What should you be spending on a photographer compared to the rest of the wedding?

If you're going to spend money on anything on your wedding day, you want it to be your photos. Those are your memories. You want them to be exactly what you want to look back on years down the road.

That being said, you do want to be reasonable about the price, but having looked through some of your replies below, you seem to be very conscious about your budgeting!

I have the same issue with my fiancé. The one thing I told him was I want our photos to be beautiful and breathtaking. I told him this was one thing I wanted. What I did was I showed him quotes from other photographers and when I found this one the price was in our budget and when we met him he was super nice and we new this was our photographer.

View quoted message Nice! It’s great knowing people in the business!

Oh my goodness! You're a budgeting queen!! That's amazing! Goodluck with everything else!

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Thank you! I have to do fake flowers due to allergies, we aren't doing a cake either just deserts that is included with catering fee's, I'm wearing my mom's wedding dress and only 100 to clean and free for alterations (grandma is doing them). I love her candid style and as many of you have mentioned it is the only thing I have from the wedding after the fact as well. Photography is really important to me as well, my grandpa who has passed did it professionally as well.

Plus, those photographs are going to be some of the only things from your wedding day that you'll have forever. Food gets eaten, flowers die, make-up gets washed down the sink, but the pictures will be there for your grandchildren to see. So they might as well be good!

You have to remember too, that their fee includes more than just a day's work. It's the dozens of hours after the fact that they spend editing as well

We are spending, with tax, about $2200. It's just one photography, but I know her from my childhood and she is incredibly talented! For me, having well done photography was really important because my dad used to be a professional photographer, but you can get a team of people for the same price or less.

If you are really vibing with her, I would say to book her. You want someone who knows what you want, and the fact that she's willing to build a relationship with you is really great and your photos will be better because of it. You can totally save money elsewhere too, like having fewer flowers (or no flowers), or getting pies or cupcakes instead of a huge cake. My fiance has the same attitude with the price of stuff, but that's just the wedding tax :p Goodluck!

Ours is approximately 10% of our budget.

It totally depends on what you want, we are spending around $2000 on our photographer because we went with the biggest package but we decided very early on that we would splurge on the photographer because the photos were a priority to us.

View quoted message Thats how much i saved thanks to one of my FH's friends owning a photography business and offered to photograph our wedding as a gift.

View quoted message That seems like a lot of money for only 6 hours. She sounds like an amazing person but maybe keep looking. We get pretty much the same as you minus the custom app and print credit for $1700 but we get full day no limit on hours. Our photographer and her husband work together and they are so adorable, they also capture incredible candids and she's a master of lighting. My advice is just look around, ask to meet a few in person, a lot of people don't know how to show their personality through technology so in person may help.

View quoted message It includes 6 hours, 2 photographers, engagement session, online photo gallery, print credit, wedding album, custom app, sharable digital files (600 photos or more ) all fully edited photos. This company is a full time photographer and hires a second one to help cover different angles. She does a lot of candid style of photographer.

View quoted message What is included in your package?

Ours is about $3800 and will be worth every penny!

Ours is about 10% of our budget and we’re doing videography, so all together it’s 22% of our budget but something I felt strongly about. We found that we just had to decide what are the most important areas to splurge on and what are some things that we can take the cheaper route on. We’re definitely over budget at this point but photography and videography are so special. My MOH regrets not getting a better photographer for her wedding so that also made it easier for our decision.

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I am wearing my mom's dress and my fiancé's grandma is doing all alterations on it. I think this would be a big savings that I could use towards the photography instead.

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That's definitely on the higher side, but not uncommon.

I think of it this way, photographs are the one thing from the wedding that you'll have and look back on ALL the time. You want good photographs. The photographer is also going to be involved with every aspect of the day too, so you want to like them and be happy with them.

Perhaps you can save in a different area and splurge a bit more on this?

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Thanks Lynnie!

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Mine was 4300 after taxes. Which I find a lot for what it all is, however her work is the best I've seen around here. It was more then the catering even. I asked to take out the engagement and it was still 4000.

If you're looking at breaking down your budget - photography is typically around 12% of your overall budget.

How to Divvy Up Your Wedding Budget

Our photographer is about $3500, which included a 2 hour engagement session and all of our images sent to us online, and on the day of the wedding we have him for 10 hours plus a second shooter. He has been amazing to work with. You have to keep in mind the time and effort they put in to editing all of the footage from that day. It takes a lonnnnnng time, which is why it costs so much.

How much was the photographer that you were looking at hiring?

Our photographer is $2500 and that includes 2 shooters for 8 hours, engagement shoot, online gallery including around 1000+ edited photos done in 4-6 week turnaround. Most of the photographers we looked at were between $****

I always see people in the facebook boards looking for a cheap photographer but I really do think it's generally one of the things where you get what you pay for. It's one day that you can't redo so you're best to find someone you trust. I'm not sure how much your photographer is charging (especially when you said it's just as much as the catering - our catering is really expensive so...) but as long as it falls somewhere in the $**** range I would say it's reasonably priced - just make sure 6 hours is long enough for what you want captured.

Our photographer is incredibly! Usually she's very involved like the one you mentioned, however she just had her second child so she's having some much deserved family time. We emailed and texted on and off after we met talking about the wedding and engagement shoot. We get unlimited hours, two photographers, all photos edited and ready to print plus the engagement shoot we did.

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It includes 6 hours, 2 photographers, engagement session, online photo gallery, print credit, wedding album, custom app, sharable digital files (600 photos estimated). This company is a full time photographer and hires a second one to help cover different angles. She does a lot of candid style of photographer. where I am from it seems the average pricing is 2000 plus. People charge average of 400 an hour or more around here. It is very pricey. It all depends on person but most photographers when I asked started at 3 hours for around 1400 and went up.

I don't know what your catering cost is, but if it's like mine than i almost choked on my lunch when you said the photographer is the same price. Does that include videography too?

Generally photography is real expensive, no matter how you slice it. How many hours do you get with this photographer? Do you get an engagement shoot as part of the price? How many edited photos do you get and how long will it take for the to deliver? Does that include an album for you? Parent albums? One photographer or two? My package some with two photographers for i think it was 12 hours, an album for us and one month turn around for delivery. Also, an engagement shoot was included in that. The package price was $2000. Our photographer is a weekend wedding photographer rather than a full time photographer so that i think is where the price comes from but she's been awesome with us.