Choose a Photographer Local to the Area
You can avoid additional travel fees by hiring a photographer located in the area where your wedding is held. Asking a photographer to travel, for example, 100 miles or 2 hours each way to your location will certainly incur extra fees. That said, if you find a photographer far away whose style you adore, then paying extra to allow them to travel to you is absolutely worth it. The disappointment of settling for a local photographer whose work doesn’t speak to you will never go away.
My location in southern New Hampshire makes it easy for me to travel to many popular areas such as the Lakes Region, Seacoast, Massachusetts, and the Monadnock region. Travel to the White Mountains has a modest travel fee.
Reduce Hours of Coverage
Eight hours of coverage is generally regarded as a standard amount of hours to adequately cover a wedding day. Can you do 6 hours? For a relaxed wedding where everything takes place in one location, absolutely! But you need to make sure you reduce the right hours. I recommend shaving the hours off the end of the night, rather than the beginning of the day. You want lots of photos of your details, shot in natural light in the daytime. All those pretty photos of your dress, shoes, and flowers setting the scene for the day will be invaluable once everything is quickly overtaken with guests, the food consumed, and the decorations wilted. You don’t always need photography coverage until the very end of the night. Three consecutive hours of dancing photos can be a bit redundant, and when everyone has been drinking since before noon, they may not be the most flattering photos at that point. Generally if I can cover about 1 hour of the dance party, that’s enough time to round out your wedding day gallery with after dinner coverage.
My wedding day collections are offered as 6 hour and 8 hour packages.
Hold Off on the Wedding Album
Find a photographer who offers high resolution files as part of the included package, so that you can make your own prints on your own time as your budget allows. Make sure you understand what final products will be included. Purchasing your heirloom-quality wedding album from your photographer for your 1st anniversary is a great way to free up some budget for something that will have amazing impact on your photos–upgraded flowers, perhaps?
I offer my clients a beautiful online gallery where they can download their images, order inexpensive prints, and share to social media.
