No matter who you choose for your wedding photographer, I want you to know this, you need a signed contract.

With nearly 132,000 photographers in the United States according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2018 alone, thats a LOT of professionals out there.

As many wedding venues are closing down and some are still having weddings with large numbers and facing the consequences.

Today, we are going to explore a bit what wedding vendors across the industry are doing to help cope with the issues.

Well, of course you should have one at your wedding, who would ever say they don’t want images of their wedding day?

The REAL question is — How can I afford a Wedding photographer?

There are countless photographers everywhere from Facebook to Roanoke Wedding Network’s to word of mouth options, so where do you start?

Wedding experts know a LOT of information, especially when it comes to wedding planning within their own niche and part of the industry.

This week on the blog we are turning to wedding experts to share their number one tip to help wedding couples that are getting married. So, here some vendors with their number one tip on helping get you through the wedding process!

Finding an affordable wedding photographer in the Roanoke Valley is like shooting fish in a barrel, it’s easy and you stumble across a mountain of newbies and those offering such cheap rates, you wonder in the back of your head if it’s too good to be true.

Well, most times is it too good to be true because you get what you pay for in the wedding industry.

Addressing what we are doing for our wedding couples.

As a wedding professional in the Roanoke Valley, I’ve seen a thing or two over the last couple of decades of being in the wedding business. Most weddings tend to go off with very minor hiccups, so small in fact you’d never notice them unless you’re working the wedding or reception. But sometimes, especially online, I see couples getting advice from those that might not work for them and it turns out to be just bad advice overall.

Couples spend more than $55,000,000 each year right here in Roanoke, VA for weddings, it’s BIG business for many venues, vendors and professionals and while that seems like a lot of money, the truth is many vendors barely squeak by each year.

Many couples struggle with finding great places to make and print out both save-the-dates and wedding invitations. I remember years ago when I got married, I had to go to the local store, buy generic wedding invitations, print them out and put them together.

Most couple getting married will explore this question at least once when they are getting married. Sadly, when I talk to most wedding planners however, they tend to be on the last-minute back end of things and couples more times than none will choose a ‘day-of’ or the day of the wedding coordinator.

That’s a bad idea and today on the blog I want to help explain why you truly need them for the long haul.

For the last 11 years, I’ve been collecting a wealth of wedding data from various elements, some from polls and surveys that I do online, some from social media polls, part of the data collected is from The National Wedding Report and some is also collected from the Virginia Department of Vital Records.

Carole and I tend to run across this common question a lot, especially on social media like Facebook and the funny thing is that when a bride asks this question, they will literally get 100 different wedding photographers dropping their own website with pricing. It’s like a shark feeding frenzy and that puts a sour taste in a clients mouth.

If you’re in the market for a wedding photographer, be it here in the Roanoke Valley or just about anywhere in the United States, all couples need to ask great questions before they book the right photographer for them.

Asking the RIGHT questions is important and being able to have a little education behind the questions asked will help you make a great decision when it comes to an already over-saturated marketplace.

With more than $55 million dollars being spent annually right here in Roanoke, that according to The Wedding Report, you have LOT’s of vendors to choose from with regards to your own wedding.

Each vendor brings their own strengths to the marketplace and today Carole and I want to share with you 6 very unique wedding vendors that you should highly consider here in our region. (aside from us of course, haha)

Carole and I had the privilege to film over the weekend for Kayla and Michael at The Kyle House in Fincastle, VA. This make our 23rd trip to the The Kyle over the last several years but this one was a bit different.

Recently, WDBJ Channel 7 did a report about the Nesselrod Bed & Breakfast Wedding Venue had suddenly shutdown and several brides were out thousands of dollars in deposits. That was right up the road in Southwestern Virginia but all across the nation, it happens far too often that people tend to realize, wedding vendors suddenly close down and couples are out large sums of money.

Today, I want to share with you just a few examples during the year where couples were out their money and why it’s a smart idea to have wedding insurance (also a good idea for the vendors to have it too and I’ll explain that too).

Many couples that get married in our region will choose the “country rustic” theme although there are a few other types of themes lying in the region including urban (think downtown Roanoke or Lynchburg), then you have “luxury rustic” which is country rustic but with luxury in mind, then you have the “glam style” theme as well.

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.

With weddings being near the average price of a new car, $34,000 in 2019, that according to places like theKnot and Wedding Wire, various regions in the United States tend to do weddings differently and as such, there are different price ranges, styles and themes among the couples that do get married.

BUT don’t let that number scare you by any means, it’s just an average.

There are lots of wedding budget articles out there on wedding websites and many have great information. However, one thing that I’ve seen is a trend that many of these articles tend to same similar things, but I also see a lot of wedding myths within them.