PICTURE IT…
One of the biggest expenses for weddings, aside from the food and alcohol, of course, is the wedding photographers and videographers. It will cost you upwards to $3,000 for the package, and price will go up depending on the extras that you want to get from them. But of course, you get your money’s worth if you find the right people, with years of experience doing weddings.
For each package, you will most likely get 2 people working your wedding. The main photographer, and the assistant. Sometimes, you get 3 to 4 people depending on how big your wedding is going to be. But most of the time, 2 photographers are enough to cover your whole wedding, from wedding ceremony to reception. Then depending on your package, I think the basic one will just you a copy of USB with all your pictures, or you can get the whole shebang, meaning copies of pictures on USB, hard copies, a wedding album, and other little freebies.
If you don’t have enough money to hire professional photographers for your wedding, here are some tips to save money, with that said though, you can’t expect the same quality of pictures, you’ll normally get with professionals.:
Look at schools of photography around your area. When I got married 12 years ago, as I’ve said a hundred times already on this blog, I didn’t have a big budget, and we didn’t really have a big wedding so I was originally looking for just 1 person to photograph the event. We only had 3 guests so that wouldn’t be a problem for 1 person. I looked at a school close to me that has a Photography class, and checked out their website to see if there are any available students looking to build their profile. It’s kinda like those dental students, you know when you don’t have any dental benefits at work, you go to the University and then have students needing practical experience, of course, supervised by their Professors. It’s the same thing. I found 1 person looking to build his binder for photography and it was so cheap. I think he was going to it for $300.00, but this was 12 years ago though. I don’t know how much they charge now, but I’m pretty sure it’s still considerably lower the a professional. Anyway I ended up not hiring him because my friend offered to take the picture. And that brings me to the next tip.
Ask a friend or relative. I didn’t ask my friend to be our official photographer, but he knew we needed someone, and that we didn’t have a lot of money then. I’m not saying that you should let everyone know you can’t afford a Professional photographer, but you can actually just ask your closest friend, if they’re not a part of the wedding party. If one of your relatives or friends have a really good quality DSLR camera, then that’s your guy. Actually, nowadays you don’t even need a DSLR camera, because the phones that we have available now, sometimes they take the same quality pictures, like the Google phone and iPhone 13, they really take amazing photos.
Get the most basic package from the photographer. IF you have some money available, and you really want quality pictures, you can try to look for a professional photographer, BUT, you can let them know you don’t have enough budget, and they might be able to give you some suggestions on their end on how to be able to hire them at the most basic package. Like I said above, the most basic package would probably just get you a USB with all the pictures they took from your wedding, and it’s up to you to get them printed, and made into a wedding album. It’s so easy to create the perfect wedding album. Gone are the days where you have to wait months to see your wedding album. On a side note, remember in the old days, (70s and 80s) when your parents’ wedding albums are so thick and the cover is almost always some fabric with ribbons, lace and whatnot? I remember my parents’ album it was so dusty and old! Now, wedding albums are slick, and thick and will be preserved. You can easily do your own wedding album with an app like Photobook. For my wedding, my friend used photobook to create our wedding album and it turned so amazing! I’m sure there are plenty other apps available to use.
Skip on the reception photos. Sometimes photographers base their pricing on the sequence of events they have to cover. I have a friend who had a good deal with a photographer on her wedding. She hired them to do the first look, and the wedding ceremony. But she skipped on the wedding reception. She paid a fraction of the price because it wasn’t for the whole event. Now, not all professional photographers offer this kind of deal, you have to ask around and maybe some will say yes. If you’re worried about the wedding reception pictures, this is where you can ask someone to take pictures, a friend or relative.
DO a wedding hashtag. A lot of people do this now, they create a wedding hashtag, and every time somebody posts a picture in social media, they use the wedding event hashtag. This way, all the photos are compiled and you can easily choose.
Those are some tips you can try to save money on photographers. Just remember, pictures are the memories you can keep for life, so really think about it. Professional photographers are expensive but they’re with the money so maybe try to save some more if you can and then get the most basic package and worm from there.
