What’s happened to the Wedding Biz.

[Allan Black]

Are couples now being married without hiring a professional company or a professional wedding cameraman to video the occasion ? Is the cost now too prohibitive given the rising prices of food and housing?

I don’t know but I’m seeing people now collecting the photos taken by the guests and having professional photobooks made up, with a few produced for the family, maybe for relatives overseas. They’re easier, quicker to access and maybe cheaper than a pro video production.

This is what I’m seeing, about 12 months ago I bought the PhotoApp app, it restores old faded photos and will colour B&W stills, although not all are successful. But I’m getting better at the finer points of using this app. About 3 months ago I saw this guys negative on Quora, he’d posted it to see if anyone could ‘restore’ it. A few people had a go without success, then I had a go and after cropping, enhancing, sharpening and colouring it, I got this result and posted it. He was over the moon, she was a prominent ballet dancer who died of cancer, and the neg. was the only one he found of his wife, after a fire destroyed all his photos.

Since then I’ve got friends with collections of old faded photos who want me to restore them, for photobooks for the kids, and I’ve checked for outfits than produce them. I’m amazed in Sydney there’s over a hundred, they’re all doing it many stores offer this service but obviously go outside to get them done. Competition is intense, a book of 50 wedding photos in a book costs basically a few dollars, you do it all on line and the more books you order the cheaper it gets …