[kylee]

we are looking into having a photography student shoot our wedding pics. She has some great work and we were just wondering how much we should offer to pay her ( she has asked us what our budget is) The proffesional photographers prices in our city range from $1200 and up. and we are not sure what to pay a student.

This post has been edited by TWQadmin: 28 December 2025 - 10:05 AM

[Visual Media]

That's a good question, kylee. We would need a few more details before being able to offer a definitive answer, though.

What your friend -- or a professional photographer -- gets paid really would depend on what services and finished products she's going to provide for you.

A professional's fee might include a sitting for a formal portrait before the wedding, full coverage of the wedding day, and one or more books of photo proofs (or CDs of edited digital proofs) later on. You then would make selections from the proofs and place an order, at an additional charge, for albums and prints.

Professionals will have well-established methods and suppliers for handling all that overhead. The expertise is part of what you're paying for in their price structure. A student photographer might only have a hazy idea of how to go about the process.

If your arrangement with your friend is that she'll shoot the wedding with a digital camera, and afterward simply download all the digital images to your home computer, then you could come up with a reasonable fee based on how many hours she'll be shooting, and what you agree her time is worth.

If she's shooting with film, then you need to look at what "deliverables" you'll be getting -- such as negatives or slides, proof sheets, or proof prints -- and who's going to be responsible for taking care of the film processing and expenses.

Bear in mind that a professional most likely would edit (and probably add some digital image enhancement to) all digital images from your wedding, or cull any less-than-satisfactory prints from proofs they give you. Here again, their fee structure is based on their skills and experience with those tasks.

Let me add a caveat, if I may: Your friend may be a superb photographer, with some magnificent images in her portfolio. But if she's never shot a wedding before, then you're rolling the dice on her ability to do a quality job for you at a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Years ago I was a newspaper photographer, long before getting into videography, and on the side I'd won a few ribbons at photo exhibitions. Inevitably, someone I knew asked me to shoot their wedding for them. I said, "Sure," figuring that if I could shoot events ranging from wildfires to art festivals to downtown parades, a wedding would be pretty tame.

Boy, was I wrong.

Photographing weddings requires a vastly different skill set, including the ability to quickly direct and pose large groups of not-always-cooperative people, and to work gracefully under pressure for extended periods of time. Unlike news photography, it's not a successful day if you come away with a handful of great pictures. You'd better have roll after roll of good-to-great pictures when you're done, or you've let your client down. And THEN you have hours of follow-up effort, getting all those images sorted and ready to deliver. (Not to mention coming back later to wrestle with orders of extra albums for the grandparents, two 5 x7 framed prints for Cousin Esther, a stack of wallet-size prints for the mother of the bride, and so on.)

If you hire a professional, you're getting someone who has learned the ropes in all those areas. If you hire a student, then basically they will be learning at your expense. It would be a shame if your friend discovers in the middle of your wedding day that she bit off more than she could chew.

I don't mean to be overly negative. Everybody has to start somewhere. This could be a great opportunity for you and your friend. But think carefully about the bargain you're making, and whether five or ten years from now -- as you look through your wedding pictures -- you'll be glad you saved money, or you'll wish you'd invested more.

[kylee]

Ok. to answer some of your questions, she has shot weddings before and that is the work i was refering to as wonderful. Our arrangement is that she shoot some posed shots before the wedding( not many we only have a guest list of 40) and then continue to shoot through the ceremony she would be there approx. 3 hours at the most. Then she will be editing the photos and transfering to cd. no prints or albums or anything like that.

[Visual Media]

It sounds like you've got a best-case scenario, kylee. Let me start with some disclaimers: I'm making ballpark guesses based on what you said about the market in your area. Other professionals might reach different conclusions. Your mileage may vary. Now, a few thoughts on how you might arrive at a reasonable price.

Because your friend has experience doing weddings, let's consider what arguably separates her from full "professional" status. First, there is the degree of experience. Practicing pros would have far more weddings under their belts, and there would be more competition for their services. Your friend has logged fewer weddings, and isn't in high demand (or we wouldn't be having this discussion), so you would expect to pay her less.

Second, your friend has less overhead. Even if there are wedding photographers in your area who work out of home offices, and don't have the expense of maintaining studios downtown, they likely have ongoing expenses for advertising, insurance, office phones, bookkeeping, and so on. All those factor into their price structures. Your friend probably hasn't had to worry about many of those, so far.

(Howevever, that item about insurance brings up an important point I didn't cover in my earlier post: If one of your guests trips over your friend's camera tripod at the reception and breaks a leg, who is liable? Professionals carry insurance to cover that sort of exposure. If your friend is uninsured, then the attorney for the plaintiff probably would come after you, next. Not a pleasant thought, but these things happen.)

Taking all this into consideration, what fee should your friend get?

You mentioned that the low end in your city for wedding photography starts at $1,200. I'm reluctant to pull a number out of the air, much as an out-of-town realtor would be reluctant to tell you what a fixer-upper house in your neighborhood should cost. First they would want "comparables" of similar properties, and recent sales, along with other data about the local market. One price isn't enough to go on.

With that said, it _might_ be fair (and you really have to be the judge on this) to pay your friend somewhere between 40% and 60% of what an established pro would charge for the same servces.

Now, it's possible that your friend might be delighted to do the job simply for gas money and a square meal at the reception. However, you said she does excellent work. If you offer her a fee that you can say you've carefully thought through, based on what you feel is the value of her skills as an emerging professional, I think she'll work harder for you than if you say, "Gee, $300 is all we've got left in the budget. Sorry, but it's the best we can do." You don't want her coming to you after the wedding and saying, "Here are your pictures. They're not quite what we talked about, but it was the best I could do."

People tend to rise to the level of your expectations, and your faith in them. A good fee will sugest that that you have a lot of faith and high expectations.