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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My husband will probably cringe if he ever sees this, but I want to share what happened on our first night on our honeymoon.
The day after our wedding we flew to St. Martin. I am claustrophobic and do not like to fly - or be in a place I cannot get out of. The flights were a lot for me. And then we arrived on this tiny beautiful island. I watched the plane fly off and felt trapped.
That night I had an awful nightmare that I was trapped in a room with no way out.... it was more than the flights and island, it was being married. It felt so legally binding! Honestly, that was the first time I thought more about marriage than the wedding.
Chere & Tony's story really resonated with me, so I wanted to make a video to help other couples going through a similar experience.
*spoiler alert... still married to my very understanding husband... the first day of our honeymoon he had to say things like "it's really no big deal, we can always get a quickie divorce..." Laughter is often the best way to calm a racing heart.