p.1 #1 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
And, I've never really sat down and figured out what my "hourly" rate would be. What would you charge for 2 hours of work, plus a cd of images? They offered me 100/hr, but I feel like that's a bit low if I am turning over a disc of images... I don't normally give a disc, but this wedding is in November (a slow time here in philly) so the work is welcomed. Any suggestions?
p.1 #3 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
Two hours of site time.
Plus
prep time, transit time, the actual two hours which i bet will be 2 1/4 or 2 1/2, then the drive home, the download, the conversions, deletes, correction, burn, the meeting with them again.
Whatever you do calculate your stuff to the n'th degree, toss rose coloured glasses out and replace with a mean old bankers light
Good luck Steve
p.1 #6 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
pixelman wrote:
toss rose coloured glasses out and replace with a mean old bankers light
Oh my gawd. Rolled on the floor with that one. I need to have you meet my husband. You sound just like him. I do need to be better about bringing out my bankers light.
p.1 #7 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
jmlelii wrote:
And, I've never really sat down and figured out what my "hourly" rate would be. What would you charge for 2 hours of work, plus a cd of images? They offered me 100/hr, but I feel like that's a bit low if I am turning over a disc of images... I don't normally give a disc, but this wedding is in November (a slow time here in philly) so the work is welcomed. Any suggestions?
edited images on cd and 2 hours of shooting means 4-8 editing. I would bill them $1500 or more.
Unedited, $1000
Jun 21, 2007 at 12:46 AM
andrew81 Offline • • • • [X]
p.1 #8 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
Flame me if you will, but is there a culture out there of photographers over rating themselves in how much they charge?
$1500 for 2 hours of photography.... thats lots in my opinion. Ok one might be a 'professional' however ive seen photographers quote stupid rates for simple things... like 2 hours at a wedding.
Chase Jarvis, yes, is maybe worth $1500 for two hours work as he has a truck load of equipment, assistants and his images are used for publications and advertising campaigns.
$1500 for 8 hours worth of work is $187 per hour or there abouts. I dont get paid to travel to my job, it is part of being employed! They are hardly going to use the photos to make money from....
I would say $100 p/h on location and $75 for editing.
p.1 #9 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
2 hours of shooting is a good 4 hours once you add in PP.
@ $100.00 an hour for two hours, you're only making $50.00 hour. (only?) Once you take out the governments half you're looking at $25.00. Don't forget to add wear and tear of equipment!
Pricing needs to be up to you. I just wanted to give you something to think about. As you said, November is a slow time for you, its welcome income. Keep that in mind too. There's nothing wrong with giving discounts for off season weddings.
p.1 #10 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
The other thing to consider with short coverage weddings is I find them to be focused so much on the price savings etc that during the actual event they are the least enjoyable assignments to cover. They tend to be the most interesting in formula pose shoot pose shoot. They would turn the best of us into hacks before the two hours was up. So get a sense of what others are doing in your market, add up the real numbers involved on being there for 120 minutes and don't be afraid to walk away because there IS always another gig coming along. Steve
p.1 #11 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
andrew81 wrote:
Flame me if you will, but is there a culture out there of photographers over rating themselves in how much they charge?
$1500 for 2 hours of photography.... thats lots in my opinion. Ok one might be a 'professional' however ive seen photographers quote stupid rates for simple things... like 2 hours at a wedding.
I hope you don't take this as a flame, but if you could make $1500 for 2 hours from a customer and have that customer happy with the result, why wouldn't you? It's not 'stupid', just business. So far, I've seen that the difference between low cost and high end photogs, in terms of picture quality, isn't always a huge gap. The high end guys tend to have better marketing and sales skills, though, and can get away with higher prices. In a lot of industries, margins on products could be considered 'stupid', but that is what allows explosive growth.....get what you can get, not what you should get.
p.1 #12 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
Don't forgert if you take the 2 hour gig, you're not available for a longer one. It takes as much time and energy to prepare for a 2 hour wedding as an all day one. Add in travel, etc, a wedding pro HAS to make a certain amount of money. It's not like He'll be able to do FOUR 2 hour weddings in one day, so focusing on the hourly rate isn't reasonable.
p.1 #14 · I've been doing weddings for about a year now...
Well actually, its at night (6-8) on a sunday which is really weird. So if another did come along, chances are it would be during the day and I could possibly book that one as well.
Basically I told her that I don't normally work for less than 5 hours, which is my lowest package/coverage available at the moment, and even though she only wants 2 hours, she would have to take the lowest package, and she agreed to that. I'm not complaining now haha. I sorta thought she wouldnt go for it, but I guess they like my work enough!
