Have you ever asked yourself "why is wedding photography so expensive?"

Well, a wedding photographer doesn’t just turn up and take photos. There is a lot of time (and expense) that goes into creating those images that you cherish and want to put on your walls and mantelpieces. To help you understand, and not many photographers will be this transparent, here's a breakdown of my typical wedding process and my business expenses.

TIME

• Emails: From the initial inquiry, to consultations, sending contracts and invoices, planning engagement sessions, discussing timings and desired photos, delivery of your sneak-peak images, and final gallery delivery. On average 20-30 emails per wedding = 2 to 3 hours
• Booking, contracts & invoices = 1 hour
• Pre-Wedding Consultation = 1 hour
• Planning & final preparation = 1 hour
• Traveling: to and from the first meeting or venue scouting (if I've not shot there before), travel to the engagement shoot, wedding. Depending on how far all the locations are = 2 to 8 hours
• Shooting = 5 to 12 hours
• Backing up images - 1/2 hours
• Editing: 8 to 20 hours
• Gallery preparation and delivery - 1 hour

Total = 24 to 40 hours per wedding

EXPENSES/OVERHEADS

• Travel expenses: to and from the venue, any meetings, engagement shoot location etc. Hotel stay if required.
• Business Insurance: Most venues require me to have public liability insurance up to £5 million. Then there's insurance for all my equipment too. My current policy is £1,000/year, this rises every year (typically above RPI)
• Internet connection & phone: To reply to all your emails, and upload your images, and contact you when out and about, and on the day if needed = £600/year
• Online Gallery and Client Management software fees: Hosting your memories in a beautiful online gallery, and making sure everything you need is in one place = £600/year
• Editing software: my subscription to Lightroom & Photoshop costs £180/year

EQUIPMENT

• 2 x Cameras + 1 back ups
• 3 x Lenses, and 1 backups
• 3 x Flashes
• Memory cards + backups
• Batteries + backups
• Top-spec editing laptop/PC
• Hard drives, and backups

This list is by no means exhaustive, but covers the main-bulk of my gear.

Altogether my equipment is worth around £20,000 and will need replacing/upgrading every 3 to 5 years = £4,000+ per year outlay.

EXPERIENCE

• Training/workshops: To keep my skills sharp, learn new techniques and keep up to date with new technology to make sure I am offering the best product I can for my couples. For example, I took a course in March that cost me £720. I'd typically try to take at least a couple of these a year.
• Skills & Experience: It has taken me thousands of hours of training and practicing to be able to do what I do. Like anybody who goes to university or trains in a certain field, you expect to be paid more highly based on your specific skills and experience.
• Pressure: Being a wedding photographer is a high pressure job. Alright, nobodies life is on the line like a surgeon etc, but it is one of the most important days in a persons life - you can't get it back if it goes wrong. People in higher pressure jobs, or jobs with more risk, command a higher hourly fee as standard.

MARKETING

• Advertising: Last year I spent £2,100 on online advertising
• Printed material: leaflets, business cards, etc £300/year.
• Website: £450/year

Taking photos is only around 10-20% of the work. Around 50% is time spent editing, and the rest is split between traveling and admin.

My estimated business costs run at nearly £15,000-£18,000/year. So an average of around £400 per wedding based on shooting 40 weddings a year.

To put this into context, my Full Day Package (30 hours total work on average) works out at £66.67/hour, with my take-home pay after expenses being £53 per hour. Then subtract around 25% to be set aside for the tax man.

And remember, most photographers are self-employed, meaning we don't have the benefit of company pensions, holiday or sick pay. If, say a global pandemic hits, we don't get paid - we have to rely on savings. So, carve 15% off that to put in a rainy day fund.

To put it into perspective, come 2024, I expect be earning around £45,000-£50,00 per annum before tax. The 2021 average salary is £38,131, according to ONS. Factor inflation into this, and for 2024 it will work out as around an average UK salary.

This means you're getting great value for someone with my specialist skills - how much per hour would a solicitor charge you for instance? Potentially the same per unit (6 minutes) as I charge per hour.

So, what is a "reasonably priced" wedding photographer?

A phrase I hear bandied about often is that wedding photographers are often not "reasonably priced" and "overcharge" - after reading this article perhaps your opinion of what is good value, and "reasonably priced", has changed?

Don’t get me wrong, we all have to start somewhere! I shot my first wedding for £400. But I also didn't have the spec of gear I have now, my insurance premium was lower etc, I was lacking in experience and have honed my skills since.

The average price for wedding photographer based on a full day starting package is £1,620

Before you decide to book a ‘cheap’ photographer, ask yourself this: why are they cheap? Are they cutting any corners? Are they insured? Are they using the right equipment? Do they have backup equipment should anything go wrong?

I understand that sometimes people have a limited budget. But the saying "you get what you pay for" frequently rings true in life, and wedding photography is one such time. You might have a friend or relative who’s an amateur photographer or know a photography student but choosing someone inexperienced is a risk not worth taking. It is recommended that you spend around 10-20% of your overall budget on your wedding photographer, more for small weddings and elopements. If it means saving an extra £5 per week, less than the cost of a couple of high-street coffees, from now until your wedding to get your dream wedding photographer, wouldn't that be worth it?

After all, your wedding photographs will be the only thing left once the flowers have wilted, and the cake has been eaten - so make photography a priority, and invest in your memories.