How much does a wedding photo shoot cost?
This is perhaps the first question that a married couple asks when they have to choose a photographer for their wedding. In general, it is the first question that we all ask ourselves in relation to every expense that we face for the first time in our lives.
And so you also end up wondering how much flowers cost for the wedding, how much a band costs, how much rent for the location and so on.
An entirely Italian habit is to always make a little taboo on price, which is a custom that I struggle to tolerate. That “I’ll explain everything to you and then we’ll talk about the price, come on…” way.
No, it’s not about the price. It’s like someone goes to the dealership to buy a car with a budget of twenty thousand Euros and the seller starts telling the customer the qualities of a ninety thousand Mercedes SUV.
It’s a waste of time for both of us.
Rather, it makes sense to explain and motivate the costs of any good or service, which we will try to do in this article.
Yes but so? How much does a wedding service cost? Do you tell me or not?!
I’m telling you, I’m telling you.
In 2023 a wedding photo shoot goes from a minimum of one thousand Euro to reach eight thousand or ten thousand Euro in certain areas of Italy.
Yes, because asking how much a wedding photo shoot costs is a bit like asking how much it costs – in fact – a car, a house, or a kitchen.
Take the example of the kitchen.
How much does it cost? Well, in a chain of large retailers it can cost less than two thousand Euros, from IKEA five or six thousand, the kitchen of a small brand that takes care of its details maybe seven or eight thousand, up to the thirty thousand Euro of Valcucine or the seventy thousand of an Arclinea.
(N.dr.: I am not a kitchen expert, I simply had to deal with the purchase a few years ago…).
Are they all the same? No.
Are they all of the same quality? No.
Are they all worth the price they cost? Not yet.
In every world there is something of poor quality sold below cost, something overpriced because of the brand and something that falls within a price that is a right middle way, motivated by cost, quality and competence.
Nothing is free of charge. I bet we all thought at least once something like “wow, this vacuum cost twice as much as the other but I’ve had it for ten years and it never gave a problem”. Or “that thing is worth the two cents I paid”.
And so is for a wedding photo shoot. And what I think might be useful, rather than just telling you how much it costs, is to motivate you to the price of a photo shoot, which is a very different thing.
What’s the cost of a wedding photo shoot?
Once a very refined gentleman, he told me that his wife really liked my photographs, but my service was too expensive for what it was.
“To work for a few hours at a wedding, earning 1,800 or 2,000 euros seems really crazy”.
And I don’t agree with this negotiation attempt, from a certain point of view, but I understand that it can be very seductive for a customer.
Of course, a service of ten hours, two thousand Euro, two hundred Euro per hour. It makes no difference.
But let’s take it slow.
Pen and paper, do the math.
Let’s take an average figure that can represent the price of a classic wedding photo shoot with two photographers (here an excursus on the topic), wedding preparation, groom preparation, ceremony and reception with a basic wooden casket with 30 prints of a good quality.
I would say to consider 1.900 €.
Whaaaaaaat?!? One thousand nine hundred Euro?!?
Yes. One thousand nine hundred.
We assume that, in order to be able to consider all the costs, we must subtract them from the tax-free figure, then from what the professional actually holds in hand removed taxes.
If a photographer is fiscally lucky, with a flat rate regime after a four/five years of activity and a thousand years with which I am not to bore you, he pays about a 30% tax.
So:
1.900 – 30% = 1.330 €
For this €1,260, we can now take away all our nice costs.
Let’s see, on average, a short list.
- Compensation of the second photographer: 300 €
- Petrol/tolls: 50 €
- Cost of the box for the photographer: 100 €
Total: 450 €
From 1330 € we take away 450 €.
1.330 – 450 = 880 €
Aaaaaah, but then from a wedding you earn 880 €?!? Not bad!
Wait, we still have to finish the talk…
I want to give you three perspectives. The first one, the one by the hour, makes a good idea even if it’s a little bit a kilo.
If we consider that a photographer works about 12 hours for the service (including travel), about thirty hours between post-production, pagination and put a couple of hours between meetings, video calls, quote, etc… will pop up a total of 44 hours.
880/44 = 20 €/hr
So, considering that to date twenty Euros per hour is taken by a young graduate to do repetitions, we already agree that we are not talking about figures that allow you to work three years and spend the rest of your life with the yacht docked in Aruba.
Secondly, and here comes the second perspective we assume that our good Roberto Fotolazzi (name purely fantasy), makes about thirty weddings per season.
Thirty, which, if you don’t mind me saying, isn’t a bad price.
880 x 30 = 26.400 €/year
I reiterate the consideration that even seeing it already like this, the yacht remains an option not considered.
But at this jackpot total, you have to take away some small annual ribs, like:
- Cost accountant: 500/1000 €
- Various software and service subscriptions: 300 €
- Site cost and possible maintenance: 150 €
- Equipment to be renewed: 500? 1,000? 2,000?!?
- Car usury, brakes, rubbers, coupons, revisions, etc… (the auto is not used for going to the job but for working)
- Other material insurance, drone permits, licenses, workshops, training, books
- For those who have a shop, even rent
Now, I’m sure I forgot something, but if you do the math a little bit, you’ll see that the amount of money required for a photo shoot is far from excessive.
So what? But weren’t there three perspectives?
The photographer as the miner?
Ninth, quite another. Indeed, I am always convinced that the photographer is one of the most beautiful jobs in the world.
However, I would like to ask those who are perhaps outraged by the figures requested to reflect. Many people, working as employees, are rightly not accustomed to reason with the economic logic of the self-employed worker.
And this is not a bad thing, because I also lack many logics of the employee. The important thing is to explain and understand each other.
And many people, in fact, are understanding. In front of mathematics there is little then to reason.
To others who may not grasp the concept, I would suggest the third perspective:
Towards the end of the month, in Tarcisio, the paycheck arrives and – against your net salaries, let’s say, of € 1,800 – there is a gross initial figure indicating € 3,200. If my income is based on € 1,800 per wedding, I would suggest to Tarcisio to try to live based on his salaries of € 3,200 and see how it ends.
But in the end you didn’t tell me what a fair price is for a wedding photo shoot
No, I can tell you what the right price is. Because as you’ve seen, it depends on a million things.
It depends on the experience of the professional, whether he is renting or not, his costs in general terms and the level of precision and quality with which he is used to working.
Always keep in mind that if a wedding photographer proposes you excessively low costs, on something he is saving.
Maybe he’s saving on equipment, album quality. Perhaps he takes a young graduate to pay a few Euros a day as a second photographer.
Maybe he wants to do sixty weddings per season at a lower price than thirty, so he won’t be able to follow you carefully before, during and after the wedding.
These are all assessments to make before being dazzled by an attractive price.
Yes, I know, this speech is probably unstylish and very material. But the love for photography and storytelling, also goes from explaining to people what are the difficulties of us professionals to find a serene and satisfying way to work together.
On the other hand, if you like a photographer who gives you an all-inclusive for a thousand Euros or one who asks you for five thousand without explaining why, I’m probably not the right person for you.