If it’s one thing I’ve learned in my 22-year career as a wedding filmmaker its that the questions that couples ask tend to be pretty much the same thing.

One of those questions you tend to see a lot, what is everyone paying for a wedding photographer?

Or, it’s some variant of that.

Well today on the blog, we’re going to address that very question to set the record straight and to help answer the question for your own wedding day.

Different Wedding Photographer Prices for Different Couples

The truth is that every couple is going to pay a different price range for their wedding photographer. See there are four categories or classification’s of the wedding photographer and not all will fit into your budget.

Asking what everyone else is paying doesn’t really help you or your budget.

The four categories are:

Budget Photographers
- Generally speaking, these are entry level photogs with a price range of under $1,000
  - These are generally the least experienced and have few weddings under the belts
Mid-Range Photographers
- Most couples will be spending within this range, $1,500-$3,000. In fact, the national average for wedding photography is $2,400.
  - These are going to be middle-of-the-road professionals with a wide range of years experiences, 3-30. Most are going to fall into this category.
High-End Photographers
- These are more expensive and highly skilled professionals. You’ll find that these range somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000-$5,500 and you’ll mostly see they offer fine art photography.
  - These are usually professionals with ultra-high-end equipment (think like $10,000+ camera bodies) and they are going to be in the spotlight with magazines, newspapers, etc.
Luxury Photographers
- These will be difficult to find and if you do, even harder to book. Luxury photography can easily reach into the $20,000+ for a wedding and you’ll get exceptional quality.
  - The most unique of group and they account for just 3% of the overall types of photographers.

Saturation of Wedding Photographer Types

What is everyone paying for wedding photography?

The answer is that is varies.

Wedding Wire states that the average price point is $2,000 while Value Penguin says the average cost ranges from $2,055 to $2,566.

“The national average for wedding photography is $2,397.”

The truth of the matter is that the pricing is going to be based on a few factors:

Your Budget
Where you’re getting married at
Type of Photographer you choose
Value and Experience they provide

Your budget is going to determine which of the four categories you’re going to to be able to afford. We tell you the best way to figure out how much you should be spending is to use an online app like the one below.

Additionally, which region you get married at has a profound impact on the average price range.

Take for example where Carole and I operate, Virginia.

Even within the state, different regions have very different pricing. Roanoke and Southwestern Virginia are a lot cheaper than NOVA (DC) or Richmond.

If you look between Roanoke and Northern Virginia just as an example, there is more than a 23% difference in costs for wedding vendors.

“Couples spend on average $1,986.50 for wedding photography in the Roanoke Valley.”

The type of photographer you choose will also affect cost, although not as much as you’d think, it’s really more of the experience they have.

Here is a great example of what I mean.

Say you had two different wedding photographers with the same price, let’s say that is $2,000.

Photographer A will have 4 years experience and you’ll get 8 hours of coverage, 900 images and a USB.
Photographer B will come with 12 years experience, you’ll get 6 hours of coverage and about 500 images.

Both are the same price, one has more experience, the other more value.

In reality, a 4-year wedding photographer is going to do a similar job when it comes to quality if they are good at what they do, the difference here is that WHEN something goes wrong, the 12-year experienced professional will do a better job of correcting the issue than the 4-yeared professional.

Things like people getting in the way of the first kiss, something in the wedding timeline doesn’t go according to schedule (think of skipping something or moving up the timeline) fixing a mistake like missing the bouquet and getting the bride to fake it for the camera, etc.)

Mistakes happen and they happen to most professionals even with 20+ years under their belts like us, it’s how professionals best deal with them and history has shown the more experience you have, typically the better you will be at fixing it.

Why Do Wedding Photographers Cost so Much?

Well, thats honestly relative to your budget and what you are looking for with regards to the wedding.

If you have a budget of $3,000 for a photog, then you’ll need to seek someone in that range for example. Anything beyond that will be expensive to you, but not to a couple down the road and vise versa.

The other reason is time and it’s something I go into great detail on a blog I wrote, Why Do Wedding Photographers Cost so Much?

The simple answer is that couples often only think about the time at the wedding when booking a vendor, not the preparation or post-production that goes into the event.

For photographers (and videographer too) time is usually a one-to-three (1:3) ratio.

That means for every hour they are at your wedding, they will easily spend up to 3 hours editing. Have an 8 hour wedding, then you can roughly say they will be working about 24 hours editing, then you add in the 8 hours at the wedding and 3 hours of prepping and communicating with you, suddenly you’re looking at 35+ hours.

Then you have the equipment and it’s not cheap. A midrange camera along could easily cost $2,000-$5,000 and that many times doesn’t include the lenses, batteries, lights, stands, memory card and all the other things needed to cover your day.

Carole for example will bring along about $12,000 in gear to a wedding and I will carry about $15,000 just to cover the day.

So while that $3,000 price tag may seen like a lot, having to cover the cost of the gear on a regular basis, plus all the time thats covered at your wedding and the business expense of running a business (taxes, business licenses, insurance, replacement gear, advertising) are costly to most professionals.

Today’s Takeaway

Most couples getting married today will find someone within the $2,400 price range.

Yes, some will choose a lower cost, some will spend more in a wedding professional that the cost of buying a new car, but based off data from several well known authorities you’ll find that this is a good general price.

We do recommend that you use an online pricing tool like the one earlier in the blog to get your own price range. It’s going to be based on your budget, so look to that first before you start asking around and see what everyone else is paying to try and get a baseline for your own wedding.

Finally, understand that the cost is a lot more involved than just coming to the wedding a taking images. Time, equipment and operation of a business as well as their experience and demand all play a part in the cost of a professional. Some do it better than others.