One of the typical questions that wedding photographers may get is about the number of wedding images they can typically get back from the wedding day.

Today, we’re going to explore that question a bit and provide you with a tool that will estimate how many you should typically get in return.

How many wedding images should we get from a wedding photographer?

We created this app above to help provide you a general idea of how many images you can expect.

The truth is that it’s going to vary on some factors including the length of time they are at the wedding day, how many guests you will have, what will happen at the reception if there will be a second shooter and their level of experience behind a camera too.

Factors in Wedding Image Quantity

We can also tell you that number will also depend on the type of gear they use too.

The more images they can take, the greater number you might be getting in return.

Wedding Photos, Film vs. Digital

What is interesting is that no one has really noticed the increase in the number of images that couples get today vs 25 years ago.

Before the age of digital images, which honestly wasn’t that long ago, couples may have gotten back 200-300 images.

Each roll of film took 36 images and you had to get it right the first time, there was no Photoshop or Lightroom to correct your mistakes.

A good photographer would often times have two cameras and an assistant whose job it was to load film into the camera and to have ready to switch off to the cameraperson.

Film vs. Digital Images

What a photographer could take vs what you get back

Many times, the photographer would go through 15 or 20 rolls of film in a day, which was a lot back then, producing upwards of 500-600 images.

Of those, you’d get back about 300ish give or take.

Today, photographers are mostly using digital systems and they allow for more mistakes to be made. Because of their speed and capability, one pose of the wedding couple could easily get 50 images or more.

A good photographer will take 2,000-4,000 images on an average day, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting all of them.

Duplicates, ones where someone has their eyes closed or perhaps not everyone is looking at the camera, blurry ones, and ones that just didn’t turn out because of poor experience all take into account.

Taking thousands of images doesn’t mean they are bad at what they do either, it’s just added insurance they took a great image.

Of all the images you can expect to get back a much larger percentage of them than yesteryear.

Skip the Wedding Album and Understand Why

One of the money makers the wedding photographer will offer the couple is the wedding album.

Skip purchasing it from them and order it yourself.

Most professionals today will outsource their prints and wedding albums to a 3rd party, like Shutterfly for example, then turn right around and charge you far more than what they paid for it.

You can usually get wedding books or album’s for a few hundred dollars and have the source do it for you, not only does it save money and time, but honestly, most couples today don’t get an album, but rather an online gallery, a USB with their media or sometimes both.

Wedding Album vs USB vs Online

We personally recommend that you just have them printed from whatever online retailer you like.

Why the number of wedding images is not listed on a contract?

Most wedding photographers are not going to list the number of wedding photos that you will receive after the wedding. That’s because no one will know how many you’ll get, they only have an average based on previous work they’ve performed.

The truth is that the longer the wedding day AND the more thing that is taking place, generally, the increase in the number of photos. The only exception to this may be the luxury photographer as many times the limit images to only the very best of the day.

There is just no way of knowing how many images a pro will be able to take, however, some contracts may state a range, such as X per hour or a low to the high range like 400-600+ as an example.

The BEST thing you can do is when you connect with a wedding photographer, just ask them what they tend to shoot quantity-wise.