Wedding photography is a big business in Ireland. Wedding photographers can charge a lot of money because they have a lot of work to do. Not only do they have to take photos during the wedding, but they also have to edit and prepare the photos for the bride and groom. This process can take many hours and day, which is why wedding photography costs so much.
The Average Cost of a Wedding Photographer in Ireland
For those of you who want to get straight to the big question, here is the shortened version straight to the point. For the rest of you who really want to know more about how things work in the background, read on.
The average cost of a wedding photographer, according to a survey by weddingsonline.ie in January 2022 is €1,779. According to One Fab Day, the price of wedding photographers can go as high as €4,000. The price charged by a wedding photographer is down to many different things which I go through in the rest of this post.
Pre Wedding Day Meetings With Clients
The meeting with the client isn’t only the initial encounter between the couple and the photographer to determine if they’re a match. There will be additional meetings to inform the photographer about the planning process and plan for their wedding day.
Your first meeting will more than likely be a phone conversation where you will talk about your wedding budget, wedding packages the photographer has to offer and a number of other things about your wedding day so your photographer can get a good sense of whether you are a good fit for them, or they are a good fit for you.
A competent wedding photographer should check in with their couple on a regular basis to ensure that everything is going well, as well as ask them if they have any concerns. These meetings might be conducted via video chat at times, but they may also require the photographer to travel away from home to meet with them.
Scouting The Wedding Venue
Wedding photography is a very specialized field. It takes a lot of work to capture the memories of a wedding day. Wedding photographers often have to scout the wedding venue ahead of time to find the best locations for photos. They also have to plan for lighting and weather conditions. Wedding photographers often arrive at the venue as early as possible.
Wedding venues typically do not allow photos to be taken before or after a wedding event due to restrictions or other failures by previous photographers (especially those that were amateur). Wedding photographers will take time to map out each location and position lights, reflectors and props for proper lighting. Wedding photography is very important, so you’ll want to find a talented photographer who has experience working at different types of venues.
Photographing The Wedding Day Itself
Wedding photography is often considered one of the most important aspects of a wedding. But how much does it cost? Wedding photographers typically charge between €1000 and $5000, but there are many factors that can affect the final price tag. Costs vary greatly depending on these 3 major components: duration, location, and photographer experience level.
Here’s what you should know about the time commitment of shooting a wedding day: it lasts much longer than just your actual ceremony and reception . Wedding days are typically 12+ hours long, whereas the actual ceremony and reception usually take 2-4 hours total (the rest of your time will be spent photographing morning preparations, family photos, bridal parties, drinks reception, candid photos, etc.).
Let’s break down each component to better understand how they impact pricing for your big day.
Duration: Wedding durations range from as little as six hours to all day coverage with an evening event afterwards. The more time you want your photographer to be at your event means higher costs too!
Photographer Experience: Wedding photographers usually increase their rates with experience. Wedding photography is not an entry-level position, so to expect it for €100 per hour is unreasonable! Wedding photographers typically increase prices as they gain more wedding experience.
Location: Wedding photographers typically charge more to travel to some locations because of additional time spent traveling and shooting, as well as costs associated with overnight accommodations. Typically, if a photographer has to stay overnight at a venue they will either include the costs of their stay in their price or arrange with the bride and groom to organise and pay for a room in the venue or nearby hotel or B&B.
Editing and preparing photos
The most time-consuming aspect of a wedding is undoubtedly editing. One of the reasons why wedding photographs are so expensive is that they must be edited. To avoid missing a particular moment, your photographer may take dozens of images every second or they might pick each one more carefully. As a result, a wedding photographer may choose between 50 and 300 shots per hour.
For an eight-hour wedding, a photographer can shoot up to and way over 2500 photographs. Your photographer must now sort through these photos: choose the finest ones from the mediocre or poor ones. The time it takes varies based on the photographer, but culling images for an 8-hour wedding might take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours.
The editing process itself can take days and often many late nights. Every photographer has their own process for editing, and their own style of editing. For most wedding photographers, these are the steps we will go through for almost every photo that makes the cut, often doing some combination of the following steps:
- Straighten, crop and align images
- Adjust exposure, contrast, saturation and clarity while retouching
- Touch up skin blemishes on faces and bodies
- Eliminate any unwanted objects from the scene
- Remove distracting elements from backgrounds
- Repair damaged or underexposed photographs if necessary to make them presentable.
Wedding Photographs and Album Costs
If your photographer has included a wedding album in their wedding package price, this can bring the overall price up a considerable amount. A good wedding album that will stand the test of time can cost hundreds or euros to produce. You also have to consider the time it takes for your photographer to design the wedding album.
It can take hours or days to sort through your wedding photographs and get them laid out in the album design just perfectly. Some wedding photographers will outsource this job to an album designer, which has it’s own costs bringing the average price up or down depending on the costs involved.
Wedding photography costs reflect the amount of work involved
Wedding photography costs reflect the amount of work involved. Wedding day is only half the job. Wedding photographers are in charge of capturing every aspect of your big day–from you getting ready to say “I do” to dancing the night away with family and friends—and then there’s post-production editing, which takes time after all that hard work on location. The majority of wedding photographers price will reflect their experience and skills as a wedding photographer.
The Cost of Photography Gear
I could write an entire blog post on this subject along, but I won’t bore you with that today and just give you a quick rundown on some of the expenses a wedding photographer has.
It’s important to note that professional wedding photographers are usually buying their equipment outright. Wedding photographers are not rolling in dough because they are compensated fairly for what they do. Wedding photography prices are good compared to other professional photography types but only average when looked at in the context of the entire industry. Wedding photographers have to take a HUGE chunk out of their own pocket just to stay in business.
The entry level DSLR camera body suitable for weddings costs around €1500 new, which is what many armature wedding photographers will be using. As they gain more experience and can afford more suitable gear, they will be spending approx. €2000+ on their cameras along. A good wedding photographer will have at least 2 cameras.
Then there is the price of lenses, which can range anywhere from a few hundred euros to thousands. On top of those costs, a wedding photographer has other costs like computers, software subscriptions (editing, online galleries, accounting, etc etc), lighting equipment, studio rental etc etc. This is all before they take their wage. If a wedding photographer is very busy and booked up they will need to replace used gear at least once a year.
Wedding photographers are worth the price – Even if it doesn’t seem that way at first glance
Wedding photographer prices are a hot topic of discussion. Some people feel that photographers are worth the price, while others think that the cost is too high. There are several reasons for this discrepancy in opinion. Let’s take a closer look at what goes into wedding photography and why it costs so much.
