how many wedding images did you need?

Tanya2012

While looking at photography packages I've noticed the wide range in # of images in packages!  I'm meeting tomorrow with a photographer that has numbers between 125-200 in my price range, but I have another in mind that offeres 400-450. SOOOO... I'm curious of what others thought as far as the number of images for their special day

Sue-n-Kevin

I don't remember how many the photographer TOOK, but he put up almost 360 on his site.

A lot depends on what you are having the photographer cover. He wasn't at our house while we were getting ready......my daughter and friends took those pictures. We did a "first look" and posed pics before the ceremony, and I think probably 1/3 of the total were those. But I did ask him to take pictures of the "details" for me, since I did a lot of DIY stuff.

I had told him when we booked him I didn't want to go through 400 pictures. But then, when you finally see them, they are yours and you don't mind paging through

If it's a really great photographer who gets "the shot" the first time, you probably don't need more than 200-250.

matuofm

We had our photographer for 6 hours (including prepping, ceremony, and an hour or two of the reception).  I believe that we have 300-350 pics total (including about 40 from the engageent session), all beautified and whatever it is that they do to those pics to make them sooo much better than anything I could ever take. 

Here's my take: I loved paging through them all, like Sue said.  In terms of what was actually taken (or at least what we received), we have enough.  In some cases, maybe even too many.  I mean, do I really need eight separate pictures of my sister zipping up the back of my dress?  Some were definitely cooler than others - but they're all the back of my dress.  KWIM? 

But here's my problem (and the absolute only problem I had with our photography package): I take suck-ass pics.  DH isn't immensely photogenic either, but I set a new standard for ability to ruin pictures.  We got our proofs (online) on Monday, and the first two pics of the bunch are torso shots of me.  I actually recoiled and said "Yargh!" out loud when I first saw each one.  Nothing wrong with the picture itself.  I just seem to know exactly what to do so that I have my eyes half-closed when the photographer snaps the picture.  Or am holding my face so it looks like I have Cousin Cletus's buck teeth.  Or have my eyes crossed (how does that even happen???). 

So...fully a quarter to a third of the pics in our package are (in my opinion) horrible.  Nothing wrong with how they were taken - the composition is beautiful, our poses are great, it was a perfect moment to catch...but I personally look in them as if I just escaped from a lunatic asylum.  I'm just always making a weird face.  For me (from experience), only one pic out of any three is going to catch me  looking like an actual person and not a zombie/angry badger/Harry Potter villain.  So I wish that we could have had 600 pics, so that we were left with 200 that were beautiful, instead of only 100.

I also loved going through our pics because it was like re-living our wedding.  Each one showed a moment or view that I will have forgotten all about even 2 years from now, but now I never will because I have the pics to remind me. 

So...the short answer I should have given is...for me, more pics = better. 

emarston1

We got back 800 some photos but Amy took a lot more. She said it was the most she'd ever taken at a wedding. She had unlimited hours so she was there when we were getting ready and through most if the reception. Plus we had a ton of picture locations. All the photos were edited and none were the bad shots where someone's eyes were closed or making a weird face.

TheFutureMrsB81

We have 400 alone from our Engagement shoot and our photog said for the actual wedding she takes well over 1200. Our package is $600 =D