Digital weddings

[Photoeventz]

I am keen on pursuing the digital wedding concept and would be interested in what and how others are presenting to clients comfortable with digital presentations.

My approach is to post all the photos to a dedicated website within about 12 hours of the wedding and to deliver a dvd of images (made with Proshow Gold) + a flipalbum (FlipAlbum Pro) + the original files within the week. You can see a sample of my web presentations here .

For this I charge $725 for a 4 hour shoot. Do you think the pricing is about right? My post event workflow is pretty streamlined and the images are as shot. What are others doing?

I am not suggesting that the traditional wedding album is dead but there will be people who are very comfortable with this approach. What do you think is the best way to market to this group?

[csi1158]

Your business plan sounds workable and I can only offer a couple of comments. You have an excellent turnaround time for getting your photographs posted to the web. You indicate that the photos are posted as shot. Maybe spending an extra day doing some color corrections etc (if needed) would help with the final product. Can the bride and groom order images from your website?
Also I also make a DVD with about 100-150 images from the wedding. And sit down with the bride and groom to view those. That way I can get some input from the bride and groom as to what images are important to them. I often get great candid photograph that is artistically and technically great, only to find out that the picture is of Uncle Bob who is the black sheep of the family who owes everyone money and only showed up for the free cake. So this input is important to me prior to putting the album together.

[Fusion]

This seems very cheap to me - I think you're undervaluing yourself! Put your prices up!!!

Ben ;-)

[DavidBryce]

[ QUOTE ]
For this I charge $725 for a 4 hour shoot. Do you think the pricing is about right?

[/ QUOTE ]

No!!!! no where near enough, (is $725 AUSD around £300?) especially if giving the full-res images. If a client wants their full ress images from me then I charge an extra 2x the original package price.

Think about how many hours go into a wedding, not just on the day but pre-wedding discussions and then all the editing and further meetings etc

Then calculate EVERY business cost you have and im sure once you calculate how much you need to charge per hour just to cover all your costs you will realise that your prices probably need at least quadrupled.

just my opinion of course [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[MarkLawley]

First, I don't remember the conversion rate for Aus $$ to US $$, but you may be underselling yourself. Keep in mind, I do NOT know the Australian market, so I am not sure, but it seems underpriced for what you are delivering.

Second.. Why work yourself to deliver a passworded website within 12 hours? If Austrailian brides are anything like Yank brides, they are not interested in seeing photos 12 hours after the wedding [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. I think you could safely make that 48 hours and be plenty safe. Even 24 hours would give you some time and still have them about the time they first think of you again.


And... why in the world would you link all those other photographers from your site? Once you have them on your site, you do NOT want them to leave, ESPECIALLY to look at another photographer. Why *invite* them to look at someone else?

Mark

[Photoeventz]

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Think about how many hours go into a wedding, not just on the day but pre-wedding discussions and then all the editing and further meetings etc

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I have minimal contact with the B and G before the wedding - one meeting which lasts about an hour. It takes me about 1 hour to set up the website + the four hour shoot + 1 hour travel. Then 3 to 4 hours to review images + 1 hour for the flipalbum and 1.5 hours for the dvd - that's 15 hours being generous. So my $725 after allowing for expenses is still around $40 per hour, so I'm happy with that as a start-up figure while I get some experience.

I know I need to edge that up because I'm not covering future gear replacement costs - but my prices seem to be in-line with what is being charged for similar packages. So I figure until you get a real following, you have to stay with the market.

[Photoeventz]

[ QUOTE ]
Also I also make a DVD with about 100-150 images from the wedding. And sit down with the bride and groom to view those. That way I can get some input from the bride and groom as to what images are important to them. I often get great candid photograph that is artistically and technically great, only to find out that the picture is of Uncle Bob who is the black sheep of the family who owes everyone money and only showed up for the free cake. So this input is important to me prior to putting the album together.

[/ QUOTE ]

My dvd contains all the images - for a four hour shoot that's around 400 images - and it gets sent to the B&G the following week. I don't push albums (and consequently don't sell all that many) - I know it is a way to making more money by providing this service, but it takes a lot of time (which I don't currently have). That's the reason I'm sticking with just the digital presentations - quick service.

This is the direction I want to pursue as I think there could be a market for it. So my market is those that are comfortable with digital presentations and are not too fussed about a big expensive album - they are keen to share their images (thru the web) and the dvd or flip abum is sufficient for an album presentation to keep.

Here's a typical web presentation that I do Melody and Jeremy