Budget for Photographer

BridetobeABCD · October 30, 2012

Brides to Be: I am looking into photographers and videograpgers for my wedding. What would you say would be a reasonable budget to set for a photographer and a videographer?

ChocoTaco7568 · October 30, 2012

How many hours of coverage will you want on your wedding day? Will you also do aTTD shoot?

BridetobeABCD · October 30, 2012

I was thinking perhaps 6-8 hours. What do other brides suggest? I would also like to do a TTD session!!

ChocoTaco7568 · October 30, 2012

I think hours of coverage really depends on the bride and groom and what they want captured. The size of your wedding is also a factor. I will have about 30 guests and am spliting 6 hours of coverage between my wedding day and a TTD shoot.

As far as budget, I think a respectable allowance for Cancun/Riviera Maya is +/- $500 and hour. Seeing that your wedding is in 2014, the quicker you can contract a photographer the better as their rates can increase to stay competitive and as they perfect their craft.

RNtoBe · October 31, 2012

I was willing to have a higher budget for a photographer because the photos are important to me. When everything is said and done that is all you will have and I didn't want to be disappointed in the quality of the photos. It also depends on what type of pictures you want, like getting ready, ceremony, reception, trash the dress, etc. If you want to use a local photographer in Cancun google some sites and look at what their rates are. Hope this helps.

FireyNurse · October 31, 2012

I also think if you know the style you like best it will be easier to search for a photographer, there is a wide range of prices so having an idea of what you want to pay is great as well - you can pay much less than $5,000 or more than $15,000 - depends on what you prefer.

We have hired Juan Navarro (i LOVE his pictures and his prices are also fantastic) and we later decided to do videographer so we hired PlayaWeddings for that as we wanted a specific style of video. We hired both for 5 hours. Our ceremony is at 3pm, reception starts at 5:30 and we didn't care to have pictures of the whole night of partying so we went with 5 hours so that our toasts/cake cutting and dance were covered but that is it for the reception really. With Juan we also are doing a TTD the day after the wedding. Photography/Videography is the most expensive part of our entire wedding, even more than our travel is costing the two of us, but pictures are that important to us so we are willing to pay the cost!

Good luck in your search!

Cheers!