Wedding Pricing Query?

[Wayne]

I think that with the digital age and the ease with which processing many images can be done, along with the relative low cost to buy a DSLR these days, the door has been opened for many a want to be wedding photographer to get some kit and start charging people to shoot their weddings, especially without having to give up a day job to do it.

Anyone with $1500 can set up. It certainly doesn't mean they will be good or bad photographers, of course, you will get a mix, but one thing is for sure, and that is in areas where there is a saturated market like the major capital cities and larger regional areas, the weekend warriors are chewing into the fat of the professional photographer every weekend. What once was a ransom item, like CD/DVD with the Hi-res images costing many hundreds on top of standard packages is essentially an expectation item and at no additional cost for most I imagine.

The hourly $ return these days must be so much less than it was even 5 years ago for all but the prestige and well established shooters. Thing is that $ can be had as cream money for many people and as already mentioned they often charge (and publish openly) very low prices as it is their way of winning business in a competitive market. These low cost shooters are growing in number all the time, so there is clearly a market for budget wedding photography. I have no desire to get into it myself, shot 1 for a friend, and was a terrible experience that I couldn't be bothered doing again(not skilled enough either to charge for the privilege) but I have no doubt that if I were offering $1000 "No Frills" packages, I would have more work than I could actually do given the low standard/high cost shooters already operating here.