Photographers - How many hours are needed?

Timing for the photographers depend on their package and pricing. Some offer 8 hours and extra for more hours needed to factor in the cost and budget. Also consider how many photographers your needing as well if 2 to factor that cost. The best way to know how many hours you will need is by making your day of planning from start to end time. We got lucky to have a photographer for a good price which he brought a second person too for 12 hours time. I planned out from 1pm starting with photos of outfits/accessories, small things, getting ready to reception. Our time started 1p ending 1am.

Don't forget to factor in a second shooter if you want getting ready photos and the two parties will be far from one another. If you're only 10 minutes away from one another, you can probably make do but if you're an hour away from one another, having a second shooter is likely needed.

If you book photographers for long 8hr+ engagements, you'll also have to feed them and usually that means the plate from your reception.

It depends on what you want your photographer to capture during your wedding. For instance if you want pictures of you getting ready as well as your groom getting ready, family photos before you leave to the ceremony that sort of thing. My fiance and I have our photographer for 12 hours and we have a second shooter as well. That way we'll be able to get so many different shots of the wedding.

View quoted message No worries! I planned like 5 different weddings last year due to COVID and had to make so many different timelines otherwise I would be a bit in the dark about photography time too 😂

View quoted message Thank you. That helps so much. I honestly just couldn't figure out how long would be needed 😊

It depends what you want them to photograph. I assume for basically everyone the ceremony, couple photographs, family photographs, and wedding party (if you have one) are non-negotiable. That’s sort of pushing you to that 4 hour mark when you account for time between everything and multiple locations.
If you want any getting ready photos or parts of the reception covered you’ll likely need more time and possibly a second photographer. 8-10 hours is pretty standard for this and some people will even do 12. Remember your photographer needs breaks at some points and so do you so it’s not just a solid 8-12 hours of photographing.
If you skip getting ready photos, you could probably push the 4 hours to include the first hour or so of the reception and do whatever you wanted to capture at the beginning. But that would be very tight and you might be scrambling to finish in time. But 6 hours would be doable.Every photographer is also going to go at a different speed so it’s worth asking photographers what they think.