Budgets

[Mike Grant]

Elsewhere on the internet, i saw a comment from a wedding photographer saying that still pictures should be 10% of the couple's total wedding budget. Are there any rules of thumb for pricing video?

[Louis Maddalena]

I've never heard of such a thing.

But I guess 10 for photo 10 for video 15 for food 25 for DJ 30 for Hall and the rest for Misc stuff could sound about right to me.

Edit: Assuming it is a cheap wedding where they dont' go overboard and stick to a a pretty cheap wedding with about a 30k budget. I wouldn't expect photo and video to get 10k if they went to a 100k budget nor would i expect the DJ to get 25. I guessed percentages based on the average cost of a wedding and my average cost for my company.

[Travis Cossel]

Video at 10% and a DJ at 25%? Not on my watch! d;-)

I'm work longer than the DJ on the wedding day, and I have plenty of work left to do after the wedding, so I better not be making less than half of what the DJ is making.

[Louis Maddalena]

The DJ's I work with have a lot more people... the last wedding I did it was just me but they had the the MC, a few dancers, 2 DJs who actually did the mixing on the music. The person who ran the video screens, they had a cheapy point and shoot photographer to put those pictures on the video screen, and they did all the lighting and decorating of the place. It made sense to me that he was making more than me.

[Travis Cossel]

Well, I suppose if having a DJ means having 2 guys mixing, dancers, a video screen, and custom lighting .. that would make a difference. I'm used to "DJ" meaning 1 guy shows up with a laptop, some speakers and some small lights, and works for maybe 4-5 hours.

[Don Bloom]

I don't really think there's a set formula (for lack of a better term). I've done 10k weddings where I got more than the photog and DJ combined...video was THAT important to them. On the other hand, I've done 100K weddings where my services were a complete afterthought and probably got 1/2 of what the photog or DJ got. It really depends on how important video is to the client and of course what they are looking for. If they simply want someone to document the day or if they want someone who can take their day and make a "hollywood" production.
A question(s) I always ask is something along the lines of "what type of coverage are you looking for, what do you expect from the video?" If all they want is a doc style record the action as it happens fine, if they want more that's fine too, but please tell me so I know what I need t odo and charge. It might be more than the standard charge. Additional cameras and operators, more editing, whatever. Generally in my area the typical wedding runs about 30K-DJs get about 1K to about 1500, photogs anywhere from $900 to 3K and video anywhere from $6 or 7 hundred to 4K. It's the client. Some value video way more than photography, some don't.
Don

[Chris Davis]

Originally Posted by Mike Grant

Elsewhere on the internet, i saw a comment from a wedding photographer saying that still pictures should be 10% of the couple's total wedding budget.

Ever heard of "Lather, Rinse, Repeat"? Do you think that advice came from a panel dematologists after years of research? Heck no - it was made up by some shampoo marketing person as an attempt to double sales.

You did not read a "rule of thumb", you read a made up factoid. How's this for a rule of thumb: "You should expect to pay your videographer twice what you pay your photographer."