What to charge for bare bones wedding

mystico

mystico

Well-known member
I was just approached by a bride-to-be who wants me to only shoot her 20 minute wedding (no reception in video). No Fx ... just raw footage. 3-4 copies on DVD. She said others have quoted her $500+ and she was hoping to spend ~$150. This sounds like a crazy request, but I could use the footage as well as the exposure. I would not accept $150--even for this minimal request, but what would you recommend charging?
 
Wow, I first thought ... maybe $300, then thought maybe $250. What coincidence. Thanks folks!
 
I generally try to stick to no less than 250 for whatever I do but depending on how much I want the money I might be lenient.
 
If it's really just 20 minutes raw video, I would agree to the $150 plus $50 per hour travel time (with a 1 hour minimum) plus materials expenses (mini dv tape $20. and DVD $10)
 
Don't get screwed over doing a wedding for less than $500. I've been doing weddings for quite a few years, but even my first wedding was for $600. To do a wedding for less than $200 will barely pay for the tape.

Right now our bare bones (albeit 2 camera) wedding minimal edits are going for $3,200 so be sure that you charge enough.
 
Uh, 20 minutes of raw footage, meaning one camera?
Tell her to buy a camera and shoot it herself!
 
dotconnproductions said:
Don't get screwed over doing a wedding for less than $500. I've been doing weddings for quite a few years, but even my first wedding was for $600. To do a wedding for less than $200 will barely pay for the tape.

Right now our bare bones (albeit 2 camera) wedding minimal edits are going for $3,200 so be sure that you charge enough.
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Dude...you charge $3,200?? dammmn

how long do most of your videos last?
 
directinglegend said:
Uh, 20 minutes of raw footage, meaning one camera?
Tell her to buy a camera and shoot it herself!
Click to expand...
I second that! I also second not getiting screwed by charging too little. Beleive it or not, if you charge too little you might still lose the job. I ran a special this month to try and drum up buisness to do bare bones weddings for $300 (I was even going to do some editing) and the few inquries I received wanted it even cheaper! :kali:
 
The edited videos usually range from an hour to an hour and a half. We do a few montages and do a nice job on ceremony, wireless mics and the rest. Lots of fun.

You can check a bit of it out on a larger package at our site at www.dotconnproductions.com.

Our average selling price is $4,800 for a package.
 
damn guys, i am getting robbed... i dont think ive ever been paid more than 75$ for a gig, how do you get people to pay exhorbitant sums of money for your work? Everyone raves about my Videos but noone wants to pay more than 40$ .... i tend to cover Dance performances, and make Work reels for Choreographers. ( i suppose they are poor...)


just did a 1 hour video today for 20$, literally..... Granted it was kinda like a favor... but still, it covered the cost of the tape, and the DVD i gave it back to him on, thats it.

I have 350$ per "dance performance", on my flyer, ( includes shooting and light editing) but liek people look at it and shake their heads, and say no thank you.

So i keep dropping price, but its getting crazy.
 
Timur, you're marketing to the wrong crowd. You're going broke chasing people who don't want to pay you. That's not the way to go.

Weddings take a special person, and they'll quickly make a man out of any videographer, but if you can do them and do them well, and market yourself well, $3500 to $5000 is not unheard of. And you can usually handle one a week.

Cheap customers are a hassle on two fronts: 1, the cheap jobs don't pay enough to help you keep your sanity and stress levels in check, and 2, cheap customers are usually a lot more hassle than well-paying customers are.

Ditch the cheap stuff and move upscale if you can. Stop dropping your price and start raising it. The only customers you'll lose are the ones you don't want anyway. :thumsup:
 
listen to Barry Green...he knows what hes talkin about...

i think you need to do some cheaper stuff at first...just to get some experience...but you have to move up...

whats the turn around on a wedding anyway? like, how many man hours are spent shooting/editing? ballpark....
 
i haven't got into this yet but what barry says sounds right. I think sometime if you undersell yourself it just makes you look worse because people figure if you're cheap to hire, your abilties aren't that great or "cheap" too in a sense. It all comes down to marketing yourself properly. Compare to others, try and uncut them slightly forever you can offer but don't go too low.
 
TimurCivan said:
damn guys, i am getting robbed... i dont think ive ever been paid more than 75$ for a gig, how do you get people to pay exhorbitant sums of money for your work? Everyone raves about my Videos but noone wants to pay more than 40$ .... i tend to cover Dance performances, and make Work reels for Choreographers. ( i suppose they are poor...)


just did a 1 hour video today for 20$, literally..... Granted it was kinda like a favor... but still, it covered the cost of the tape, and the DVD i gave it back to him on, thats it.

I have 350$ per "dance performance", on my flyer, ( includes shooting and light editing) but liek people look at it and shake their heads, and say no thank you.

So i keep dropping price, but its getting crazy.
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Timur yes you are getting robbed. When you think about your price don't think about how much money you may make right now or on an hourly basis. Think about what if this was your only source of income and you had to pay for you Personal : Gas, Car Insurance , Phone Bill , Rent , Utlilities, Food , Clothes and make a profit. Then add in the Business expenses : Production Insurance on your gear , Lawyer , Accountant , Rent ( If you have a place ), Pay for staff , Maintenance on you equipment , Buying new equipment and turning a profit.

I gurantee you after this you won't have any problem charging a good fair price for yourself
 
Not only the price of gas and other things, but my clients pay for my downtime as well. The time between big projects. As a full time videographer, I have a ton of paperwork, public relations and other stuff that I have to do. I go every week to a chamber of commerce meeting.
It's all stuff that keeps me in business but I can't bill for it to anyone (Except maybe my wife but that wouldn't go over well).

The best way to raise your prices is.... raise your prices. I had a client on the phone the other day that couldn't believe I was charging him $450 for a 10 second modification on his tv commercial. After I explained what was involved and let him walk through the process with me he realized he was getting a great deal.

Remember, this hobby sometime has to pay for itself.
 
we do wedding videos that are around 2 hours in lengh on average. This includes a photo montage ( 12-14 minutes) highlight montage (4-5 minutes) and family and friends interviews (12-14 minutes). We are there from start to finish and usually shoot around 4-6 hours of footage and it takes around 20-24 hours of edit time. We just did a wedding here that we believe the total cost for the bride's parents to be over 100 grand, and they are spending alittle over 4 grand on the video. Now Central Pennsylvania is a small market so I am sure you could probably figure adding another grand at least for bigger cities.

The advice we give to brides when they check us out is to remember that its a long time investment, and you will have this video for years and years. Plus it always helps to show some crap footage (probably a 250 wedding video) to compare to your work....and its like ahhhh.....look at the difference. It amazes me when professionals like us do something routine and it gets the the average person all amazed.....like wow....i just slowed down that clip to 50%.....ahhh look how beautiful that is....lol
 
the ceremony is THE #1 most important and most stressful thing you can shoot in event videography. you must consider that. you don't get to make mistakes and have to prepare and be practiced. while you think "it is only a 20 minute ceremony"..it is much more than that. if you screw up, you face not only losing your time and possibly money (refund), you must face the emotional consequences of screwing up a once in a life time event ( hopefully)

to go out there for less than $500 is something to seriously think about. if you need experience, it is a little different. you have to start somewhere. that said, there are a lot better things you can do with your time and earning potential if you can get paid WHAT YOU ARE WORTH.

for inspiration..I believe the high end wedding market for videography is now $4k-$8k. above that does exists, but those are for very big, big jobs. better people are emerging all the time, but it takes TIME to get there. the more excellent work out there, the more the demand grows. very true. those of you who continue to work for peanuts not only hurt your own self, but the earning potential of anyone behind a lens.
 
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