Williamism No. 4 – How Much Should I Pay for Wedding Photography

How much should you pay to have your wedding photographed? Let’s see if we can figure this out.

I searched Craigslist in Los Angeles for wedding photographers and found 508 willing people and companies to take photos at your wedding. There were some real bargains as well – like this one: “On a budget??? Photography packages from $350″. Are you kidding me? $350 – they must be using a disposable camera.

Then you can go in the opposite direction and visit the websites of famous wedding photographers, like Dennis Reggie. There you can read that “Coverage by Dennis Reggie begins at $28,000…”

What are a bride and groom to do? With a range of $350 – $28,000 how does one choose? To make matters worse – it’s not like buying a car where you can shop the exact same model at different dealers to get the best price. Wedding photographers are like fingerprints – no two are exactly the same. It is impossible to compare apples to apples.

This is what I suggest. First, the true value of anything is what you are willing to pay for it. That’s why there are $350 photographers and $28,000 photographers. So you need to determine how important it is to have great images and memories of your day.  Once you have determined how important it is, it will be much easier to decide how much of your budget to allocate to photography. I have had clients on a very small budget spend more than half just on my services.

Now that we are done deciding a range to spend (hopefully more that $350 and a little less that $28,000), the practical part of the selection process is complete and the most important part is about to start – using your heart.

Regardless of how you find photographers to consider (referrals, internet search etc…) let your heart tell you who to hire. Is the photographer a good soul? Do their images speak to your? Can you feel their photos. Can you see yourself in their pictures? This is the ultimate decision tool – your heart.

Your wedding images will live on for many generations – don’t leave it up to just dollars. Use your heart and soul to make a great choice.