Monday, December 10, 2007

#223: the photog.


i was inspired today by miss tulip of weddingbee. she posted her engagement photos and boy oh boy, did i love them.

so you all know about my huge crush on jessica claire. but her prices (though worth it in spades, i'm sure) give me major sticker shock. her packages start at $7,500. GULP! that means i would have to do everything else practically for free to stay within my budget. though i think that maybe if i were to sweat blood (like buckets of it), perhaps i could make it happen, i'm also all about being a comfortable, easy going bride the day of, you know?

so, when i saw that miss tulip's amazing photos were done by punam bean photography whose packages begin at $2,500, i felt...hope. not only did i HEART the images, but i got a sense of the photographer's style and personality on her site (i'm guessing she's a 'her'...) and needless to say, i likey'd!

so i've decided i want to start hunting down photographers via looking at more and more blogs aka photog blog stalking. brooklyn bride has a list of photogs oh her site so i figure it's a great starting point for this little mission of mine.

jillian kay starts at $2,400
the image is found starts at $4,000 for coverage and packages at $5,500.

hm. and then none of the other sites post their rates. and so the search continues...

what is the ABSOLUTE max you would spend on a photographer, keeping in mind that you love photography and that it's uber important to you? or, what's the max percentage of your budget you would allocate to photography...er, if your budget was $10,000?

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

$1000 for me. Which is difficult to hunt down but still possible. Myself and the boy are pretty handy with photoshop so we're figuring we can touch up/recrop the photos are required.

Anonymous said...

I am having a $10,000 wedding and we are paying $2,500 (25% of our budget) for photography because it is something that is very important to us. Years from now, we won't exactly remember what type of favors we gave out or how much the invitations cost (or didn't cost) but we will have beautiful images of our special day. Our photographer even did a complimentary engagement session.
http://www.nicolegreenphoto.com/
http://nicolegreenphoto.blogspot.com/2007/11/camerin-thomas.html

perfect bound said...

I love this photo too. Photography was the most important decision we made. I'd rather wear the same outfit everyday for a year after my wedding if it means having truly amazing photographs of that one day!

Linda said...

M budget is less than $10K. I would like to spend less than $2k on the photos. I'm looking at new photographers who are trying to get experience.

talda said...

i'd probably spend no more than $2,500 but that's because photography is very, VERY important to me. i look back at my pictures all the time and i know my wedding day will not be the exception.

if you're looking for other photogs, check out my friend ed pingol [edpingol.blogspot.com]. even though i'm not engaged yet, i already told him that i wanted him to shoot the first ceremony for me and the bf. lol

Anonymous said...

My wedding is also around 10,000 and I'm paying 1,000. I found my photographer on Craigslist.com in the events section. There was a great variety to choose from--some just beginners trying to start a business---were like $200--but they aren't that experienced. Check out their webpage-- a lot were fantastic---but expensive! They also post criagstlist special prices! Good luck to you!

Anonymous said...

I spent $1850 for eight hours of coverage and a day after shoot with all images on a dvd. It pays to look beyond the "big cities."

Unknown said...

My Fiance is trying to get in the wedding photography business and in order to build a portfolio he's posting an ad on Craigslist to shoot a wedding for $500.
His work can be found at www.matthewnistor.com and www.matthewnistor.com/weddings

We're paying 5k for ours (gasp!) but we absolutely love her work - Jessica Johnston is great! (www.jessica-johnston.com)

Jeff and Ashley Rose said...

Were paying under $2000, but we got a bit of a deal, our photogs are awesome! Its a brother/sister team who are so creative and artsy - i heart them.
www.ahsphotography.com
or check out their blog-
www.ahsphotography.blogspot.com. Oh and we get all the pics in our package : ) which seems like a deal considering no other photog we met with was including that!

Anonymous said...

I'm going with Laura Ryan. lauraryanphotography.com She is amazing and her packages start at $1600 - she also does a la carte pricing and custom packages. Definitely look into it. Also met with Aaron Almendral who we liked also. He starts at $800 www.artbydna.com/aaron/ There are some great options out there for under $3K. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

I am so glad so many brides out there are trying to plan their weddings under 10k. I wanted to recommend a great photographer for some really fun wedding photography www.brandonharman.com He is priced under 2000 and his images are so much fun!

Anonymous said...

I'm not having a $10k wedding but we are trying to keep costs down (we're paying more for booze than photography, if that tells you anything about our priorities!), and of course the pics are important to me. I was ready to shell out $5k+ for Jasmine Star (http://jasminestarblog.com/), but she was already booked, so a friend at work referred me to a friend of hers who is just starting her business (http://sarahkchen.com/), $2k for her and a second shooter, 8-12 hours. I'm very happy with my decision - the grrll's got skills for just starting out!

Michelle Bowman said...

My budget is 6500 and we are spending 1070 on our photographer... that comes with 6 hours of shooting time, location fee, engagement pics, trash the dress session and a high res CD with the images. I negotiated this package b/c I felt I didn't need prints if I was going to get the CD and could print on my own.
I found her on craigslist (a super resource for all things wedding as you know!)... she mostly does photojournalistic work for the newspaper, so that explains her reasonable prices- the majority of her money comes from writing and working freelance for papers and magazines. Best of all, she rocks!
I've even seen photographers just getting started with photo packages for 200 for all day coverage and IF I had seen these before I signed a contract, I would have HIGHLY considered it!!! But I trust my photog with everything!

Anonymous said...

With a 10k budget, I'd probably spend 2500-3k on a photographer. After all, pictures are the only thing that will be left when it's all over.

I would be careful of Craigslist Photographers. Be sure to get some kind of references for them. I've a heard a lot of horror stories of internet photographers never being heard from again after you pay them a deposit. I would have a hard time paying any amount of money to someone who did not have a legitimate business (unless I knew something about them, or had a reference of some kind).

Unknown said...

I know everyone is plugging their photographers, so I'll have to plug mine! My two things that I wanted to splurge a little on my wedding was the food and the photographer. That being said, I still think I got a great deal on mine! Kelsey is very photo journalistic, which I love. Her website is www.kelseyrollinsphotography.com

Unknown said...

P.S. She starts at $1500, which I think is a bargain for her talent!

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I'm a photographer based in NYC and always feel a lot of sympathy for couples working on a tight budget when they come to me looking for a reduction in wedding pricing.

Some things you guys might want to keep in mind is that a photographer will be much more willing to give you a deep discount if you are marrying on a non-Saturday or in the offseason.

For instance, my usual rate for photography-only packages is $4,000 but right now I have a promotion running whereby couples marrying before March 31st can get the very same package for $2,400.

I have also given big discounts to couples who have come to me saying they don't have much in terms of budget but that the photography is really important to them and they would be willing to take the time to do some really creative shots in interesting locations on the day. Any good photographer is going to look upon this as an opportunity to do some porfolio building and may well be inclined to reduce the price drastically.

Personally, I'm of the school of thought that you shouldn't have to pay a fortune to get married even in New York City (if you choose to that's fine, but you shouldn't have to), but having said that I do agree with the posters above who say that they are willing to spend a larger part of their budget on the photography.

I'm obviously biased since I'm a photograher myself, but the cake, flowers, gown, etc. are very transient experiences whereas the photos are something you might be sitting showing to your grandchildren one day.

Also, I realize this comment has gone on too long but be very careful when shopping in the budget photographer category - make sure you see a lot of complete 'wedding story' galleries complete with good indoor shots with strong color, not just outdoor shots taken on sunny days and lots of black and white pics (b&w is often used to mask mistakes). And ask for references - any reputable photographer will have them in spades!

- Farnaz K

Punam Bean said...

Hi! Your blog is awesome! Thanks so much for featuring me!

Anonymous said...

I just stumbled on a site called WedFog.com there are a ton of photogs listed on there - so many pictures for ideas - its awesome. You can search by your city or state or where ever, and then it lists what the starting price of each photographer is before you even go to their page! very cool. I am in Oregon and I found two of the photogs I am looking at listed on there - Angela Cardas and Sara Lil. A lot of my budget is going to photography - so I am doing a lot of research!

Nicole said...

our photogs have all kinds of packages, from the most basic which is $595 to the huge package at $2995. We're going with the second-largest package, which is still under $2000.
http://www.upstatephotographers.com/

we had to do some research to turn up the less-advertised, still great, but budget friendly photogs.

Bianca said...

Look at www.acandidimage.com ... they have freelance photographers that work for them on the days they aren't booked. Sometimes you can get them for thousands less than they normally charge! I went with them and was so happy... the package is $1800!

Anonymous said...

All it takes is a bit of researching. My husband and I eloped in Hawaii in November. I went crazy checking out blogs, websites, googling and calling everyone. 5 of our close friends are photographers (my husband works at a magazine) but we were eloping so we couldn't use any of them. Everyone in Hawaii was out of our budget or horrible. I trolled Craigslist one day and found a photographer who was willing to shoot for free because he was trying to get into the wedding business and needed photos for his portfolio. He had only shot 2 weddings before ours but I could tell by his portfolio that he had talent. The only catch was that he was on the wrong island. I was willing to fly him out to the island where we were marrying if he could shoot for us. He was in awe that we would actually do that. I just figured I might as well take this gamble because my choices were slim. I had a good gut feeling. So all in all we only paid $200 for flights for him and his assistant. We emailed back and forth for about a month before our wedding. I showed him what kind of photos I loved and which wedding photographers I was a fan of. So he understood the look I was going for and that was what he was able to offer me. I got the best photographs ever and only spent $200 for 8 hours. To think I was going to get an a la carte package for $200 for 1 hour by some cheesy wedding website. His name is James Rubio (http://www.jamesrubiophotography.com) and he charges about $1000 now but he's truly a sweetheart and amazing. My husband who hates being photographed was all up for photos and smiling all day. I would definitely pay for him to come to my post-elopement reception now and pay his rates. He's so worth it.

Anonymous said...

When we were getting married on 10K our photographer and food were my priorities too! Which is ironic because I am totally a florist... But I know that pictures are the things that we will be looking at in the decades to come. So we chose our photographer based off of how well she worked with children. Our daughter was going to be 3 months old at the time of the wedding and I really wanted some beautiful shots of her and dad. They turned out amazing!