melissamermin.com » wedding photojournalism and photography

As a professional photographer of sixteen years, I’ve gotten several hundred inquires being in the wedding photography business. Sometimes I get a comment in the online form, Great images! We were referred by so-and-so wedding planner who highly recommended you. I love hearing that there’s a trust and connection to someone we have in common. Many comments I get these days is a demand for a complete price list and no information about their wedding. I know there are lots of new photographers who are curious about others’ fees so they pretend to be a bride, but most inquires are legitimate couples who don’t know what questions to ask. One of the reasons I’ve never posted my rates on my website is that every event is so unique that I would be all over the board with price. Questions I ask my clients: It is a 250+ guest list with 3 locations? Then you probably need a second photographer (not just an student intern shooting a wedding for the first time, by the way!) Is it a destination wedding we need to fly to? Travel expenses and logistics have to be estimated. Three day Indian wedding? Overtime coverage. Or an intimate group of your closest friends witnessing your vows at City Hall next month? You may not need a package at all but just a few hours coverage and then choose your a la carte post-wedding services.Some think that we don’t post our rates in order to increase them if the bride tells us it’s going to be held in a high-end reception venue (hence they have more money to spend). One time I kept asking a bride about where her wedding was to take place and she kept repeating, “a hotel in downtown Boston.” I then asked, “Um, is it a big windowless ballroom that seats over 200 guests? Is the cocktail hour outdoors? Can you give me a hint?” I had to explain that I needed to get a sense of logistics and type of coverage she would need. After giving her a ballpark of my rates, She finally “admitted” to me she was getting married in a church 45 minutes from the reception, having over 250 guests at The Ritz Carlton and an after-party at midnight in another location she also wanted covered. She said she didn’t want to tell me in fear that I would increase my price when I heard ‘Ritz Carlton’. What an odd way to start a relationship off with a professional,  feeling that they are out to screw you right off the bat. Why would she want to even do business with me if she doesn’t trust me? Ask your recently married friends if they raved about their wedding photographer experience and if you also loved their images as much as they did. If you are working with a wedding planner (which I can’t say enough how they make my life and your life so much less stressed!), one of her/his jobs is to listen to what you like and narrow down your choices to two to three tested and trusted professionals. The digital age and the internet has brought an avalanche of new photographers eagar to test their skills. They may have gotten a new digital camera and want to try to doing weddings on the side to make extra money (we call them “Weekend Warriors” and also “Shoot to Burners’ as they hand over a DVD of unedited jpegs when they leave the event.)  They don’t think about business and liability insurance (what happens when a kid on the dance floor trips over their light stand?), having lots of back-up gear or what happens if they get sick and can’t be at your event? Then there’s there’s big corporate companies I like to call the “Walmartization of McWeddings”. They pay their newbie photographers very little as they are eagar for the experience  and want to get a portfolio. The McPhotoCorp makes money on volume doing hundreds on weddings a month in their region and farming out every part of the process to cheaper labor to keep costs down. Comparing a fine restaurant with a corporate chain, you don’t get the same consistent quality you would have from an award-winning artisan chef. You know who you are working with from the initial meeting before the event to the post-wedding process of designing a custom wedding album. Some of my  clients hire me to do their pregnancy and expanding family portraits. Your wedding photographer is the one vendor that you’ll continue to have a great working relationship long after your wedding.

I’ll end with the most asked Big Question: What does a wedding photographer cost? My answer: What does it cost you when you think you saved some money but really didn’t like your images or your experience with your photographer on your wedding day? What do you have left to show for it? I’ll leave you with a quote that I borrowed from celebrity wedding cake designer Sylvia Weinstock:

Melissa Mermin is an award-winning wedding photographer who seeks to educate brides-and-grooms-to-be on how to hire their perfect photographer.

“There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse

and  sell a little cheaper,

and he who considers price

only is that man’s lawful prey.”

– John Ruskin

Read more tips and questions to ask your wedding photographer.