Tips for wedding photography on a budget

Here are some ideas on how you can save some money on wedding photography:

1. Hire a photographer for just part of the wedding.
Some photographers have packages, other photographers will work on an hourly rate. Perhaps you just need someone for group shots and portraits and maybe only an hour or two of the reception instead of an 8-10 package rate. It never hurts to ask.

2. Make the album yourself.
Some photographers make you buy their album in their package. Other photographers
will let you purchase your own album.(After all what if you don’t like the particular album they use? There are a million online companies now that sell albums. MAKE SURE YOU BUY ONE WITH ARCHIVAL PAGES so the pictures don’t get ruined over time.

3. Make the prints yourself.
Some photographers who shoot digitally will just let you purchase a CD with hi-resolution files so you can take them to be printed yourself. Photographers who shoot with film sometimes will let you purchase the negatives so you can print the
images yourself. The downfall here is that you have to make sure you are going to a
high end printer where the pros go and not your local drugstore. Do a test print or two to make sure.

4. Don’t buy those cameras for the table! The pictures never come out that good and you end up spending a lot of money.


5. Do not skimp on the photographer! Better to have someone great for less time than
a non-professional who isn't trained in wedding photography. That includes friends,
relatives and well meaning acquaintances who "moonlight" doing photography!

Go with the flow

We’re in the midst of hurricane season and even though it’s sunny where I live today, I remember there was weekend after weekend when it rained and I happened to be booked
to shoot a wedding every one of those weekends. There were expensive locations – vineyards, mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, mountain resorts, botanical gardens, you name it. I always felt bad for the families that had paid so much money for these great locations.

So what do you do when it’s pouring out and you still want great pictures but you can't use the ocean or the beautiful park you had your heart set on?

Here are some tips:

Have a back up plan for pictures when planning the wedding. Pick an indoor spot that can workas a backup in case it’s not only rainy, but too windy or hot. Surely there’s something at the church , synagogue or reception hall that can quickly be used as a great backdrop - you can
even use a few of the flower arrangements to add some color.

Indoor/outdoor shots. If the venue has double doors, at least for a couple of photos, stand inside the doorway and get the rainy background in some of the shots. And obviously you can get some great pictures in front of or alongside some pretty windows.

Go with the flow. There’s nothing you can do about the weather so make the weather a part of the story. If it’s raining, pull out a couple of umbrellas and have the photographer get a few romantic pictures of you under the umbrellas walking down a path arm in arm.

If the day before the wedding the weather report predicts lots of rain, have someone run out and buy some fun props for everyone- lots of colorful umbrellas, rain hats and even flip flops so people can wear them if they go outside in the rain!

One of my favorite brides was going to have an outdoor wedding. The rain was torrential so tents were put up. The floor of the main tent got soaked. By the end of the wedding her white shoes looked like they were brown. They were totally encased in mud. What did the bride do? She laughed and encased them in a plexiglass box to remindherself that nothing could spoil her happiness. And of course, I got some great shots of her shoes!