Why We Don’t Overcharge as a Wedding Photographer
People believe that you must spend a ton of money to have a great wedding experience with a wedding photographer.
In fact, that’s not true at all.
Today, Carole and I are going to explore why people believe that notion and explain why we don’t overcharge for our services in the wedding industry.
My old brand doing a wedding show in 2014, yeah that costs a lot of money to do!
Why We Do Not Over-charge for Wedding Photography and Video
Over the course of my career, I’ve discovered something, a ‘sweet spot’ if you will when it comes to weddings.
Maybe it’s because we’re older than most in the industry, but we found that couples that spend in the range of $20,000 to $35,000 tend to make the best clients.
They’re usually more easy-going, fun to be around and they also see value-added services that make sense.
That’s part of our philosophy in our company, treat couples how we would want to be treated and focus more on the couple than how many clients we bring in each year.
Additionally, we don’t really do much advertising or wedding shows anymore as they would cost a lot of money just for the booth and the stuff that goes in it, we do a bit on Facebook and Google, but otherwise, we stay clear of magazines, shows, and things that don’t really get a good return on investment.
We’re Not Full-Time Any More and That Makes a HUGE Difference
I sold my old company in late 2015 and man did I make a lot of money when I did.
I’ve NEVER seen so many 0’s at the end of a check!
I officially retired from doing weddings and set forth on a new adventure in life.
But, back in late 2017 the people that bought my company closed up shop, they couldn’t run a business and it allowed me to get back into it with my wife, Carole.
This time, we decided to operate part-time and in turn that does something, keep our costs lower than most.
See when I operated full-time, I had a studio, rent, utilities, a couple of part-time filmmakers, business debt, gear, gear and more gear, insurance, advertising, and well, the list literally went onward.
Today, we’re only taking on a handful of couples a year, 12 actually (minus all this COVID stuff), so being part-time again makes us more affordable due to lack of expenses.
Me in 2015 at a wedding in the mountains of Virginia.
Our operating expenses are much smaller, working out of the house, paying for everything upfront, and our biggest expense, advertising, and marketing is minimal.
In turn, we can offer a lower rate but that’s not all, there’s more.
We Live a More Affordable Wedding Market Than Most
Although we travel through Virginia, Washington, DC, Louisville, Nashville, Myrtle Beach, Charlotte, Asheville, Charleston, the Smokey Mountains, and regions all in-between, our home is in Roanoke.
Why does that matter to you?
Well, the cost of living is far less in Roanoke than in most regions around it.
While wedding photographers are trying to get into Charlottesville for $5,000 or more, for example, we can knock on the door for far less, even with travel fees.
What other vendors think is that we’re cheap, well they think we're not skilled, perhaps we’re new or something shady or something just doesn’t seem right to them, but truthfully we are none of that, we’re affordable because we have a lower cost of living than they do because of where we live and we’re not trying to bring in as much income as we can either.
Here, compare for yourself, you’ll find most regions cost far more than where we live.
But we don’t live in those markets and that’s one reason we do a lot of work in the Mid-Atlantic region, we bring an affordable rate to the table.
Oh, and if you think we’re new, no, we’re not actually.
This is year 22 working in the wedding business, sure I’ve worked for people when I was much younger and I’ve had a couple of my own brands in years past too, but we bring a ton of experience in the industry with weddings, mentoring other wedding vendors, helping with branding and SEO, etc.
Being able to offer $3,000 that includes video, live streaming, and a couple of higher-end welcome gifts is much more appealing than paying $4,000 or $5,000 for just a photographer.
Sometimes vendors will say things like, oh, they’re a chain or they’re not doing the work for that price, they are outsourcing to someone else, well, again I hate to break it them, Carole and I do all the work, no subs.
Our Business Model is Different than Most
“Let’s be real for a moment, the purpose of a wedding business is to cover a couple’s special day and as a business, make as much as you can from it.”
The truth is there are few types of wedding vendors:
Full-time operations
Need lots of work to keep up capital
They tend to offer work cheaper, but do more of it during the year
Or they offer higher prices and take on less work to make the same amount
Part-time operations
Need some capital to keep up
They limit themselves on jobs and have higher prices
They don’t limit themselves with clients and have lower prices
Part-time operations
Need some capital to operate
They offer lower than average pricing and they limit their clientele
Very rare as most operations try to focus on as much income as possible
We are the last of this group. We’re part-time, we offer lower than average pricing and we limit the number of weddings we take a year too.
Part of our success with the business is that we have other ventures that provide us income, so we don’t need to overcharge a client while still offering them the same experience a more expensive person does and still offer MORE in the term of value too.
We want to offer fair, upfront pricing and in turn, create a great experience for the couples.
Yes, we can make money at the rates that we set and they are right in line with the national average, they just happen to have a ton of value-added services included.