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Should we scrimp on photography?

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I went to art school and though we did not use a student photographer for our wedding there is so much *talent* there. Students are poor and ambitious. I am guessing you could get one for under $500. Like I said talk to the head photograhy prof.

ETA: ANYTHING is better than leaving it up to your guests to get good shots. Maybe sure you look at their portfolio.
 
I know people who have put those bridal disposables out and gotten some cute photos. That is a fun thing to do, depending on your guests.

BUT. To me, at the end of it all, you have your video and your stills. Period. Long after the flowers die, and the food is consumed, this is what you will have to look back on. You will likely regret skimping if you are unhappy with the result...you may be lucky and have it work out fine, but if not, you cannot duplicate the day. So, I think if you can you should figure out a way to get the most for your money picture wise...I doubt you will regret it later on.
 
i say, YES, Skimp on photography. i have been married since 1995 and i have looked at the wedding photos once.

good luck!
 
I agree with most others, photography is the one area I would not scrimp on. I think if you set a realistic budget though, you should be able to find someone that will do great work within your budget. Photos are very important to me, so that was my splurge (which actually ended up being a nightmare due to some major blunders by my photogs, but that''s neither here nor there). There are many other areas to cut down. Lots of areas can be DIY (invitations, centerpieces, programs, etc) and I agree that cutting down your guest list, even a smidge, is one of the quickest way to cut overall costs. Flowers are another big area where you can cut costs. I most certainly couldn''t do that myself, but was able to limit size, style, etc. there. We cut costs also by providing our own alcohol. Our caterer served it at no extra charge and by cutting out the middle man we saved a good amount. We also found a cheaper bakery to do the grooms cake (since that is simply a sheet cake and is not too complex, most anywhere can do that). That bakery also provided chocolate covered strawberries for us at a much cheaper rate than our caterers were going to charge. All the little things add up, so keep your eye out for ways to cut costs even a little.
 
Also wanted to add, relying on disposals to get good shots is not the way to go in my opinion. Generally people I know who have done that have paid a lot of money to have a lot of useless shots developed. Think drunk guests trying to be funny, think children taking pictures of the floor, think older people not knowing how to work them, etc. Just my $.02
 
Let me be blunt. My wedding photos are worth more to be than a pave band. We all make choices. As long as you will not regret not having any great (or even good) photos you are fine.
 
I would try to do professional for at least the ceremony, then maybe appoint a responsible friend with a good camera for the reception if you REALLY want to do minimal photos. For me, photos were one of the most important aspects of the wedding (open bar is the other, and if it came down to one or the other, I''d def choose the pics). I''m a picture person though, all the photos I have are my most prized possessions out of everything I own, so pictures mean a LOT to me. If you''re not like me though, I''d try and get a student or do only the ceremony for pics.
 
I just think this requires creativity, like hiring a photography student from an art school who had a great portfolio. You cannot go back if you have regrets. As for the disposables, yes, you might get a lot of really bad or off the wall stuff, with guests who have been drinking you never know...but they could be really funny and go in a blooper book too, you never know, and you might get some great stuff!
 
Date: 1/3/2007 11:52:10 AM
Author: dtnyc

I guess I will be the one person who says don't compromise your wedding to have an expensive photographer. Find a good photographer who will allow you to keep the negatives/digital images and then you can order your own prints (mpix.com does very high quality prints- professional quality.) We are doing parents' albums through mypublisher.com (buy one get one free) because honestly our parents don't need an album that is going to last 100 years and we will do our own album through zookbinders or something.

I think it's silly to spend $$$$ on a photographer if you are going to be taking pictures of cheap flowers, have uncomfortable shoes on your feet, and be depriving your guests of a decent meal. They are your guests and I think it would be rude to serve them pB&J so you can have a 6K photographer.

Try and think out of the box w/ regards to a photographer- can you find someone who doesn't 'specialize' in weddings? We used an immensely talented professional photographer who typically does not do weddings, and just paid him for his time and he sent me CD's of the high res images. After removing the pics w/ closed eyes etc. we have more than 700 pics. Tons of candids, which I was able to have printed and include w/ thank-you notes, etc. I was able to use a pic of us on our holiday cards that I made through snapfish for a song.

There is a way to get a great photographer w/o paying a ton of $$$.

ETA:
Also I would ask your friends who have decent digitals to bring them and snap away- I got some great shots from friends and know that i have taken pics at weddings that I have sent to the bride and groom that have been used in the albums etc. Even the best photographer can miss a shot - but I wouldn't leave the picture taking up to the guests completely.
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I agree with you dtnyc! I think you can find a good photog within your budget and still do all the other things that you want for the wedding! I personally wouldn't want to start crossing people of our guest list just to get the best photog in town. I recommend doing a bit of research of the photogs in your area, and possibly a student like someone else mentioned. So, no don't "scrimp" but you don't need to overly "splurge" and take up your entire wedding budget either!

Good luck!
 
Well I will be unpopular I guess but we were married 20 years ago and money was tight. We hired a photographer from a local guild of some sort, and I regret taking so many dumb pics that we have looked at very few times. After you have been married a while, you only have small pics of your wedding here and there. I would have rather taken only one or two pics of the wedding party and more informal pics, and spent more money elsewhere. It is something I would do differently if given the chance to do over. We are happily married, and as time goes on you have other memories. I see no reason to invest a bunch of money here unless it is really important to have lots of photos. I like the suggestion of smaller packages and tailoring the photos to what you want. Some of our favorite pics were taken by relatives, and were candid shots. Things are SO different now with digital cams and photoshop porgrams. My favorite pic was taken by my brother and my DH and I were kissing in a doorway.
 
ok, ladies-- the old marrieds are telling you not to bother!

really, you might look at them once or twice in ten-twenty years.

frankly the picture i have hung and framed is the professional engagement photo. we look so much more normal in that photo.

there were other ways i would have spent that 5k.
 
I have been married 16 years and I still think it is good to have the photos. My friend got married and there was a fire in the studio when the photographer was working on her stuff (among other people''s) and all her photos were lost. She was devastated. Maybe you do not look at them frequently, but still, it is nicer to have them. Again, I am not saying you have to pay exorbitant prices (I just went through this with my son''s bar mitzvah, I spent nearly $20,000 on pictures and video and albums, and while this was slightly higher than the going rate where I live it was not that much higher)...I do not love every shot of course, and I may not look at them often, but I am so thrilled that I have them. You cannot know how shots will come out, but I would rather be creavtive and try to get the best photos I can, and have them, than decide it is not important. Hopefully you can find a great photographer who is starting out and establishing themselves, as long as you love their work, you are fine...get someone who is less money but talented nonetheless...
 
A few things to think about in the all vs. nothing debate:

1. If one were to have regrets later, there's no way to fix it. If you decide to skip having school pictures taken and later regret it, well, there's always next year. If you miss out on wedding pictures and regret it, there is no next time.

2. It's true that some people won't look at them much....and that's their own making. I have several of mine framed and on the wall; I see them daily. They are important enough to me that if my house were on fire, the 3 things I would retrieve are my pets, the negatives to all the photos, and one of my husband's sentimental collection. That's it.

3. Ask anyone who's been through a fire what their most devastating loss is; it's usually the irreplaceable pictures.....oftentimes the ones that are old and dated that cannot be recreated.

4. My friend died two years ago at 45 years old. His kids were 5, 3, and 6 mos. Those pictures are all his 36 y.o. wife has now, and those pictures will be immeasurably important to his kids as they get older.

When he died, they had just celebrated their 10th anniversary six months earlier. I was in the midst of ordering my own wedding photos then, and his wife told me that they hadn't ordered theirs until eight years after their wedding.

Those photos were still important to her then: eight years after the wedding and (then) two kids later, and that was *before* he got sick.

All that said...........It seems curious to me that everyone is focusing on *all* (thinking 5-6K) or *nothing* options, instead of focusing on a reasonable compromise (how to have SOME at a more palatable price).

C'mon, ladies - we do it all the time with diamonds. We all figure out how to massage our wants to fit into our budgets. Why should this be different?
 
Date: 1/5/2007 10:33:40 AM
Author: aljdewey

All that said...........It seems curious to me that everyone is focusing on *all* (thinking 5-6K) or *nothing* options, instead of focusing on a reasonable compromise (how to have SOME at a more palatable price).

C''mon, ladies - we do it all the time with diamonds. We all figure out how to massage our wants to fit into our budgets. Why should this be different?
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That is what I was trying to say in my post- I don''t think that you should compromise other elements of your wedding (dress, flowers, food for guests etc) to spulrge on a photographer who blows the budget.
There are creative ways to get a good photographer and get great wedding pictures w/o spending $$$. I think that the key is to try and fiind a photographer who is not wildly popular or really well known- find someone who is on their way up, just starting out or someone who doesn''t do just weddings.

I know in the area where we got married there are some photographers that are the equivalent of Tiffany- their work is great, but it''s expensive because you are paying for their marketing, advertising, fancy website, etc. You need to find someone who doesn''t have all of that overhead but puts out a great (and sometimes better) product.

Post an ad on craigslist, search on your local knot board, etc. There is a way to make it work and stay w/i your budget.
 
I held my July 05 wedding on a Sunday which opened a lot of doors for negotiating with vendors. We found a photographer that was willing to basically give us 4 hours which covered group portraits for the families (his family & mine separate...none with bride & groom together), the ceremony & the first part of the reception for under $500. The photographer burned all the pictures to DVD and mailed them to us and put them up on his website for 60 days. We later did our wedding album on Snapfish.com. We also did prints from Snapfish. We got no prints from the photographer directly. This worked great for us and fit our budget.

I will say that working with the files on DVD was a bit of a pain. The photographer took almost 900 pictures in those 4 hours...we asked for journalistic style and he did that along with the more formal portraits before the ceremony. My husband and I also did a few group shots and some couple shots immediately after the ceremony. The files were huge because his resolution was really high. We wound up having to get help to change the file types and size in order to get them to upload to snapfish but it the end it worked out great. By the way all 900 pictures uploaded to snapfish just fine. It was just really hard to tell the subtle differences between similar shots...for example the photographer put his camera on "multiple shots per push of the shutter" so there were 4 of every single pose....taken bam, bam, bam right after each other.
 
Ask your other vendors for suggestions. I found my photography by emailing one that everyone on the knot *raved* about. She was booked, but recommended my photographer. I had already booked him, but when meeting with the florist she asked who we were using, we told her, and she said we''d be really happy with him. So if you already have a vendor set, ask them who others have used and how it turned out. My guy has a website, but isn''t advertised anywhere that I can find, and no one ever suggests him when people ask for photographer recommendations. His prices are also much cheaper than anyone elses, plus we get the cd!
 
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