Professional Wedding Photography- Why Bother?
Munro Photography, A Michigan Wedding and Portrait Artist
Munro Photography tells it like it is with a loving backslap and a finger pointed in the right direction for those newly engaged lovers who need some insight about wedding budgeting.
Your life long love has put all that thought into a ring, a proposal, a romantic Valentine's surprise... and then after the phone calls are made and the pictures of the ring finger have been sufficiently instagrammed...You've picked a date, booked a venue and BAM. It hits you. You're getting MARRIED.
Your wedding can be everything you've ever hoped for... you can have thousands spent on cake, flowers, and those awesome little appetizers that you just know everyone is going to ohh and ahh over. Heck, you can even have a chocolate fountain surrounded by lush fruits and marshmallow. Because everyone will remember the marshmallows.
Well, darn. You overspent your budget and something has to give, am I right? Pictures- you decide- can be skimped on. Everyone has a cell phone nowadays anyway, and that cousin you never speak to just got a new DLSR from Amazon for her birthday. Sold! Now you can spend more money on sparkly centerpieces and those amazing heels that you won't actually wear for the whole day because you can't actually walk in them! Score!
So, let's imagine the wedding is over.
Wrapped up in the warm fuzzy memories, you sit together to view the disk or images from your cousin, who wrote a lovely note mentioning that she lost one of the memory cards, but not to worry! You still have 1500 photos! Wow! 1500? That expensive photographer was only going to give you 500ish. There are bound to be a couple good ones in there if you have 1500!
The screen lights up with image after image after image. You start to cry. Your partner starts frantically clicking faster and faster hoping to get to the better images. There must be a good one in there... there MUST. In the thumbnails, you see a pose that looks great- so you click on it... and it's focusing on the grass and not in a cool, artsy fartsy way. More like, "oops I dropped the camera" kind of way.
Let me tell you now, as you're sitting at home thinking about skipping on wedding pictures, that no picture is worth the savings if you spend the rest of your life looking at a green, blurry, version of yourself oversaturated with black ink and showing your bra strap. It's not worth it. But those awesome marshmallows and the chocolate fountain- that was worth it, right?
I don't intend to shame anyone into overspending their budget, but I do want there to be some serious thought about how you divide your budget and what really, and truly matters to you. If the chocolate fountain will be with you for the rest of your life for your children and grandchildren, then by all means, get that fountain.
Pictures rarely have value immediately. You may be just fine with those shots from the cousin and the guests cell phones at first... but try to look beyond that. Look into your future (use that imagination I know is in there somewhere) and ask yourself, "Is this how I want future generations to see me? Does this style fit me and my personality? Do I want to love my wedding images and be able to re-live the memories without regret?"
So, here. Let me be frank with you: any amount spent on wedding images you hate is bad, but so is not spending any amount. Figure out your max budget and do some research- find the best that you can afford or stretch just a little above to get someone really amazing. Every penny spent on images you will have for the rest of your life is a smart investment.
There are so many caveats to this post- so many glorious tangents that I could spin off into, but here's a bullet point for the sake of length:
- Don't underspend on wedding photography, but don't overspend either
- Don't book a photographer solely on price
- Don't think for a second that people will actually remember marshmallows
- Do review a photographer's work and imagine yourself in it
- Do be reasonable with your expectations
- Do reach out to the photographers you like and start a dialogue. I love to talk with my clients, before, during, and after they work with me. Photography is about relationships, so why not like your photographer too?
- Do ask questions- and often. Make sure you know what you're getting.
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And here's some pretty to look at... because what's a blogpost without prettiness?
For information about Munro Photography and wedding packages, please visit www.munrophotos.com or contact Laura at lashmunro@yahoo.com
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