Roanoke Wedding Photographer Guide
Being a wedding professional here in the Roanoke Valley over the last couple of decades, I’ve seen a few noticing trends, wedding photography and videography have seen a huge increase in the number of “professionals” in recent years.
With that saturation in the industry, Carole and I wanted to sit down and help create a guide if you will to help you make a better decision on your wedding media, even if thats not us.
Today on the blog, we’re going to explore a few things to look for and to ask when searching for the right photographer for your wedding here in Virginia.
How Much Does an Average Wedding Photographer Cost in Roanoke?
Truth be told, there is not a set answer for this.
In Roanoke and the surrounding marketplace, you can find photographers are cheap as $500 and those that cost $5,000 or more and thats a pretty large spectrum.
To help best give you the answer that you’re looking for, you need to look at your overall wedding budget to give you that answer.
See, if you are having a wedding for $10,000, the cost of what you should be paying is going to be different than someone with a $30,000 wedding.
Carole and I have put together a simple app, just plug in how much you are spending for the wedding and it will give you an average price with a low end and high end to also consider.
While many websites will give you a range, that number is based on the average cost of a wedding, about $34,000 according to national websites like theKnot and Wedding Wire. But here in Roanoke, the overall cost of living is much less than the national average, so more than likely you’re going to pay less than neighboring markets like Charlottlesville.
To help give you an idea of pricing, we’ve broken things down into three categories for you, the budget photographer, the mid-range photographer and the high-end photographer. Based on your budget from above you can place yourself into one of these categories.
Budget Wedding Photographer ($0-$1,000)
These are people usually under $1,000 in our region and they have limited experience in the wedding industry. While they are the most affordable, they are also usually the least experienced and many times have what is known as “kits”, cameras and lenses that are bundled together and are designed more for entry level photographer than professional. Of this group, a handful will become full-time in a few years and up their game to become more mid-level or middle of the road professionals.
What to look For in This Category
You’re going to want to find someone with at least a years experience in weddings with about 10 or more if possible. Carole and I recommend finding someone that has been working underneath another professional as a second shooter for a while, it helps build up their experience and gives them good feedback to improve too.
Second, you want to see what sort of gear they are shooting with. Expect to find many with an entry level camera or a kit that has a lens or two. These kits are not bad, but they are very basic compared to professional grade equipment and usually they don’t produce good images in low light, having a good flash will help a great deal. For day time wedding images, they should be okay to work with however.
Mid-range Wedding Photographers ($1,000-$3,000)
Most people within the industry are eventually going to fall into this range over time and with more experience. Here, you’ll be able to find people with much better gear and accessories, even a backup system at times too. They will usually have a couple years under their belt and take more weddings as some will become full-time professionals while others that are part-time are stepping up their game with quality.
Many mid-range professionals will be using middle of the road equipment form places like Canon, Nikon and Sony, although for someone that doesn’t understand the camera industry, it will be hard to tell a $500 DSLR from a $3,000 mirrorless camera without researching the models. You should feel pretty comfortable in this category when choosing someone to take care of your wedding day and we recommend that you find someone within this range if possible.
What to look For in This Category
Here, you’ll look for someone with a good portfolio of images, usually an established brand and someone with a good deal of experience, greater than 2-3 years normally. They should have many camera lenses or at least a good prime lens for low light and a good zoom lens as well with lots of accessories like batteries, lights, flashes, filters and the like too.
High-end Wedding Photographers ($3,000+)
While some will argue that high-end means much more money than $3,000, we are talking about South Western Virginia here. $3,000+ is consider high-end in our region as the regional average cost of a wedding is just above $28,000, that according to Value Penguin, a division of Lending Tree. This is where you’ll find mostly full-time wedding photographers with high end gear, camera bodies like the Sony a9ii and the Canon 5DIV, cameras that start in the thousands of dollar range.
These are people that have multiple years experience, often time will have a second shooter and will provide more fine art style wedding images than natural style. Think an elevated style of wedding imagery. They will typically carry a bag full of gear and backup equipment and they have enough experience with weddings that when something hiccups, they will be able to fix it as if it was just part of the wedding day.
What types of experience should I look for in a Wedding Photographer?
Experience means a couple of things but for the purposes of wedding photography it will mean two things, how many weddings they’ve covered, how they overcome obstacles at them and the quality of their work too.
Both come with time in the industry and having someone with multiple years experience means typically they have a lot of weddings that they’ve covered in their career.
That’s great for you, the couple thats getting married.
Thing thing about weddings is that often times something goes wrong, usually something small, but sometimes bigger things can take place, for example, doing introductions in a different part of the venue than what was stated and having to react to it quickly.
The other type of experience, quality comes from knowing their equipment and knowing how to take a good image.
The technology today in most cameras is almost automatic, meaning things like focus, saturation, f-stop, ISO, white balance, etc. is all done by the camera itself.
Even further is technology like Photoshop and Lightroom that help enable a bad image to look like a good one.
While that can be a good thing, many times the camera setting could be wrong and using manually settings are needed, thats what separates a professional from an amateur, knowing what to do.
While its not a bad thing having settings and programs to help, it does make a huge difference.
What differences can I expect in wedding photography in our area?
In the Roanoke area, mostly natural photography and portrait photography. You’ll find a few fine art wedding photographers, but mostly everyone in the region in all three sections are going to be natural style or even journalist style photographers.
How can I find a Roanoke Wedding Photographer that’s best suited for us?
You can follow these guidelines to help narrow down the search.
Use the wedding budget tool above to first find the price range you should look at.
Based on that price range, seek out a list of wedding photographers in the region, 8-10 should be good number.
Of that group, start to narrow down by looking at the other two elements (first being price range), the experience and quality
As you start to narrow them down to about 4-5 businesses, ask good questions. For example, ask about their experience, what type of gear do they use and ask for reviews if you can’t find them.
Also ask about value-added services, things like contract stipulations, warranties, guarantees and working with other vendors like videographers.
See what makes them stand out among other’s in the industry. Many times the smaller difference can make you decide on finding the right person or people as many photographers tend to mimic others in the industry.
Should we spend more than whats in our budget?
The simple answer is no.
The more complex one is this, weddings and the wedding industry is heavily relied on your emotion to book various vendors and services, us included. That being said, when you book any vendor, try to keep the emotion out of the business part of your wedding if possible.
The more emotional you are towards a vendor and their work, the more likely you’ll overpay for it.
Think of it this way.
While it would be super nice to have a $80,000 BMW, the truth is you really need a good $35,000 Honda or Toyota to do the same thing. Sure, the high-end car will be nicer and have plenty of belles and whistles, but all cars get you to and from the same way, the difference is in quality and luxury.
And just like the auto industry, the wedding photography industry trickles downward.
That means that those luxury images from 20 years ago are now the more common style today. Honda and Toyota for example have lots of tech and luxury in them today, what you are paying for is the emotion of owning an expensive product, the same applies to the wedding industry.
If your budget for example is $2,500, try to keep within 10% of that number.
Here is another way to look at it.
If you’re having a $10,000 wedding, would you spend half on just the wedding images? I highly doubt it. But, if your wedding was $50,000+ (yes, we do have those in our region) spending $5,000 on a photographers is right in line with the 10-13% range of what you should be spending.
Can You Find any “Deals” on wedding photography in Roanoke?
Yes, but you have to be somewhat flexible.
As I talked about in a previous blog, there are a few tricks of the trade that can help you shave off a little pricing.
Book during the off-season. This is typically from October through March of each year in the Roanoke-Lynchburg region.
Ask the photographers about venue discounts. Some like us, have unadvertised discounts of 5-10% or more with select venues in the region.
Negotiate. While our competition won’t like me telling you, you always have the power to negotiate price. Worst case, they will say no but it doesn’t hurt to try as some will negotiate back.
Preferred Vendors List. Some planners and venues will have a small discount if you book with them and one of their listed vendors.
Some vendors will discount for an off-peak wedding day. For example, getting married on a Wednesday is usually cheaper than a Saturday.