How much does a wedding photographer cost?

We have a quote request form on Find a Wedding Photographer. You can use this to request prices from up to 15 wedding photographers near you. It's very handy if you are in a hurry or you’ve left booking a photographer to the last minute.

Some of the requests are that come through the site are quite revealing. Some people will be asking for 12 hours wedding photography , from bridal preparations until the bride and groom depart for the honeymoon, a CD of all the images taken, an online gallery, a TV slideshow of the wedding pictures and an album with maybe two parents albums thrown in . This is great until the photographer get to the bit where the client has stated their budget. £500!

You might just about get the album for £500. Wedding photography is a classic example of getting what you pay for. Some photographers are just better than others and consequently charge more. The amount of equipment required and the time spent in post production all adds to the cost.

That’s not to say you can’t pick up a bargain price now and again. There are always lots of new wedding photographers starting up each year and many will be keen to get some bookings in so they can build up their portfolios. If you are getting married out of season then you might also be able to convince a high end wedding photographer to cover your wedding a reduced rate. Have a look at our budget wedding photographers section to see any special offers from wedding photographers near you.

You maybe tempted to get your Uncle Bob to shoot your wedding. He has just got a new digital SLR for his birthday and he’s very keen to help you out as a favour. After all he took some really lovely photos of the cat.

Be very careful if you go down this route. Shooting a wedding is one of the most demanding areas of photography. A professional wedding photographer won’t just have one camera they’ll have backup, they’ll have lenses with wide apertures so they can shoot in low light, they’ll have more than enough memory cards etc. They’ll also have top of the range cameras with more than enough battery power to shoot all day and into the night. They’ll probably have been shooting weddings for a while and know exactly where to be with exactly the right lens - because they have the experience! This is what you are paying for.

Most professionals shoot in a file format called RAW - this is like a digital negative and allows the photographer to change the settings like colour balance and highlights. The down side is that this increases the time spent in post production and hence increases the cost. Your Uncle Bob probably won’t be shooting in RAW format and instead be relying on his camera to turn the photos into JPEGs as he shoots. The limitations of this will only be clear once he shows you the images.

Remember that your wedding photos will be all that remain of your wedding day and it can’t be reshot if you don’t like the pictures. Equally booking a photographer based purely on price and package can be a mistake. Just because you are getting X amount of hours  X amount of prints and an album included is no good if you don’t like the pictures. Consider a more expensive photographer and maybe wait for an album if you can’t afford it at the moment.