its an absolute ton of data + editing discipline.
Its a double sided coin- weddings are extremely high pressure but also high reward when we nail it.
Our products (photo video) in particular are the only thing that genuinely will last forever . Having fun and ALSO nailing the product is worth the price of entry and frankly more.