Chit Chat

Photography dilemma

edited September 2014 in Chit Chat
So in the beginning of this wedding planning process, I told myself photography didn't matter a whole bunch because how often was I actually going to sit and look at my wedding photos after the wedding, etc, and I found a photographer that was only going to charge me $600 for about 6 hours of coverage and included basically everything I was interested in in a package. I didn't book him officially, but had decided in my mind that that's who we were gonna go with. Awesome. But I've looked at his pictures, and I've looked at pictures from other, more professional studios around here and I really see why these places cost more. Their pictures are gorgeous, while his are kind of "Eh." However, I can't afford a more expensive photographer. FI and I only budgeted what we knew we could save in time for the wedding because we don't want to take out loans for this, and we would need an extra $2000 for the photographer I REALLY want. Now I also sell Pure Romance on the side and usually make an extra $200-$300 a month doing that, so I could probably save up the money in time for the wedding, but that isn't a SURE paycheck. I could lose business any time and then I'd be SOL. Also, I really need to make a decision on a photographer NOW because we've got less than 7 months until the wedding, and if I wait around until I'm SURE I can pay the extra, all of the good photographers are going to be booked. 

This makes me sad. I know the right answer is probably that I need to just book the $600 one (if he's even still available) because if I keep waiting around I'm not going to have a photographer at all. I guess I just need y'alls support and feedback on this. Money sucks =/ Why can't we just trade things like the old days? lol 
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Re: Photography dilemma

  • Is there somebody you can find that is priced more in the middle of those two photographers? That way, you might be able to get better quality, but without the huge difference in price tags.

                                               

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  • larrygagalarrygaga member
    2500 Comments 500 Love Its First Anniversary First Answer
    edited September 2014
    Anywhere in the budget you can cut some money off? My biggest piece of advice is to go to Sams or costco and buy bulk flowers and arrange them yourself instead of paying for a florist. They maybe won't look as amazing but it's flowers they are pretty no matter what you do. Boom I just saved you like 8 thousand million dollars. 

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  • larrygaga said:
    Anywhere in the budget you can cut some money off? My biggest piece of advice is to go to Sams or costco and buy bulk flowers and arrange them yourself instead of paying for a florist. They maybe won't look as amazing but it's flowers they are pretty no matter what you do. Boom I just saved you like 8 thousand million dollars. 

    Haha great minds think alike, we're actually going to do this. I'm getting my flowers from Sams and arranging them myself. And I'm not doing a lot of extra decor because my venue is beautiful as it is. I could cut out some things that I'm not 100% sure I need, but I don't know that there's enough to cut that would make that much of a difference. 
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  • Photography is not something I could compromise on. I'd cut as much other items as I could to afford the better photographer.
  • If you are in the NC/TN area, I would recommend my photographers. I got 3 photogs for $1200, but you can get one for $600 and they are absolutely brilliant.

    Try Thumbtack or a similar service. Then you will get bids on your event and you may find better prices. That is where I found my DJ and she was incredible!
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  • Can you talk to your wedding party and see if they have a connection to someone that may be somewhere in between the costs? I had two photographers, one a girl from HS and my sister in law, there is a difference in the pictures, one more staged, the other not staged.  I love them all, I am glad that we had both there!

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  • I wouldn't skimp on photography.  Yeah you may not look at your pictures a lot after the wedding is over but the pictures will be all that you have (besides your memories which can fade over time) of your wedding day when all is said and done.

  • I know it's not the most fiscally responsible thing, but pictures are really important to me. So I would probably book the more expensive photographer. Then during the next seven months to your wedding, you can work really hard to sell the Pure Romance stuff and make it back in the budget. It's not ideal but I can see this being something you might regret going cheaper on later. But of course that's me personally. 

    Also, I found a few options in my area with packages around $1800, which would not be as far over your budget. Maybe look around and see if one of those options works for you.
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  • I went through the same thing with my photog. We didn't budget much for photography and found a photographer in our budget that we thought was great, but then we got our engagement pictures back and they were awful. We decided to forfeit our deposit and hire a different photographer for the wedding, and made up for the cost by cutting elsewhere in the budget.
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  • edited September 2014
    I'm going to keep looking around definitely. And I know I could cut a lot of the costs down if we had a smaller guest list. My only drawback to that is that me and FI have had the worst arguments about the guest list already so I'm scared to bring it up AGAIN and cause another fight lol. I'm kind of hopeful though because he's wanting to invite about 60 people to the wedding because they are members of a motorcycle club he's in, and he's getting tired of that so I'm hoping he'll quit before the actual wedding and we won't have to invite all of them, but again, I can't wait until a month before to start making these decisions. I'm going to try to talk to him about the guest list and if I can't cut it down, we will figure something else out. Meanwhile I'm also looking for a better paying job, which would help TREMENDOUSLY.  
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  • I would also not skimp on the photog. Like PPs have said, your pics will last forever.  Plus you may not go back and look at them very often, but your kids (if you are having them) and future generations will. I'd try to make room in the budget.

     

    If it is any consolation, photography is taking up about 15% of our budget.

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  • Inkdancer said:
    If you are in the NC/TN area, I would recommend my photographers. I got 3 photogs for $1200, but you can get one for $600 and they are absolutely brilliant.

    Try Thumbtack or a similar service. Then you will get bids on your event and you may find better prices. That is where I found my DJ and she was incredible!
    I love Thumbtack. I've had consistently great experiences with the people I've hired through them (excluding my current DJ issues, but I don't blame Thumbtack). I've gotten great deals and great service. While I'm excited about the people we've hired for our upcoming wedding, I am in love with the plumber we found through there (who I tell everyone local about!)-- he did emergency work, 1/2 the price of the recommended people on Angie's List, and finished the work he couldn't do at the time (he needed to wait for our yard to defrost) without us calling and tracking him down.

    We didn't spend a ton on our photographer but I feel good about our decision. While I care about pictures, we really wanted to focus our budget on entertaining. We also knew that there would be a lot of people in attendance taking pictures that we could grab copies of.

    You just need to figure out what's right for you- and what won't stress you out in terms of budget.
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  • I also think that you shouldn't skimp on photography. I don't normally ever tell people, but do you have a line of credit that could cover the additional amount if you didn't come up with it by then? Then maybe use gift money on the credit card (I know, I know don't expect gifts, but you know people will give you something... even a couple hundred would be a big chunk here). 
  • ShellD13ShellD13 member
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    edited September 2014
    Try www.thumbtack.com. It lets you submit a proposal for what you want and participating service providers can submit bids back to you. It is how I found our wedding photographer and I love our photos. I put in what I was looking for and had two photographers bid....looked through their portfolios and fell in love with one of the two. Selected her and couldn't be happier with the results. Great pictures without blowing our budget. ETA: Just read through all of the PP and realized that thumbtack isn't an original suggestion but I will third the vote - check it out - I was thrilled with our results!
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  • Pictures are a big deal for me. Whenever I find pictures of my relatives going back two or three generations, it's wedding pictures that get saved. I think of my wedding photos as the things my great-great-grandchildren will look at and say "This is your relative MegEN. She was nuts." Or you know, whatever. 

    Have you gone to any wedding shows? I was dragged to one a few weeks ago and I didn't learn a lot except for the fact that if you gave your name to vendors while you were there, they give you an additional discount. We couldn't afford the cheapest package of the photographer we're going to meet today, but because we met him at the wedding show they gave us 20% off, putting their cheapest package juuuuuust in range for us.

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  • So my photographer kept posing me on the wedding day, telling me where to stick my hip out and where to hold my flowers and where to point my chin and while I was doing it I was thinking "wow, this is a little intense and not natural." Let me tell you- I am SO happy that I had a real professional because now that I got a few pictures back, I look absolutely amazing (sorry to toot my own horn) and the angles she posed me were so flattering. I went back and looked at my friend's photos who got married 3 months ago (and had a cheapy amateur photog) and I can tell she was not posed and hers look really unflattering. The angles look wide, the bouquet is cutting her body in half, it's just not good. So now that I see the difference, I really recommend going with the better one. 

                                                                     

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