Stay On Budget
So how do you plan the perfect wedding and stay within your budget? It can be a daunting task, every vendor shows you something that is exquisite and will only cost a little bit more, then all of those “little bits” add up to a whopping 30% or 40% more than you had intended to spend. As a wedding vendor, I can show you an economical package that may suit your needs, but then I’ll show you what can be done with custom designed albums and bridesmaid’s gifts and parents’ albums and coffee table books and I’ve got you going from about $1500 to $3000 in no time! What’s a bride to do?
Wedding vendors want to show you their very best, they want your special day to be just that, SPECIAL! Think about what each vendor is doing for you; some of them base their fees on how much time they spend working on your wedding; some base their fees on what it costs them to put their service together for you (cost of food, servers, assistants, etc); and some base their fees on a combination of factors.
Photographers base their fee schedule on a number of things: how many photographers will be needed for your wedding (how many guests, how many in the wedding party can figure into this calculation), how much time they will spend with you (dressing shots before the wedding, multiple locations, staying through the entire reception), what kind of album you’ve chosen (not just the cost of the materials but the cost to layout and design the album) and what we refer to as “post wedding work” which includes color correction, artistic enhancement, and retouching. We may be doing some of the work ourselves and outsourcing some of the work to others. These are just some of the factors we must consider.
For every hour I spend at a wedding, I will spend another 8 hours on these other tasks; so a four hour wedding will translate into a week’s worth of editing, color correcting and retouching. With my coffee table book offerings, add another 20 to 40 hours of layout and prep work. This is why wedding photography can get expensive; if I work 40 hours, I need to be paid for 40 hours, this is how I make my living. So how to stay on budget…
- Consider your guest list, the smaller the guest list, the faster things move along, saving you money based on time commitments.
- Do you really need an hour for dressing shots or will a quick bridal portrait before the ceremony be enough? Again saving you money based on time commitments.
- Receptions are mostly about dancing and mingling, let the photographer get these shots early and ask your guests to help you with the reception photos so you can reduce the amount of time required for the photographer. We can pose the cake cutting early if necessary.
- Keeping your guest list to about 50 people means you only need one photographer, when you get to 100 guests, you need a second photographer or assistant, 150 guests requires three people, and so on.
- If your photographer offers on line proofing, ask if you can purchase just the photography and on line service and purchase just the photographs that you want, then put your own album together. (Be sure you are getting retouched photographs if you go this way).
- And if you are willing to do all of the “post wedding work” yourself, ask if your photographer offers a “Shoot and Burn” option…you’ll get the files and you can color correct and retouch the images (if you have the time and talent to do so).
There are other ways to economize; consider a champagne and cake reception instead of a buffet dinner (especially if you have an early ceremony time), use a garden for your ceremony instead of a rented venue or church, choose flowers that are in season for your area and time of year, and ask your vendors for their time and money saving ideas (many vendors have “value added” items in these tough times, what can they give you that won’t cost you anything?).
My best advise truly is to control your guest list…then you can control your budget …and just maybe have some left over for your new home.