Photographer - how much are you paying?

For my tiny wedding I spent $250 for the ceremony and some pictures afterwards. I'll get digital images of them.
In retrospect, I wish I had had someone (like my mom, not a professional photogrspher) take pictures of us at dinner. I never even thought about it. But other than that, the amount of photography time we had was perfect.

I’m SO happy to have discovered our photographer!! $1,675 (6hrs, 2 photographers, unlimited edited photos in colour & b&w, online gallery/digital download). We opted out of an engagement shoot & really love her style/eye! Meeting with her next week. 😊

After we needed to postpone our wedding (both went back to school, recently graduated) we decided to change our initial photographer (although fantastic, just more $ than we’re now budgeting for). I searched for a while to find ours, you’ll find someone who fits your budget & style. Happy searching!

Our photographer is a friend of mine from college, so he's giving us a friends and family discount which puts the cost at just under $2000, we added two extra hours to his standard package to make sure he's around for our sparkler exit and getting ready photos.

We found an amazing photographer for $2200. It is much more than I wanted to pay for our $5000 budget wedding but we are saving in other areas (eg our venue is backyard). It includes six hours, and engagement session, and an album. I think it also helps that we are having a very small wedding with only 20 people.

I WAS frugal, but that went out the window. I was planning a destination wedding, so it was really important to find a photographer who could be away for two weekends (travel was Sat to Sat). Found one who had reduced rates for a destination so booked her, at about $1600. Plans changed (just last week) to a local wedding due to FH's dad's health and her non-discounted rate is $3350. I still want to have her, no doubt, but it's a significant difference that I wasn't anticipating. We're making it work, but it basically doubled my photographer cost.

View quoted message I’d like to consider myself a frugal bride, searching for the best deal without compromising on what we want but still trying to come in under budget.

View quoted message Hahahh!!!!

Our photography and videography package is running us about $7000ish. This includes 2 photographers and 2 videographers, 12 hours of total coverage time, a USB drive with all the footage of the day, and our engagement shoot. We actually booked them for our wedding after booking them first for our engagement shoot. Once we determined that we loved working with them and loved the quality of their work (both our engagement photos and engagement videos turned out incredible), it was a no brainer for us to book them for our wedding as well!

So I was lucky I found a photographer and in our package we got engagement photos, the photographer for 4 hours and a photobooth for 2100. Because we are getting married at night we didn’t need him all day.

Our photographer is $3500. This includes 6 hours coverage, 2 photographers, 1000 edited images, a USB, online gallery and we got an engagement shoot included. She said we’d get about 50 edited images and 1 hour. It ended up being 3 hours and around 150 images.

We went the frugal route. We chose my friend's younger sister - she's an incredibly talented hobbyist. She's building her portfolio, so all in all, we got high quality photos at several different locations around the city, at a fraction of the cost of an established photographer.

Just out of curiosity, how many people who've responded are frugal brides?

View quoted message She is in Bewdley Ontario. Yurko Photography

I forgot to add engagement photos are included as well

View quoted message Sarah, by any chance you can pass me her coordinates?

We are paying $1850 for 6 hours, I think 300? Photos, and a 9x13 album.

I found our photographer on kijiji and she is awesome. Her prices start at $1400. We added the album which is what costs more. Most photographers that are cheaper have crappy photos or so I thought, but if you keep looking you can find a great one for reasonable rates.

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That's so sweet you're doing that for your brother and his wife!! They're going to absolutely love it (and you).

Photos and videography are a priority for us - especially photos so we splurged there on guy to whom a friend is a 2nd photographer and we knew do excellent work. I think we found a pretty good deal on the videography though. We're getting 2 videographers for 8 hours, a 5-10min highlight video, analogue coverage, and travel for $2100 including taxes. Others with comparable quality/experience were looking at about $3000 or more.

We’re paying $7000 with tax. We splurged on photography because my mom has an amateur photographer at her wedding and she doesn’t have many great photos.

We get 10+ hours of coverage, 1000+ photos, 2 photographers, USB stick and online gallery that we can share with family and friends. Our price also included our engagement shoot and we were supposed to receive 100-150 photos and they gave us about 330.

i think if photography is important to you, definitely spend a little more in this area (not recommending what I’m spending at all). If it’s not important to you, maybe see if you have a talented friend who could take some shots.

We've got a total wedding budget of about $4000 so we're going to have a trusted friend take photos with my Canon. I love photos but I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on photographs. I have seen a few starting-out photographers list prices such as $500 for the ceremony and formals or $200 per hour. You could also ask around at local universities and see if any students want to expand their portfolio. Just make sure you take engagement photos with whoever you want to take your wedding photos because this will tell you their style and their accountability!

We are paying $1900 for 10hrs with 1 photographer and we get all photos on a usb after. I looked through every single photographer's portfolio that I could find in the area and contacted every single one, eventually choosing one who was middle of the road price wise, but the most beautiful pictures in his portfolio. If I can give one piece of advice, don't skimp out on your photographer and pick someone who specializes in wedding photography.

My brother and his wife had a family friend shoot their wedding. Our family friend is an amazing landscape photographer and does some contract work doing family portraits. But, in the end, he is not a wedding photographer and they didn't have a single photo that they liked at the end of it, and my brother's wife ended up having so many regrets and she'd many tears over not having quality photos to commemorate the day. I am now gifting my brother and his wife a 1-hr session with my photographer a few days before my wedding and surprising them by bringing her wedding dress and his suit and paying for her hair and makeup so they can at least have some beautiful couples photos.

It really can vary!

I definitely recommend meeting with photographers in person once you narrow down your options, it will really help on the wedding day to click with that person before hand. Also go through your expectations and determine how long you would need a photographer for (what shots are most important) and if you would like one or two.

As for your question though - we are paying $1850 for two photographers, 10 hours coverage, we don't get the raw files but we are given the full size, high res jpeg files on a usb as well as access to an online gallery to share with family members. Travel is included although it isn't far for them and we were also able to squeeze in engagements photos. I also highly recommend those if you don't regularly get photos done or if you are camera shy.

Hope that helps (:

We’re paying $2500 for full day coverage with two photographers! we knew we wanted full day coverage and believe it or not, $2500 was a steal of a deal! most were around $4000

For my first wedding, we had an amateur photographer. While it fit the budget, there were candid shots that were missed. This was one area where I was not willing to skimp this time around.

We're spending $2000 for a half day (5 hours) with an amazing photographer. I didn't feel the need for 'getting ready' photos or later photos from the reception. I'll be fine with phone pics for those times.

If you have a fine arts college in your area, you may be able to find a student wanting to expand their portfolio, has a good eye and will be more economical.

Good luck on your quest!

For my photography + videography, we are paying around $7000ish. This includes 2 photographers for the full day and 2 videographers for the full day, all photos - raw & edited - taken from the day, I believe a 5 and 12 minute wedding video, and a USB stick with everything on file.

We didn’t want to compromise on wedding photography since it’s mostly the only thing we can keep after the wedding. Our photographer is our top choice and she charges us 1725$ with transportation for a 6H package

View quoted message Thanks Tori....

I was lucky enough to have my friend that I met through work say that she will do my wedding photography (but of course I plan on giving her money for it nonetheless). I will most likely give her $500 or so, maybe a little bonus of another $100 or $200...

Most of the people that I looked at before she offered to do the photography though was anywhere from $1,000 on the low low end, to $4,500 on the high end. I would say the most common quote that I received was $2,500 though.