Some brides and grooms out there pay excessive amounts for wedding photographers. There is nothing wrong with this if you know exactly the photographer you want and you fall in love with their work. It also helps if you can afford it. The question is however, is a more expensive wedding photographer a better photographer? Is an inexpensive and more affordable photographer just not as qualified? Well I know of one photographer that actually charges over $50,000 to shoot an 8 hour wedding. He sold the photos from the wedding at ridiculous prices to. Let's just say a wallet sized photo was $60.00. And guess what? The bride & groom and their family ordered tons of pictures at those bloated prices? Do you know what the photographer paid for the photo?
Let us just say he made out like a bandit. Wow. So basically if that photographer shot only 2 weddings a year that would be a pretty nice income for most people. Many photographers have figured this out and created their wedding photography package prices to be high priced and bloated. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this but if you are wondering if these people that paid so much for their wedding photography got better photography coverage at their wedding because they could afford more, you are mistaken. So why did all these people pay so much money for their wedding photography? Were the photos better quality?
Were they on diamond covered photo paper? Did he have a special camera? No, no and no. This "high-end" photographer actually once worked at a regular priced photography studio. He left that studio confident that he could get a high price for his work and began marketing himself in more affluent areas with very classy looking, artsy ads. That was it. He only needed one or two weddings a year to make a good living but what he did do was change his perceived value. Perceived value when it comes to anything is a funny thing. Was his photography so amazing? He was really good as are many photographers but he also wasn't any better than the art student that came in with photos he took from his cousins wedding. He definitely in my opinion was not worth 50k.
He shot weddings in the same nice attire that all the other photographers shot in, he had the same photography equipment as most of them... so what it comes down to is how he marketed himself and what his perceived value was. Word of mouth among the affluent about this "high-end" photographer allowed him to do very well in his business but behind the scenes, he was laughing all the way to the bank. A good photographer is a good photographer. You can change his/her perceived value around with a twist of marketing and words. The thing is, many photographers are not always great business people. If they were, they would open up their own studios and charge whatever they like. In fact, often inexpensive photographers can be true artists.
They prefer to focus more on their passion of photography & shooting weddings rather than being businessmen & women. This I believe shows in their work. So basically what it boils down to is this; Decide what you are willing to spend on your wedding photography, visit only the studios that are in your wedding budget and then look at a sample wedding of the photographers work. This is the most important part. You have to like the style that you see in the photographers sample work. Look for testimonials and make sure that they promise you a backup photographer if something goes wrong. If you like what you see and the price is right then you can be assured that you are making the correct decision.
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