Wedding Photography: Value vs Cost

It's not all about the dollar figure. Sometimes it's about value.

For example, most of us can agree that we will spend a healthy price for durable, versatile shoes because they last so long, go with a lot of outfits, and are pretty important to something we do all day every day, walk. Most women will spend good money on a good bra. Most men will drop some serious coin on a classic suit that can be worn to weddings and funerals for years to come.

Most of the elements of the wedding day are reserved for that day alone, and therefore fall into the category for me and Brant of "Things To Not Spend a Lot of Money On." However, thanks to the advice of many friends and a lot of conversation between the two of us, we came to agree that wedding photos would endure long after the wedding day -- and would be the only vehicle for remembering the blessed day into our senile twilight years -- so it was worth it to pay the outrageous prices charged by wedding photographers.

But we weren't going down without a fight.

Brant (mostly), as well as me and Brant's mom, Linda, spent a great deal of time researching photographers. We looked at their websites, read their testimonials, compared number of hours, prices, number of photographers, number of prints, costs to have the copyright-released disk to ourselves, etc, etc, etc. Some photographers' photos looked amazing, but they charged prices we choked on to even say out loud for just 3 or 4 hours of photography. Some photographers were much, much less expensive, but they also either had less-than-impressive portfolios and/or they simply took photojournalistic pictures with their point-and-shoot cameras and no other lighting or lens equipment.

So we kept coming back to the photographer who seemed to offer by far the most value for the price. Greg Patterson Photography in Wichita will give us unlimited time and two photographers. The "unlimited time" piece is as valuable as anything. This means we know the entire day and evening will be documented and we don't have to worry if someone is running late or a child is being uncooperative or what have you. The "two photographers" is nice, too! We get Greg and his wife or another female employee, and I like this because it means someone's taking pictures of both the women and the men as we're getting ready at the church.

Greg and his +1 will take thousands of photos throughout the day, and then he will narrow down to a few hundred which will have all eyes open, no one looking stoned or stunned, etc. Then we get the proofs compiled in a book, from which we can choose to buy prints -- and Greg's per print price was lower than most of the other photographers we researched.

So while both of us still sometimes lament how much we're spending on wedding photography, we do understand the value of what we're paying for, both in terms of what we will get that day, as well as the memories we'll be able to enjoy for the lifetime ahead.