Where have all the wedding videographers gone?

[David Barnett]

Yeah for $450 I'd guess its single camcorder, very little post/editing. If you do it right I suppose it could be an ok setup so long as your customers aren't expecting much. Could be a 2nd revenue stream like a side job (weekend warrior) or the hubby works M-F while she cares for the kids & then she runs out & make a decent wage for essentially 1 days work.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Danny O'Neill

Everyone is holding out for 2020 dates.

They are holding out for a long time then as numbers have been in decline since 2012.

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

They are holding out for a long time then as numbers have been in decline since 2012.

Overall weddings may be in decline, but we have seen a gradual increase in our bookings to our highest levels. At the moment 2019 is slightly down on last year at the same time, but early days as yet and we have a lot of wedding shows still to go. Danny might well be right on 2020 though as we are getting more enquiries than usual for that far ahead.

Roger

[Noa Put]

Is getting a lot of requests for wedding video and or photo also not for a bigger part a result of targetting budget brides who don't have the budget for paying more then 1K for video or even video/photo combined?

I increased my price every year and the number of requests go down because of that, if I would lower my price by 50% the number of requests would triple.

From experience I know that the budget bride market in my country is huge, that can result in getting a lot of requests if your price is low enough but also a lot of work you have to put into it for a lower rate per hour.

[Steve Burkett]

It's not quite as simple as that Noa. I've had budget Brides pay over £1100 for my combined service for a Wedding in a village hall, whilst a Bride getting married in a plush stately home having spent a fortune on the Wedding have booked my cheapest package.

A few years back my bookings were bad. However with marketing I've turned that around. Budget Brides are not easy pickings and a low price doesn't guarantee an easy ride.

Hourly rate depends on the hours you put into each Wedding. Someone offering a 20 min cinematic movie may spend more time than I working on a 2 hour documentary edit. I spent no more than 2 hours on a 5 minute Highlight video. I imagine those charging almost £2000 to put in more hours than that for such a cost.

[Noa Put]

I think a lower price and combination packages tick a lot of boxes too, like offering video and photo combined, or adding interviews or like I believe you do, marryoke or droneshots etc. The more you cram into one package at a affordable or low enough price the more chance you"ll have people want to book you.

If you charge a few Thousand for just one 5 minute film then they won't be lining up at your doorstep.

[Rob Cantwell]

Thanks for the offer Roger and the input Chris, but I'm just not going to join Facebook, I suppose I should do more marketing but at this stage, I'm tempted to let it fade, probably burnt out at this point.
I used to offer combined packages Photo/Video but it was too much for one person. The problem here is that the photographer scene has reached over saturation, lots of peeps buy a black camera and boom! your a photographer! These are the people who'll undercut to such an extent that their working for very little, I had it before where a bride before we finalised a agreement said, can you match a all day gig for €200, I told her to jump at it, I don't know what she got in the end.
Undercutting isn't so prevalent in the video end of things, I think because equipment costs a lot more and editing skills are more demanding. I've seen photogs arriving with just one camera! no backup no tripod some using on-board flash!
But still having done some research locally many seem not to be bothering with video.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I think a lower price and combination packages tick a lot of boxes too, like offering video and photo combined, or adding interviews or like I believe you do, marryoke or droneshots etc. The more you cram into one package at a affordable or low enough price the more chance you"ll have people want to book you.

If you charge a few Thousand for just one 5 minute film then they won't be lining up at your doorstep.

Marryoke aren't what they were. They've tailed off quite dramatically. That's what happened 2 years back and not my bookings hard.
As for Drones. It's an expensive add on for my packages and not necessarily granting me extra bookings. I'm doing no better than last year. At the moment I'm using it as a freebie, surprising the couple often when they see the footage. I only first starting flying it start of March. Official Bookings I have for it come later in the year, though the first ironically is for a village hall wedding in June. At the moment I'm practising as much as possible. Hence couple get it for free for now.

Most of my Weddings are just standard filming. In fact I've cut back on the extras i throw in or made them chargeable.

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Rob Cantwell

Thanks for the offer Roger and the input Chris, but I'm just not going to join Facebook, I suppose I should do more marketing but at this stage, I'm tempted to let it fade, probably burnt out at this point.
I used to offer combined packages Photo/Video but it was too much for one person. The problem here is that the photographer scene has reached over saturation, lots of peeps buy a black camera and boom! your a photographer! These are the people who'll undercut to such an extent that their working for very little, I had it before where a bride before we finalised a agreement said, can you match a all day gig for €200, I told her to jump at it, I don't know what she got in the end.
Undercutting isn't so prevalent in the video end of things, I think because equipment costs a lot more and editing skills are more demanding. I've seen photogs arriving with just one camera! no backup no tripod some using on-board flash!
But still having done some research locally many seem not to be bothering with video.

I think it totally depends on how you go about your promotion and what sort of quality you offer. We go to great pains to show our work to potential clients, and ask them to compare it with other suppliers. If you are losing work to £200 photographers, then either you are overvaluing your work, or the client is not aware of the differences between yours and the £200 tog. Or of course they just don't care. It doesn't really matter how much or little you charge, there is always a client base for your price range, you just need to talk to those people. If folks wanted a Bentley they wouldn't buy a Ford.

Roger

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Is getting a lot of requests for wedding video and or photo also not for a bigger part a result of targetting budget brides who don't have the budget for paying more then 1K for video or even video/photo combined?

I increased my price every year and the number of requests go down because of that, if I would lower my price by 50% the number of requests would triple.

From experience I know that the budget bride market in my country is huge, that can result in getting a lot of requests if your price is low enough but also a lot of work you have to put into it for a lower rate per hour.

Our prices range from £795 to £1495 and I consider that a mid range price in the region we live. We don't deliberately target any budget brides but our prices are always on view, so some with a lower budget may want to see what they get for what they consider our higher price, and others looking for a higher price may also look at what they see as our lower one. We get clients from a huge range of wedding budgets ranging from £100K weddings down to £5K weddings. What they are all interested in is the quality of our work in relation to their own expectations.

I also think that the rate per hour is a red herringt as it is my annual income that I am interested in and how much leisure time I get. I usually allow 1-2 weeks to edit a wedding, so you could argue that amounts to 2x40 hour weeks or 80 hours. I would argue that I might actually only spend 10-15 hours editing during that 2 week time slot. If it's a nice day we might decide to go off to the coast, or go camping, maybe some decorating. What is important is maintaining your quality of life and income whilst having total freedom to work as you want.

Steve said that he has 90 weddings booked this year, he could triple his price and get less weddings for the same income, or maybe quadruple them and get even less and more leisure time. The one thing that is easy to forget though is that losing one wedding from a very small number of high earners is a big hit. Steve losing one from 90 makes little difference at all!

Roger

[Noa Put]

Steve said that he has 90 weddings booked this year

90 weddings in a year? That would mean almost having to edit and finish 2 weddings every single week for an entire year and not being able to finish each wedding before the next starts could give you a backlog you never could recover from if the next year is equally busy, surely there has to be a dedicated second editor to handle such a workload? Or what if you break a leg, hopefully Steve is not a single shooter. :)

The one thing that is easy to forget though is that losing one wedding from a very small number of high earners is a big hit

The deposit those high earners ask is probably higher then 1K, that they keep anyway if the client cancels the wedding. If all their clients would cancel in a year their income might still be higher then what most of us have to work a full year for :)

We get clients from a huge range of wedding budgets ranging from £100K weddings down to £5K weddings.

The 5K clients are on a budget so it's expected they will look for a cheaper weddingvideo but the 100K ones could easily pay you 10K for a film instead of 1k, for me it means they don't value film that much, I bet that in most cases they are paying 3 to 4 times as much for their photographer.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

90 weddings in a year? That would mean almost having to edit and finish 2 weddings every single week for an entire year and not being able to finish each wedding before the next starts could give you a backlog you never could recover from if the next year is equally busy, surely there has to be a dedicated second editor to handle such a workload? Or what if you break a leg, hopefully Steve is not a single shooter. :)

No 2nd editor. Some of those Weddings are handled by a 2nd shooter - 8 of them. Some of those 90 are parties, few are Marryoke only, 1 is filming only - couple are editors themselves, some are Highlights Videos with Uncut Ceremony and Speeches. Some are just a Ceremony.

That said, if I have 4 or 5 days in a week to edit, I can edit 3-4 Weddings a week. Today for example, I started and finished editing a 45 min party video from the 20th April, a Ceremony and Speech from the 29th April and a long 90 minute video of an Indian Ceremony from the 20th April. Though haven't quite finished that last one.
Plus edited Guest Messages from another Wedding and created DVD Menu and Covers for 2 Weddings in readiness for final delivery - last ones to send out from my 2017 work. Oh and met up with a client in a pub to talk about their Wedding. Plus worked on some change of address forms for my banks and a few others (I moved just over a week ago), chased up some repair work and answered a tonne of emails (they were on fine form today - 4 enquiries). All in all a typical day for me. You should see tomorrows schedule :)

[Danny O'Neill]

We've got a blog post coming up soon about the state of weddings here in the UK.

Using Google trends we are able to see the lay of the land.

For the past 5 years the number of searches for wedding videographer has only been increasing.

However. Wedding photographer has been on a steady decline and our photographer friends have reported around 30% less bookings lately.

Looking at other wedding related searches one of the biggest hit are wedding blogs. Google searches for them are half of what they were in 2012 as people move to social media for their wedding copying... Sorry, I meant 'inspiration'.

A good guide on how weddings are doing in general is the search for wedding dresses. This is the no1 wedding related search term and one every single bride will put into Google the moment she says yes. This is also suffering from lower volume. Almost half of 2012 levels.

But, video searches remain on an upwards trend.

But, most of our work comes from photographer referrals. Who are all down themselves.

Other interesting trends. Same sex and gay marriage are no higher. They peaked when the law was passed and quickly dropped back down.

It's not necessarily a budget issue. Searches for 'budget wedding whatever' are not up.

[Noa Put]

It's not necessarily a budget issue. Searches for 'budget wedding whatever' are not up.

Ray Roman claimed a while back that his highest paying weddings where all in the UK and his startingprice is around 10K, Philip white is also one of a few UK wedding videographers that seem to be doing very well financially so to me it looks there is a (small) market for high end weddingvideography in the UK.

In Belgium that market is a lot smaller, the only way to get involved with big budget clients is to team up with weddingplanners that attract these type of clients, you will have to pay them a commision for every referral but they can guarantee more exclusive clients who get married in this country or most likely abroad.

Most of my referals also come from photographers, the good ones are booked full every year and from what I have heared they have not noticed any decline.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Danny O'Neill

Other interesting trends. Same sex and gay marriage are no higher. They peaked when the law was passed and quickly dropped back down.

That's hardly surprising as there will have been pent up demand from all the same sex couples who had been waiting 10/20/30/40 years for the law to change so they could get married.