What you want from a wedding photography package – and comparing them on price.
The wedding season not only brings a lot of wedding’s to Jade’s diary, but I’ve noticed it spurs lots of couples to get engaged too – and we’re starting to get a lot of enquiries for weddings right through to 2019!
There’s a common theme mentioned in all brides’ first emails – they really value their wedding photography, but they are on a tight budget. Totally understandable – there are a lot of costs involved in a wedding and it becomes hard to weigh up what you spend on something, or how much you value it, as we have covered in this blog (including a helpful wedding budget calculator!).
I’m not going to go over the fact that some people can spend upwards of $1800 on fairy lights to be put up (yes, just hiring fairy lights) for their wedding, and then baulk at the idea of spending over $2000 on their wedding photography package, but I do want to point out some big facts that we can’t forget.
The advance of technology has lead to some brilliant cameras becoming accessible to all of us, and for that I am thankful! But having a great camera doesn’t make a great photographer. A great photographer is someone with a flair for the art of photography, who can envision a scene before them, and capture a magical moment. The magic doesn’t happen in the post production, the art is made at the click of the shutter. A great photographer has invested many hours and energy into training and education to ensure their skills are the very best they can be.
The pictures taken shouldn’t be all you consider in your wedding photography budget. You also want someone who is going to give you that one on one service and top reputation so that you feel completely comfortable that you are getting what is promised. You want someone with a personality you can get along with, and feel relaxed with so that you end up with natural photos and you’re not afraid of the camera or the person you’re spending your day in front of! You also want someone with a genuine passion and drive for their work, who is going to put in the hard yards for you before and after your wedding, not just rock up on the wedding day, take pictures, and give them to you on a disk.
You want quality pictures and products in a wedding photography package because that is what you are going to take away from you special day – and some of the only items you will take that provide true to life memories of those special moments. This is particularly important; from experience, the day went so fast, but the wedding photographs helped to relive the entire day through its storytelling albums and we don’t forget a second. Plus, our albums help us to tell the story to people who couldn’t be there, including future kids….just like our parents did with us.
These are three big things to consider when comparing wedding photographers – as when you compare on price alone, you may be comparing something superior to something completely inferior, and end up happy with the price but very upset with the end product.; which sadly we get far to many requests to retouch and try and fix badly taken photographs. With wedding photographers, you really do get what you pay for – not only their service, but also their expertise of the ins and outs of weddings, their trained photography eye, and their art. This is how you should compare wedding photographers, and never lose sight of what you value most.
