What does a wedding videographer really cost? Do I need one?

Price is always a concern when planning a wedding.

I have found through experience that videography is often the last thing on a brides budget. Often times a bride may pay well over $5,000 for a photographer and cut videography completely. Or set a budget of less than $800 and expect amazing results.

Videography can provide a different perspective than photography and really complete the days visual coverage. Video allows you to see motion and hear moments.

While digital technology has lowered the price of video production, it is still extremely expensive. Each wedding I film will cost me on average $350-600, without me being paid for my equipment and time.

These costs begin with hard drives for storage. I use the industry standard 3-2-1 backup method, which means I store your videos in 3 places, on 2 different media and 1 offsite in a cloud. Hard drives are expensive, especially ones used for editing.

On average I film about 120 gigabytes for each wedding. This cost is high but corners cannot be cut to ensure your videos will be stored safely forever.

I deliver each of my videos along with a USB flash drive for my clients to keep. This provides a backup of all raw footage and edited videos. I also keep all edited videos on google drive for added protection and backup. All of this costs monthly, and is needed for professional backup of your precious videos.

I print all videos on DVD or Bluray, creating custom covers for each bride, I then print the covers using a high quality canon printer. This costs about $100 for each wedding for 3 copies.

I host all highlight films on Vimeo. This provides much high quality than a free YouTube channel.

After these fixed costs are paid, my time must be considered. On average I spend over 80 hours per wedding between shooting, editing, travel, emails and meetings. As a professional with experience and a bachelors I aim to be paid at least $15 an hour before taxes.

My equipment is of the highest quality and costs on average $10,000 for my full wedding kit. This includes 4 cameras, 4 lenses, 4 audio recorders, batteries, memory cards, tripods and other accessories. I aim to upgrade my kit every 5-7 years to stay current with technology.

Editing is also expensive as far as computers and software. I edited on a high end iMac and need to upgrade it every 5-7 years. I use Adobe creative cloud, which is a costly monthly subscription of $60. Adobe software allows me to edit and deliver all weddings within 30 days.

At the end of the day you can probably see how my starting price of $1,250 is quit a steal. You can also see how some other videographers pricing is highly inflated.

This is the problem with the wedding videography industry. Brides think they need to spend $10,000 to get someone good and won't settle for a $1,250 videographer like me.

Or they think $1,250 is way too much and only want to pay $500. Then they are not satisfied with the results and have regrets. There is always going to be someone cheaper, especially when you consider students. After considering the costs I think my fee is very reasonable. It will allow me to slow grow my business and cover all costs associated.

If you have any questions as to what goes into your wedding film, please contact Frank@ninjamonkeymedia.com