Written by Curator Michelle Cox-Vergara, owner of Michelle Cox Photography

You will probably spend hundreds of hours planning your wedding, from the shower to the ceremony, cake and food tastings to finding the perfect last song of the evening. Your wedding day should be as amazing as you have planned. It should be remembered and cherished for everything that it was and for the importance of what the day truly is - two hearts joining together.

Your wedding photography (and videography) is probably the most significant link that you will have to your wedding day. As the weeks, months, years go by, your memories will become a little less clear but you will still have your photographs. As a wedding photographer I have always felt that huge responsibility - what I capture on a wedding day will become the couple’s memory, maybe more than what they saw with their own eyes. This is why choosing a photographer that shares your vision, your values and your style is so important when you plan your wedding.

Weddings are a significant expense but more than that, wedding photography is a large percentage of that budget. Many couples don’t understand the reason why that cost is so high (and why should they?) but today I wanted to share some perspective on what most photographers take into consideration when creating their packages.

Hours of working:

Before the wedding:

Most photographers have several meetings with a couple and/or the wedding planner before the wedding day. Many times this is a consultation, a call to plan their engagement session and a call to plan their wedding photography schedule. If a couple books an engagement session, that could also be several hours of additional shooting and editing work. On average I personally connect with a couple for a total of 5-7 hours before their actual wedding day.

On the wedding day:

My average hourly coverage is 8-10 hours and additional travel time is usually 2-3 hours per wedding. Many photographers will shoot “all day” coverage which could be many hours longer.

After the wedding day:

This is when a photographer's REAL work begins! We download all of your files (and usually backup those files to 1-2 other locations). We cull through your images, choosing just the perfect expressions, details and moments to go in your final gallery and then we officially begin editing. This is truly where there is a large variance with photographers however I would suggest to you that the majority of photographers spend well over 12 hours editing your wedding images. The amount of images varies from photographer to photographer however if your photographer culled 600 images into your final wedding gallery (lots of photographers do many more than that, myself included) and they spent ONE minute on each image, that is 10 hours. After the editing is complete, most photographers will upload to an online gallery and then potentially have several more hours of consultation, editing and designing a wedding album.

More experience generally means more money:

When you are an expert in your industry, you usually charge a premium rate. That is no different in the wedding industry. Experience in this industry should give clients extra assurance that their wedding day will be captured successfully. I have been shooting weddings for over 10 years and I have worked well over 150 weddings. That being said, the experience that I have now is far beyond what it was when I started shooting weddings. By all means you can book a new photographer for your wedding but investing in an experienced photographer can assure you that if a pivot is necessary (schedule changes, location changes, weather, damaged equipment, etc.) they can manage it more effectively because they have experienced this kind of change before.

Better quality items generally cost more money:

Once a photographer is done with their editing process, you will receive those files and potentially any other add-ons included. Whether that is prints, a wedding album, a flash drive or a keepsake memento, prices for these items could shift and be greater if your photographer is using high quality items. High quality items are very common in wedding photography because the hope is that these items will last a lifetime (or beyond).

A current issue in recent years since the pandemic is that we are still seeing lingering supply chain delays. That being said, photographers themselves are paying a premium for items in their packages and/or having to look to new suppliers to get their quality items quicker. This could cause a shift in a package price for photography so that profit margins are not being affected by these global issues.

Supply and Demand:

In the current wedding season we are seeing prices shift significantly simply because of supply and demand. We are currently a wedding boom and it is estimated that 2.5 millions couples will tie the knot in 2022. That being said, many photographers are overworked and overbooked. When supply (of time) is short and demand is high, prices tend to make a shift.

The cost of doing business:

The majority of photographers are “small businesses” so their cost of doing business directly affects their livelihood more than a larger corporation. There are costs however that come along with the territory of being a wedding photographer; camera and lighting equipment, computers, editing software, file storage (cloud or external drives), insurance, rent (office space/studio), continued education, advertisement, marketing, etc. These are all costs that affect every photographer and are definitely taken into consideration when building a package cost.

As you can see, there are SO many costs that are taken into consideration when photographers build their wedding photography packages… and this is probably only the tip of the iceberg! Not every photographer will agree with everything in this article, some could have more costs and some less. The intention of this post is to shine a little light on wedding photography and primarily why many times you are seeing a higher price point for this service. In most cases the cost is simply higher because the work is so much greater.

If you are trying to figure out what your photography budget is (and you don’t know where to start) I recommend that you do some research before setting hard and fast numbers. See what kind of photographers are available within your area (whether in Chicago or a surrounding suburb), and make some decisions with your fiancé about what is important to you both.

An important thing to remember is that wedding photography is an investment. After the wedding day is long gone, the photography will remain. Choosing a photographer is one of the most important pieces of the wedding day because how well your photographer tells your wedding story will be how you remember your day.

The Cost of Wedding Photography