Good stuff bro.
I ask because an associate, who is a teacher, does weddings on the side but told me once that he could do weddings full time and be more than good financially. I like working alone but know I would need dependable people to cover a wedding, so that has kind of deterred me as well as potentially dealing with bridezillas. I've heard more than a few horror stories and the financial benefit isn't enough to make me want to deal with difficult people.
However, things change and it's something I've been thinking about. Thanks for the info, it's much appreciated and the vid looks really good. Keep doing your thing.
I guess if they were really poppin you could do weddings full time. I have run into plenty of photographers at weddings that do it full time. They were usually older though. I think the issue is the wedding season in a warm weather climate is from like March to October. Up north I imagine it would be shorter. So best case scenario you can consistently do weddings 8 months out of the year. I guess you could supplement other videography gigs for those 4 months. I make about 50k teaching, so that would be hard for me to give up. Weddings are on Saturday and Sunday so why not keep your M-F. I dunno. Plus I have my kids on my health insurance
To be honest, I shoot by myself. I feel like I don't make enough to have a second shooter unless they wanna volunteer. A second shooter is really only necessary for the ceremony for most weddings. To get around that as soon as the bride comes down the aisle and I get the "who gives this woman to be married" part, I go position a tripod to get a wide shot shooting straight down the aisle. If I miss anything it's just a few seconds of the prayer, which you can edit out and pick up when there is a pause and they say LORD lol. Then I move around up front with my camera to make it seem like there are multiple shooters. I might shoot 3 different angles up front in addition to the wide angle, then just switch around in post.
For toasts I just put a camera on a tripod to get the couple's reaction. I use a handheld to stay on the person giving the toast. Then just switch back and forth.
Unless you gotta be at different places at different times, those are really the most important times to have a second shooter. Everything else is manageable by yourself. Now that I say that, I might pay one of my students to do the ceremony only so I don't have to run down the isle.
Not sure what horror stories you've heard, but the brides haven't been too bad for me. The worst just wanted a bunch of editing to the highlight video, but she was happy at the end.
I say go for it, if it gets hectic then just stop. But if you have some decent gear already, you already have the tools. I skimmed your last post about mirrorless cameras and I think you know 100% more about cameras then me lol. Thanks for the compliment on the video!
Dope video and solid pricing.
We charge $1,000 - $1,500 a wedding for a flat day rate. Same turn around time as you’re doing; 2 weeks. I have a business partner so we do every shoot with at least 2 cameras.
We just got a commercial office space a few months ago. We have an audio recording room, an editing room, a small lobby, and a garage bay we use as a photography studio and space for in studio videos.
I don’t know how big your clientele is but my advice is focus on business owners that believe in the need for photo/video. Never pitch the quality of your videos. Focus on explaining/demonstrating how your service is going to increase their revenue. The customers in a video/photo business don’t understand and don’t care about your technical knowledge, or the cost of your equipment. They want results. If they spend a dollar with you they want two dollars back. I’ve always found that the customers that pay the least demand the most. It blows my mind but I’ve found it to be the truth 100% of the time. In two years we’ve worked our way into doing videos for government contractors and directly with local cities and they have been the best customers we’ve had in terms of appreciation and willingness to pay.
Thanks breh!
How long is your maximum day? Like 12 hours? How many weddings yall averaging a year?
You got the whole setup, that's whats up. Besides weddings I do birthday parties (40th, 60th, 80th etc.) or film church services, so there are not a lot of gigs I do where people are looking to make money off of the video. Except the church I guess, but they've been pretty consistent. Every couple months they book me for their special services. I have been trying to get into real estate, did we have a discussion about that or was that somebody else?
I remember somebody showing me their government videos in VA I think
. I rented this lens before, lawd have mercy I remember it being crazy sharp and colors were spot on out of the camera. I'll put some shots up as soon as I get it. Next I just need the 85mm f/1.2 L in my bag and I'm set.
