What are photographers in your area getting relative to DJs?

sawdust123 said:

When I got married the first time in the late 90s, photographers and DJs were quoting about the same amount (excluding upcharges for albums and framed copies). My daughter is getting married next year and the first few quotes she received are 2-3x what local DJs get. I know some of you here offer photo and video services in addition to DJ services. Do you price the photography more/less/same as your DJ services?

My daughter is an avid scrapbooker. She plans to make her own wedding albums. She just wants good photos to work from and given the date/time/venue, there could be some challenging lighting situations to contend with. I told her to make sure she gets the rights to her photos. What other advice would you offer her?

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Avg dj 2000-3500 for base services w high end 4000+… avg full productions are $4000 avg high end productions are 7500. Photogs on avg are $5-7k with high end 10-12k. There are some that are $15k and up and super high end photogs do have packages $25k up for clients who do 3 days of coverage (rehearsal, welcome party, and wedding day)

sawdust123 said:

So it sounds like the photogs are getting more than the DJs. Interesting. For my wedding reception three years ago, a friend took all the pics using her iPhone. They came out great. They were orders of magnitude better than the "professional" that took photos at my first wedding.

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Their days are technically longer with 8-12hrs of coverage, plus editing. The other big expense is a 2nd or 3rd shooter who get paid way more than a typical roadie. Also, with the rise of social media and brides endlessly posting content from the wedding (some even making their wedding a business expense to some extent… yes it’s doable) a high quality photographer and content creator is in more demand than ever.

sawdust123 said:

So it sounds like the photogs are getting more than the DJs. Interesting. For my wedding reception three years ago, a friend took all the pics using her iPhone. They came out great. They were orders of magnitude better than the "professional" that took photos at my first wedding.

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My take is photogs get roughly double what DJs make. $1k-$1.2k for DJs and $2k-$2.5k for photogs, at least around the Birmingham area. It was roughly the same in Nashville.

Jeff Romard said:

Top guys here are roughly $1000 for DJ's low end photographers are $2000 average $3000 there are a couple of high end in the $7500 range

There are DJ's here that will do a 6 hour wedding for $250 or so....

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$1000 for top end makes me frown...but not as much as those dumbasses charging $250

cyberphox said:

$1000 for top end makes me frown...but not as much as those dumbasses charging $250

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I won't leave my driveway for $400 for a 3 hour casual job in my zip code much less $250 for a 6 hour wedding that is 99% likely to not be in my zip code. The year the economy gets so bad that I am way over priced, not booking events, and people are booking $250/6 hour wedding DJs around here is the day I retire from deejaying and sell my gear off.

I don't know what photographers are getting paid in this area. I haven't asked a photographer what they are getting paid. My concern is what am I to be paid to do an event? That's what's important to me.

sawdust123 said:

Well, my daughter found a photographer that fit her budget and booked him. The first few she contacted would have been more than 50% of her entire budget for the wedding. In other words, more than the food or venue.

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Those weddings that they typically get are likely between $150-$500k. I know a few of those $15k+ photogs and they view $100k weddings as average. In Jersey it’s honestly getting hard to do a wedding for 150 guests at under $100k. I throw 150 guests out there cause that’s the minimum most venues want for a Saturday peak season. You have to go weekday, Sunday, or winter to get it for a lower minimum or discounted pricing.

djtaso said:

Those weddings that they typically get are likely between $150-$500k. I know a few of those $15k+ photogs and they view $100k weddings as average. In Jersey it’s honestly getting hard to do a wedding for 150 guests at under $100k. I throw 150 guests out there cause that’s the minimum most venues want for a Saturday peak season. You have to go weekday, Sunday, or winter to get it for a lower minimum or discounted pricing.

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It's crazy because last Saturday I did a wedding with 181 guests in North East, MD.

The Venue was $5,000 for the day.
They had a Buffet style dinner, and they had NO MEAT at all. It was all pastas and a Cheese Lasagna. I was surprised. Never seen that. They had 2 pastas, a cheese Lasagna, Fresh Mozzerella and Tomato, and a big giant bowl of Caesar salad. NO BREAD! It was also a DRY WEDDING. No Alcohol. To my surprise people danced to the end still! The group was Christian. Perhaps the couple were Vegan. They didn't tell me. They went out and got two 30 piece nuggets from Chic Fila for the little kids, and it was all gone by the time the kids got through the buffet line (They made me make an announcement TWICE that the chic fila nuggets were not for Adults and for adults to please not take any of the nuggets! lol) There were no appetizers or even a cheese or fruit display put out during cocktail hour. They did not even have a cocktail hour. Just a 30 minute transition period from ceremony to reception.

Anyway, they brought in canned sodas and bottled water, and sparking water was available at the bar. People still tipped the bartender they had working the event, but it didn't look like she had more than $60 in her tip bowl. I was surprised people were even tipping her for opening up canned sodas or pouring sparking water, I guess people were being generous and nice.

I overheard someone say they fed everyone for about $15 per person, and spent around $120 on the sodas/water from Wal Mart. It was a local catering company.

They spent money on a sax player who played along with me. The Sax Player drove down from Brooklyn, NY, and he was lower priced than the Sax player I referred to them to who lived here in Maryland.

This was one of my higher paying bookings this year.

It's interesting to look at the wide range of wedding budgets occurring today.

DJ Ricky B said:

It's crazy because last Saturday I did a wedding with 181 guests in North East, MD.

The Venue was $5,000 for the day.
They had a Buffet style dinner, and they had NO MEAT at all. It was all pastas and a Cheese Lasagna. I was surprised. Never seen that. They had 2 pastas, a cheese Lasagna, Fresh Mozzerella and Tomato, and a big giant bowl of Caesar salad. NO BREAD! It was also a DRY WEDDING. No Alcohol. To my surprise people danced to the end still! The group was Christian. Perhaps the couple were Vegan. They didn't tell me. They went out and got two 30 piece nuggets from Chic Fila for the little kids, and it was all gone by the time the kids got through the buffet line (They made me make an announcement TWICE that the chic fila nuggets were not for Adults and for adults to please not take any of the nuggets! lol) There were no appetizers or even a cheese or fruit display put out during cocktail hour. They did not even have a cocktail hour. Just a 30 minute transition period from ceremony to reception.

Anyway, they brought in canned sodas and bottled water, and sparking water was available at the bar. People still tipped the bartender they had working the event, but it didn't look like she had more than $60 in her tip bowl. I was surprised people were even tipping her for opening up canned sodas or pouring sparking water, I guess people were being generous and nice.

I overheard someone say they fed everyone for about $15 per person, and spent around $120 on the sodas/water from Wal Mart. It was a local catering company.

They spent money on a sax player who played along with me. The Sax Player drove down from Brooklyn, NY, and he was lower priced than the Sax player I referred to them to who lived here in Maryland.

This was one of my higher paying bookings this year.

It's interesting to look at the wide range of wedding budgets occurring today.

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The real difference comes in the way venues are structured here. Whereas you have venues where you can rent just the venue and do everything else the way you want.. here the venue handles the food, linens, alcohol, staffing etc. They control their “image” in a sense. You can upgrade the experience with say custom tables and chairs, or additional desserts, or food trucks… but that’s always IN ADDITION, not in place of. There the ones that require 150 ppl at $300 per person minimum. They tell you no more than 10 or 12 to a table meaning you need 15 tables to decorate.

When couples get engaged here, they realize really fast that all the venues function this way and turn to fb to find places that let you DIY sort of speak, to find that those options are extremely limited, if even worth it. Do I see DIY OPTIONS, yes… but they lack flow often and there’s often a weak link that affects things. For example did one this summer where the buffet line was not staffed at all and took 200 guests nearly 1.5hrs to get their food. They tried to make the buffet line super impressive w a large variety of food, but w no one assisting guests it took forever. Instead of 2.5hrs of dancing I usually get at a 4hr reception at a proper venue, they ended up with barely an hour. They tried to push for overtime but the facility put a hard stop on it.

Of course budget friendly events do happen, especially in an age where costs have gotten absurd. As long as expectations are practical there’s nothing wrong with it. For me, the money saving couples are those that try to look for off season dates or cut their guest counts where they can. Ive had more weekday weddings than ever, and my January is the busiest one yet. All of them are at higher priced venues with a couple having 400 person guest counts.

sawdust123 said:

My daughter is trying to throw an entire wedding of 100 people for under $10K (even with my help). Catering will be via taco truck (her favorite food). About half of her guests are Mormon and so not drinking alcohol. That helps keep the budget down. The venue is an old Victorian home that was once the area's only schoolhouse over 100 years ago. The property is quite nice but they provide no food or beverage services. The current owners have only been doing weddings for the last year and they are still making improvements with the plan to raise rates once they're done. The owner is doing most of the improvements himself. He kind of reminds me of Rick Ryan.

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I guess I'll say "thanks". FWIW, most of my all-inclusives end up around the $10k mark for 100 people. Incidentally also, there is a local competitor who's about 45 minutes away. Their venue is much nicer than mine and much larger. They're advertising their "successful wedding venue" (their words) for sale for $2.25 million. Their prices start $4500 up to $14000. With that kind of overhead and no ability to charge enough to sustain it, there's no way you can be successful.

Thanks for your post Ricky. I like what you said. He's the deal. You said it was Christian people attending the wedding. That explains why there was no alcohol at that wedding. You said you were surprised at how much they partied at that wedding. Alcohol doesn't always have to be at an event/wedding for people to have a good time. It's about knowing what to do so people will enjoy themselves at the event. You said they enjoyed themselves at this wedding. That must mean you did a great job.

You said the room cost 5K and the food was pasta. A caterer provided the food. You mentioned there was no meat just pasta. That tells me that the couple didn't have a lot of money to spend. So the caterer gave them what there budget called for while making a profit. So this was not a high end wedding? Glad you got to do that wedding and it went well.

Now Taso I understand you're use to normally doing high end weddings in venues that cost a pretty penny. Nothing wrong with you getting to do wedding where the bride is spending a ton of money. That's great and you are paid very nicely for the service you provide. That's great.

Just keep in mind there are venues in NJ that you don't have to spend 50K or more to have a wedding in a venue. Not every bride has big bucks to spend on their wedding. Some couples are on a tight budget and can't afford such places you talk about. So not every venue in NJ is a high end venue. Some venues are designed for people having an event who don't have a ton of money to spend. We did a wedding many years ago in a Knights Of Columbus Hall. That venue is not a place to have events any more. It's something else. It was an older couple getting married and I doubt if they spent 10k for their wedding. They might have I don't know for sure. I know they didn't spend 50K for their wedding.

My point is not every bride has a ton of money to spend for their wedding. It's about doing the best they can with what they can afford.

DJ Ricky B said:

I overheard someone say they fed everyone for about $15 per person, and spent around $120 on the sodas/water from Wal Mart. It was a local catering company.

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$15 per person is what I'm paying to my outside caterer. For drinks, they supply water & tea. If clients want soda, it's on them.