Why $2,000 weddings are quietly bankrupting vendors
A couple sees a $2,000 wedding photography package and thinks it sounds expensive. What they don't see is the 60+ hours that go into it: two engagement session shoots, multiple planning calls, 8 hours on the wedding day with a second shooter, 20 hours of culling and editing 1,500 photos, and the album design.
After paying the second shooter, gear depreciation, insurance, and taxes — that $2,000 might represent $8/hour for the lead photographer. The wedding industry has a pricing problem, and the vendors pay the price.
The true cost of a wedding
Wedding work is seasonal, which makes it even harder to price correctly. If you only book 20 weddings a year, each one needs to carry a larger share of your annual overhead — insurance, gear, marketing, and your software — than if you were booking 80 sessions a year like a portrait photographer.
This calculator accounts for all of it: your vendor type, the full time investment per wedding, second shooter costs, and your seasonal capacity — so your package price is actually sustainable.