Always our most popular module-how to save money! We give you tips, suggestions, and ideas on how to save money on your wedding photography. We talk about things you can do yourself, and the alternatives to hiring a professional photographer. We also talk about some ways you can save money with a professional by picking and choosing the kinds of services you want them to perform for you.
The following article is an example of the content we have in our online wedding planning membership site HappyWeddings.ca under the heading of Photographer. To learn more and get useful wedding planning tools for FREE click here!
There is always a way to save money when it comes to planning your wedding. With photography, your costs are a direct result of your choices at each step of the wedding planning process. Let’s look at all the different ways you can save some money!
Let’s start with the engagement portrait. Instead of paying $75 or more for a professional engagement photograph, you can take a picture yourself with a good camera. Look at the engagement notices in your newspaper, and take your picture with a similar background and similar pose.
If you want some great quality wedding pictures, but don’t really want hundreds of them, you might consider just hiring a professional photographer for pictures at the church. Along with capturing the ceremony, you can have all the bridal party shots, pictures with the parents, and so forth, done at the church directly following the ceremony. This will save a lot of money because the ceremony is usually during the day, and you are only hiring their services for a few hours, as opposed to all day. You can assign 3 or 4 guests to be your ‘reception photographers’ and give them a list of shots you want them to be sure to get. In addition, you might decide on disposable cameras at each table for your guests to take pictures of each other during the evening. Photographers have afternoon packages that can save you 10% or more on your photographs.
The Bride and Groom’s Album is the main reason for having photographs taken at your wedding. You have many choices here. Although you can purchase an excellent quality album that will last a lifetime, you can also choose lesser costing albums that will also last many years. Moderation is a good thing, and a medium quality album is a great choice. If having a leather, engraved photo album is not important to you, buy your own photo album somewhere else.
Many photographers create proofs, which are 5″ x 5″ photographs that you will use to choose your final prints. You can arrange to purchase these proofs instead of having 5″ x 7″ prints made of the same photographs. These proofs are great to make your own little albums for your parents, your wedding party, and any other special people who contributed to your wedding day. By not purchasing parents’ albums or gift folios for your wedding party, you will save hundreds of dollar over the cost of the proofs that you will purchase. You need to decide if engraved parents’ albums with 5″ x 7″ prints are important for you to do, or whether a small album purchased locally filled with the proofs will suffice.
Another way to save some money in regard to the gift folios for the wedding party and other special individuals, is to purchase a single 8″ x 10″ photograph, frame it yourself, and give it as a gift to those individuals. You don’t have to give them a gift folio, or you may choose to give a folio to the best man and maid of honour only, and single 8″ x 10″ photographs to the rest of your wedding party.
Although bridal portraits are common in some regions, you do not have to have them taken by a professional photographer. Like the engagement photo, it is specifically for the newspaper, and a photo taken at home with an appropriate background would suffice.
Another way to save money is to hire a photographer who works out of his or her own home. Just because they work from their home does not mean that they aren’t professional—-it just means they aren’t paying for an office and studio space which will increase their overhead which gets passed on to you with higher prices. Professional photographers who work from their own home, can save you as much as 40% on your overall photography budget, so it is well worth seeking them out.
Another choice is to hire a student photographer or a recently graduated photographer from a photography school or college. Call the school or college and see if they will recommend one of their recent graduates. A photographer starting out will cost less than someone who has been in the business for many years.
Some photographers can be hired only for their time. You purchase the film and you keep the film (or digital storage card), and arrange to process the film yourself.
Many photographers offer discounts if you place your order within a certain number of days after your wedding. If you make one order only, you can save on surcharges for reprint orders for family and friends that you might otherwise submit after your original order.
Then again, find out how long the photographer keeps your negatives, and two or three months after your wedding (when your bank account has recovered), place your photograph order at that point. Once the excitement of the wedding has passed, you may not want every picture anymore, and will save money by ordering only those photos you really want.
Just following one or two of these ideas will save you hundreds of dollars. The SmartBrideTM Checklist 1-8-3 Packages and Cost Savings lays out all your choices in one great checklist.