More times than I can count, couples going through the wedding planning process are going to look got wedding photographers and there is a mindset of the price and how many hours the photographer is at the wedding day.

The truth is that the time spent at the wedding is not the true cost of the professional, in fact, it’s just a portion of it.

So, how many hours do you really need at the wedding? Today, we will explore the topic and provide you answers to the age-old question.

What Couples See

Couples will generally see the parts of their contract during the wedding day, perhaps a little before if they cover the wedding rehearsal, engagement session, or bridal portrait session, mostly they will see the tip of the iceberg if you will.

And that can range in length depending on the needs of the couple, although roughly 79% of couples want a wedding photographer or videographer to stay at least 8 hours of the day.

Usually, professionals will start early in the day, beginning with bridal prep. Most will get a little of the bridal prep and a lot of the venue, the decor and those detail shots, like the rings, programs, shoes, etc.

And of course, the ceremony and reception if there is one, usually a dinner break of some type and maybe a quick bathroom break or two in the mix can be found on the days itinerary too.

After the course of a day and depending on what you hired them for, they could spend anywhere from a handful of hours to 12+ on a wedding day.

What Couples Don’t See

The part that couples don’t typically see is the post-production of the wedding photos or videos that take place. While there are differences in what they both do, they both involve lots and lots of hours of editing.

With wedding photography, there are many hours with color correction, cropping, adjustments, and the like.

What couples generally see is just the tip of the iceberg with what photo and video pros do.

Alone without putting on the watermarks (the identification stamp of the photographer) can take 24-30+ hours and sometimes more if they are backlogged or if they have more than an average number of images.

“The process to correct wedding images can take many weeks into months if the photographer is a one-man-band. Besides multiple projects, they are taking on the role of marketing, sales and overall business operations which eat into editing time.”

You also have to convert the images to a readable format that most computers can read, a .jpg file.

Most professionals are going to shoot in raw format to allow them to easily make those adjustments in post-production and that simply takes time to convert them.

Many photographers will take even longer to further Photoshop skin tones, remove blemishes, objects, and other things in the image that need to be taken out, although most just use Lightroom to make enhancements and not image corrections.

For wedding videographers, it’s a similar story.

Downloading all the video files, making backup copies, sorting everything out and starting the process of an edit alone takes many hours.

Then, you have the audio side of the house, being able to bring everything together using Adobe Premiere or Davinci Resolve to edit, then doing a lot of the same things the photographers do, color correction, cropping if needed and the like too.

So, how many hours do you need to book?

We recommend that you should take your total wedding and reception time and extend it by at least 2 hours.

For example, if the wedding ceremony is 30 minutes and the reception is 5 hours, then 7.5 hours is the minimum that you need.

The two hours plus is needed before the ceremony, allowing time for the professionals to get the shots they need for your wedding day.

You also need to take into account about an hour in between the ceremony and reception as that’s generally the time you will do the wedding party, family and couples photos too.

So the real-time is 8.5 hours in this example.

After the exit or last major highlight at the reception, you really don’t need to keep the professionals, since it’s mostly dancing and the reception is technically ended, at that point, you’re just wasting your money.

You definitely want to look for a professional that offers a lot of hours in a package, even if you don’t use them.

For example, we offer a flat 10-hours coverage for the wedding day which is going to cover about 95% of couples out there and we offer a flat rate of $100 for each additional hour. Many professionals will do something very similar and truth be told, you rarely need to pay additional fees with most.

Elopement

For elopements, 1-2 hours should be plenty of time to have to get your wedding photos and a simple video done.

Micro-wedding

For a micro wedding, the average time frame is 4-5 hours for wedding photography, about the same for videographers too.

Full Wedding (51-150 guests)

8-10 hours is going to be the norm for most weddings under the category. This is the most normal timeframe for professionals.

Full Wedding (151-300 guests)

10-13 hours can be expected and the added time is because of the larger wedding guest and it assumes you will have a larger wedding party.

Should We Keep Them After the Faux (or Fake) Exit?

Generally, no.

While some professionals can hang on for additional hourly rates, there really isn’t any real reason to keep the photographer or videographer around after the exit, real or fake.

With faux wedding exits, there is usually dancing, drinking, and running down the clock at the venue and if the pros have already captured the majority of this beforehand, you really don’t need them after the fact.