A common question among many couples is what they should be paying for their wedding photographer.

Many times, I see couples will ask friends or people online as to what they should be paying simply by asking who out there or who they used.

That’s not how you should do it.

Today, I’m going to explain why then show you why some people overcharge and what you should be paying for services in the first place.

First, The Mistake Couples Make Too Often

One thing that we do on the blog is to educate couples all about the wedding industry and the very first thing we teach couples is to set a wedding budget.

It’s important.

We generally see brides and grooms reach out to people online with social media posts like these.

So, what do these posts all have in common?

They don’t know how much they are planning to spend, not a single one mentions their budget.

Couples are asking anyone what they should use for a vendor without knowing what they have to spend in the first place.

Let me put it into a perspective you can better relate to, the car industry.

Chances are if you bought a car of any type, you purchased it with a budget in mind.

Am I right?

More than likely you set your monthly payment and rolled into a dealership with an idea of how much you’d want to budget each month for the vehicle.

Asking the dealership or someone sitting next to you what they’re spending on a monthly payment doesn’t truly give you the answer your seeking.

After all, a dealer will want you to spend literally as much as they can squeeze out of you, and asking people you don’t know what they spend on their cars is simply a question with no real value.

Sure, you’ll get an idea of what they spent, but knowing that doesn’t help you and your wedding budget.

What you need to do is look at your own budget for the answers on how much to spend on various services.

Don’t know what your wedding budget is or how much you should be spending?

Click here to get your wedding budget.

What You Should Be Paying for with Wedding Photography?

You should be paying based on what your budget is telling you, not what pros charge or what others paid for their own wedding.

For example, if you have a $1,400 budget for wedding photos, you shouldn’t be seeking those that are charging $3,000, that’s way beyond the margin of error for your wedding.

We created a great online tool to help give you a rough range of where you should be with regards to paying for services.

Give it a try below.

While it’s a good idea to get a general price range within the marketplace for your wedding services and products, don’t be generic about it if you do.

We did an Experiment

We asked two questions on a couple of Wedding Facebook pages.

First, we asked couples the following:

“ISO a wedding photographer for our spring wedding.”

Sounds simple.

Well, we got nearly 84 responses from people ranging from about $350 to nearly $5,000.

Results from Facebook Inquiry

random results from query

Then we asked the same question, but with much more specific information.

“ISO a wedding photographer for our spring wedding, June 21st. We’re looking for a Dark and Moody person, and our budget range is $2,200-$2,500.”

The results between the two were neat, in our first inquiry, we got everything under the sun, including vendors that were not available on our wedding day.

In the second inquiry, we added our date, price range as well as a type, the “dark and moody” style. The results were less, just 32, BUT they were more accurate with our budget and helping filter out the style and availability.

Wedding Photography is What You Can Afford

The truth is that wedding photographers come in all price ranges, levels of experience, and styles.

You should pay for what you can truly afford, if that number is $500 or $5,000, there is a professional that is usually suited for your wedding day needs.

One thing to keep in mind, however, you get what you pay for with regards to the industry.

Hiring someone for $5,000 is going to provide you an experience unlike a $500 photographer and visa versa. Just don’t expect a budget photographer to provide the same level of service to someone that’s much more expensive.

As long as you understand that, you should be good.