... you should be more lenient with pricing if the client has made an extra effort to help you do your job? It sounds silly reading that back even now. On Saturday I must have spent nearly 6 hours with them (B&G, MOB, FOB) going to the venues (50 mins apart), discussing details, walking through some samples. They even made quite a large lunch and invited me to share. We all got on really well of course.
So I wrote out the invoice just now and felt a little weird. Perhaps it's just because I'm relatively new to this...
I will say this...
After we KILL a wedding I often feel like we should have charged them more.
Normally the weddings we do a bang up job at are the ones that are the easiest to shoot.
Hmm you're right, often afterwards I feel like I should be charging more for the amount of work I do. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely not giving them any sort of discount after the price was long agreed (very clearly too, they're well aware of the price), just a weird feeling I had. I'm full of lots of weird feelings though, so good to know this is another one to repress
Inku Yo wrote:
You spent 6 hours unpaid? Think of charging them the full amount as partial payment for those 6 hours.
So to be clear, this is pre-wedding consultations you are doing, and you spent 6 hours with them and are charging them an hourly rate for your consulting, separate from the total wedding day fees?
stevez32 wrote:
So to be clear, this is pre-wedding consultations you are doing, and you spent 6 hours with them and are charging them an hourly rate for your consulting, separate from the total wedding day fees?
Yes. That is how I do it personally. I work out the expenses and time involved before the wedding which is non adjustable. The hourly rate then takes into account the on-the-day shooting and the processing, and I give them flexibility with how many hours they have (but don't discount what I charge per hour. It'll sometimes go up slightly if I feel it needs to).
Oh and to be clear on this actual example: I went an hour over what I'd usually allow for this. But that was personal decision which I'm happy with. The day involved around 4 hours driving, so was happy to have a little time to rest and chat. This was the only time I'll see them before the wedding (because of distance) so was fine with taking an extra hour here.
No way...the price is the price. A lot of math and calculations go into my pricing and how much I need to make, I'm not giving that away because I feel all warm and fuzzy inside
You're being British and seeing them as friends and it's terribly not cricket to charge friends for things and your natural instinct is to say "ooh just call it a tenner" for something that you should be charging £50 for.
6 hrs of your time and you haven't shot the wedding yet, I'd call it extended customer service, If this is your main occupation i'd get over the invoicing bit and be glad you got someone to invoice. Anybody you know have trouble invoicing You !!
KibblesNbitz wrote:
No way...the price is the price. A lot of math and calculations go into my pricing and how much I need to make, I'm not giving that away because I feel all warm and fuzzy inside
I can understand your feelings though!
Lol, I think you and Chris completely get what I was talking about zalmyb wrote:
this. Throw in a lo res disc or a nice 16x20. doesn't cost you much but on their part shows that you care.
This is a good point, I don't know why I didn't think of this when writing it out as I'd already thought about gifts on the Saturday after meeting them. The bride is an art teacher, and really enjoys teaching B&W film photography, so I have something related to this to give her (I have an old, but good quality fixed lens rangefinder I might wrap up for her... It's nice, and not worth anymore than I'd usually have worked in for a gift). I think I'll either send a small collection of prints or a nice large one to her parents like you mention.
on most wedding, regardless of the job i do, i feel like i should be paying them .
if i would not have kids, i would probably be the first tog on the world who would pay to attend weddings. I would even pick 80% of couples we book now.
