How to build your Wedding photography package
Philip Ebiner, Will Carnahan
Lesson Info
9. How to build your Wedding photography package
Lessons
What this course is about and how to succeed
01:48 2Why you should become a wedding photographer
01:32 3Business Section Intro
00:28 4Building your kit
06:00 5Where You Should Invest Your Earnings
04:30 6Will's Wedding Photography Kit
09:57Choosing Your Business name
04:50 8Action Item - Choose Your Name
00:25 9How to build your Wedding photography package
06:58 10Setting Your Wedding Photography Prices
10:16 11How to Get Your First Clients
06:54 12Talking with Clients
09:41 13The Importance of Contracts
04:27 14The Wedding business workflow
06:34 15Good Accounting Practices
02:26 16The philosophy of a well run business
03:38 17Wedding Day Overview - Schedule of Common Events
13:32 18Taking care of Business before the shooting day
02:37 19Tips for working with a wedding coordinator
03:31 20Action item - List out the key moments - Try to memorize
00:31 21Know what you will be photographing ahead of time
02:23 22Conclusion to section/ recap
01:32 23Introduction - The meat of the course
01:11 24Equipment checklist/ cleaning lenses and cameras
08:24 25Do you need an Assistant/ 2nd shooter?
05:07 26Being a second shooter
08:32 27What to wear as a photographer
05:09 28How to shoot: Getting Ready/ Hanging out
05:18 29How to Shoot: Dress/ Rings/ Bride details
10:41 30How to Shoot - Groom Portraits & Posing
09:11 31How to shoot: Groomsman
12:51 32How to shoot: Bride Portraits & Posing Interior
04:49 33How to shoot: Bride Portraits & Posing Exterior
08:14 34How to shoot Bridesmaids
12:56 35How to shoot: First Look
03:28 36How to Shoot: Posed Couples Portraits
06:34 37How to shoot: Walking down the Aisle
10:17 38How to shoot: Ceremony Coverage and vows / ring exchange
09:17 39How to shoot: First kiss and walking out
05:39 40How to shoot: Formal family and group Photos
12:26 41Action Item: Save your fav pose
01:14 42Action Item: Find inspiration
02:07 43How to shoot: Reception intro and Grand entrance
01:34 44How to shoot: Reception Details
04:55 45How to shoot: Reception Speeches and toasts
04:41 46How to shoot: Reception First Dance
06:23 47How to shoot: Reception Bouquet and Garter toss
04:46 48How to shoot: Reception Dancing and Partying
05:58 49Recap of “How to shoot”
02:47 50Introduction to Editing Section
01:25 51Photo applications and Profesional Apps
03:42 52Organize, rate, and cull
28:21 53Editing detail shots
31:42 54Editing bride getting ready
29:23 55Editing Demo: Editing Outdoor Ceremony
23:10 56Editing single portraits
52:10 57Editing Demo: Black and White editing
09:39 58Editing Demo: Stylized Editing/ Finding your editing Style
12:20 59Advice on how to edit hundreds of photos efficiently
06:01 60Exporting your photos for client/ portfolio/ print
10:05 61Delivering Digital images to your client
07:06 62Intro to Succeeding in Wedding Photography
00:48 63Being happy as a wedding photographer
07:05 64Making it as a business and sticking with it
03:14 65Getting Testimonials
01:35 66Using Social Media and networking to expand business
02:08 67How to deal with unhappy or difficult clients
04:37 68Competing with mobile phones and family/ friend photographers
01:58 69Working with other wedding vendors
03:16 70Section conclusion
00:53 71Thank you!
01:29Lesson Info
How to build your Wedding photography package
All right, let's talk about wedding photography packages. Now, this isn't necessarily something you need when you're starting out. But as you go along and as you grow, as a photographer, it's definitely helpful to offer specific packages for your wedding clients. Now I'm gonna start with something very easy, something that I have developed over time and is my wedding packages because this is how I feel comfortable about doing it. Now, I'm not going to talk about prices just yet. We're going to get to that in another lecture. But for now, let's just talk about what we can offer as wedding photographers. So I have three main packages. The packages that I have are based on hours and photos. Now, that's just something that I have started doing and I like doing. I personally do not add prints and books and other things and we'll talk about that later in more advanced lecture. But for now, you as a wedding photographer do two things. You're there for an hourly amount of time and you are prov...
iding photos later. So those are the two things we're gonna focus on. The three packages I have start with number 13 hours and 75 plus images plus an online gallery. Now I say an online gallery because I think it sounds nice and I actually deliver an online gallery through a website and that kind of allows the couple to be able to send that to their family and friends or they just know that like, oh, I can see the online gallery online. It's kind of like streaming your photography versus looking at a bunch of files. And I think that sounds nice. So all my packages will always end with online gallery. So the first package again is three hours and 75 plus images. Now I say plus images because 75 is the minimum I'm delivering. But I don't want to say minimum. I just think that that sounds kind of dark and less. I want them to understand that you're going to get 75 images and I might add more and that's where the plus sign comes in because often I do have a lot more images and we'll talk about that also later, but minimum 75 images for three hours and this package works out great for really small weddings or people who can't necessarily afford you for a long amount of time. This is also a really great package for like courthouse weddings or elopements or very quick, like just ceremony, quick reception or they only want you there for the ceremony and some formal photos. So that's why I leave that sort of three hours there. Not a lot of time for me, but you can get a lot done in three hours and you can have a ton of images probably at least 75. The second package is doubling all of that. So I'll present it as six hours, 100 and plus images and an online gallery. So this package kind of allows you to have a more full day but not a huge commitment of a day. Six hours is a really great time for you to cover the end of getting ready, some portraits, a ceremony and a very light reception. Six hours is kind of the mid range, which is why it's my second of three packages. Now, the top package is doubling it again and you can see I've sort of doubled them each one, right? I went from 3 to 6 and now I'm at 12 hours, 12 hours is a heap amount of time and I offer 250 images plus now 250 images plus over 12 hours is actually not that many photos compared to how many are going to shoot across 12 hours. Now, I know that sounds like a lot and that actually stems from my Hollywood cinema days where the average day is just 12 hours and you work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. or in a lot of cases like this, this package is for these bigger weddings where they want you to get everyone getting ready. They want to do maybe like a big uh portrait of all the wedding party. Um They need you to do uh formal photos. You have to be at a reception, a cocktail hour co uh couples photos and then a grand entrance and even a grand exit because they want you there as they're leaving the reception. So often this big 12 hour chunk uh is a huge package and it will be the most expensive package once we get into pricing. But to have it there and show that you're capable of doing that is really great. I don't get those wedding packages that often I'm not gonna lie maybe one or two a year if that. And it is a long day. 12 hours is a lot on your body and a lot on your equipment, tons of batteries, tons of cards. So we'll talk about pricing. But these are the three packages that I have 36 and 1275 100 and 5200 and 50 images plus all with online galleries. Now, these are the great wide range of what I can do. I also am gonna start offering a la carte items. Now that means you can buy me for an hour at a time or you can add hours to your wedding. Now, more often than not, I usually have someone going for the six hour package and adding two or three hours. Now, the cool thing about that and we'll talk about the pricing is that you can actually set your hourly hourly rate to be a little bit higher so that they'll pick the six hours and they'll be like, oh, we actually need you for eight. So we're gonna add two more hours and that's how you can kind of customize these packages. We can start at three and build up hours or you can start at six and build up hours. This allows us to get anywhere between three and six on the first package and anywhere between six and 12 on the second package. And I don't think I want to work for more than hours. I've never been asked to do that, but that is the highest package. The A LA carte items, not only include extra hours, but they also include a second shooter, which if it's a big wedding or they're getting ready in separate areas or there's multiple locations I highly recommend and we will talk more about that later. It also can include a social media 24 hour turnaround. Now, a lot of photographers just do this on their own, but I've decided that it is so much work that I actually added this as an A la carte item to cost a specific amount of money. Because even if you do get a 12 hour wedding and they ask for photos the next day, that's a lot of work on you after shooting an entire wedding. So you're going to need to be compensated for that. And the last thing that's a la carte, which is sort of just something that you need to know and talk about is travel costs. Now, maybe starting out you're not necessarily going to be traveling for wedding photography. But keep that in mind that, that is always an option. I think when you're starting out, it's really great to show that you're willing to travel for uh wedding photography, but you need to be compensated for that. Remember, you don't want to be spending money while you're making money necessarily, you want to make sure that you all your costs are covered for something that you're doing as a job.
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Wedding Photography