# "Why I Can't Shoot Your Wedding for Free"



## ACrossley

Hey guys!

I haven't been on in a while, but I wanted to share my recent blog post. I know we've seen breakdowns like this before, but I was hoping to give a detailed example. I also hope this is educational and informative rather than rude. I'd love your feedback!!!


All the best - Alisha

Why I Cant Shoot Your Wedding for Free {Part I of II}


----------



## AWphotographi

Absolutely love this ! Looks like you are doing very well for yourself as a wedding photographer. Your work is amazing !


----------



## slackercruster

Nice website. 

*Please DO NOT post or edit images which are not your own. *


----------



## tirediron

Good post; well put and clearly explained.


----------



## Designer

THANK YOU!


----------



## GooniesNeverSayDie11

I gotta admit, I rolled my eyes and thought, "here's another self-righteous blow hard", before clicking the link  .  However, the blog was very well written and not overly preachy or rude. Great job.


----------



## Aloicious

I enjoyed your blog, well written...I refuse to shoot weddings altogether personally, but that's beside the point, but this could easily apply to most any photography subject that is charged for, although weddings are probably one of the worst for people asking for free/cheap stuff...I don't think people understand how much time and effort is involved in post processing, and all the behind the scenes work that goes on.

I'm interested to see part 2 when you get it up.


----------



## D7shooter

Yeah, you nailed the heart of the matter in your explanation for sure AC. Once you do your cost analysis in any business you are able to visually see the strengths and weaknesses in production. Great post.


----------



## laynea24

Great blog!


----------



## g13a

Where is Part II ?


----------



## Forkie

Great article.  Look forward to part 2!


----------



## OpticMemory

Awesome content!!  Eagerly awaiting part II


----------



## PNWSGM

Stumbled upon this. Would love to see a part 2!


----------



## PhotoWrangler

You're doing better than we were. We did our calculations year before last and at that time we were making $15/hr. After that we created a larger package and took very intense marketing/pricing and sales classes.


----------



## shefjr

Nicely written. One thing that sticks out for me is where is Patrick's pay. You say $36/hour for you. What about Patrick.


----------



## Overkill777

Great blog, very interesting.


----------



## unpopular

30% to uncle sam???

maybe you should hire an accountant.


----------



## DiskoJoe

unpopular said:


> 30% to uncle sam???
> 
> maybe you should hire an accountant.



Yeah. Someone needs to learn the art of the write off.


----------



## PolarRoids

ACrossley said:


> *According to the detailed business calculations I do each year, I have to make $187 per hour shooting to BREAK EVEN. This doesnt include my 25-30% for Uncle Sam. If I charge $4000 for the wedding above, I first have to take the 30% off =$1200. That leaves me with $2800  but wait  I have costs. Costs for equipment, sample albums, marketing materials, software, office supplies, packaging materials, permits/ memberships, and the list goes on. The $187 per hour shooting cover this with a seven hour ceremony, I need $1309 to just cover my investment. That leaves me with a remainder of  $1491  not bad, but not as good as the $4000. Dont forget this is also for forty-one hours of work  not seven. That means, I end up with $36 an hour for my work. Curious about how these calculations were derived? Watch for Part ll! *​




Ah... beg to differ... the 1309 your claiming for marketing materials.. software.. etc.. is usually prorated over the year.. so unless your only doing (1) 4000 dollar shoot a year... that number isnt correct. Also... at the IRS rate your quoting.. you should be doing in access of 10-13 shoot per year to get into these levels of taxation.

Also.. your marketing materials.. equipment..software.. are all tax deductions.. so.. you are actually .. in a way.. getting that all for free.

So .. should you do things for free.. HECK no...

but.. *if your getting 4000 dollar wedding shoots*..

you also HARDLY the starving artist..

You dont need to work so hard to tell us you shouldnt work for free... focus on your freeloading friends and family...

(Im Just sayin.. )


----------



## The_Traveler

You've left out Patrick's hours in your calculations.


----------



## Ballistics

PolarRoids said:


> ACrossley said:
> 
> 
> 
> *According to the detailed business calculations I do each year, I have to make $187 per hour shooting to BREAK EVEN. This doesnt include my 25-30% for Uncle Sam. If I charge $4000 for the wedding above, I first have to take the 30% off =$1200. That leaves me with $2800  but wait  I have costs. Costs for equipment, sample albums, marketing materials, software, office supplies, packaging materials, permits/ memberships, and the list goes on. The $187 per hour shooting cover this with a seven hour ceremony, I need $1309 to just cover my investment. That leaves me with a remainder of  $1491  not bad, but not as good as the $4000. Dont forget this is also for forty-one hours of work  not seven. That means, I end up with $36 an hour for my work. Curious about how these calculations were derived? Watch for Part ll! *​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah... beg to differ... the 1309 your claiming for marketing materials.. software.. etc.. is usually prorated over the year.. so unless your only doing (1) 4000 dollar shoot a year... that number isnt correct. Also... at the IRS rate your quoting.. you should be doing in access of 10-13 shoot per year to get into these levels of taxation.
> 
> Also.. your marketing materials.. equipment..software.. are all tax deductions.. so.. you are actually .. in a way.. getting that all for free.
> 
> So .. should you do things for free.. HECK no...
> 
> but.. *if your getting 4000 dollar wedding shoots*..
> 
> you also HARDLY the starving artist..
> 
> You dont need to work so hard to tell us you shouldnt work for free... focus on your freeloading friends and family...
> 
> (Im Just sayin.. )
Click to expand...


Glad someone finally said this. A lot of your "costs" and time spent are greatly exaggerated and inflated.

Two hours blogging? How does that have anything to do with a specific client? 
Takes you an hour to write an email? 
The Meeting - If they're not a client yet, this time isn't towards their shoot. It's towards marketing.
Follow up takes an hour? C'mon.  

I'm surprised you don't have the time ordering equipment and making your website in with hours spent towards shooting a wedding.


----------



## PolarRoids

Ballistics said:


> PolarRoids said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ACrossley said:
> 
> 
> 
> *According to the detailed business calculations I do each year, I have to make $187 per hour shooting to BREAK EVEN. This doesn&#8217;t include my 25-30% for Uncle Sam. If I charge $4000 for the wedding above, I first have to take the 30% off =$1200. That leaves me with $2800 &#8211; but wait &#8211; I have costs. Costs for equipment, sample albums, marketing materials, software, office supplies, packaging materials, permits/ memberships, and the list goes on. The $187 per hour shooting cover this &#8230;with a seven hour ceremony, I need $1309 to just cover my investment. That leaves me with a remainder of $1491 &#8230; not bad, but not as good as the $4000. Don&#8217;t forget this is also for forty-one hours of work &#8211; not seven. That means, I end up with $36 an hour for my work. Curious about how these calculations were derived? Watch for Part ll! *​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah... beg to differ... the 1309 your claiming for marketing materials.. software.. etc.. is usually prorated over the year.. so unless your only doing (1) 4000 dollar shoot a year... that number isnt correct. Also... at the IRS rate your quoting.. you should be doing in access of 10-13 shoot per year to get into these levels of taxation.
> 
> Also.. your marketing materials.. equipment..software.. are all tax deductions.. so.. you are actually .. in a way.. getting that all for free.
> 
> So .. should you do things for free.. HECK no...
> 
> but.. *if your getting 4000 dollar wedding shoots*..
> 
> you also HARDLY the starving artist..
> 
> You dont need to work so hard to tell us you shouldnt work for free... focus on your freeloading friends and family...
> 
> (Im Just sayin.. )
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Glad someone finally said this. A lot of your "costs" and time spent are greatly exaggerated and inflated.
> 
> Two hours blogging? How does that have anything to do with a specific client?
> Takes you an hour to write an email?
> The Meeting - If they're not a client yet, this time isn't towards their shoot. It's towards marketing.
> Follow up takes an hour? C'mon.
> 
> I'm surprised you don't have the time ordering equipment and making your website in with hours spent towards shooting a wedding.
Click to expand...



You forgot bathroom breaks..... gotta get paid for those as well!...  No.. this just smells of someone trying to create an issue.. and more likely.. trying to create an audiance for her blog.. vs. really addressing an actual issue that she is dealing with. 

Often I find that some golden spoon artists.. where mommy and daddy provide.. while they explore their artistic sides.. beleive that everything they do.. they should be rewarded for.

A reasonable shoot - FLAT RATE  pricing for the Wedding.. Before.. After.. reception... should be billed...

Then you own the proofs.. and they can select what photos they want in what quantity..at a pre agreed price. 

If a photographer.. that is UNESTABLISHED.. said he/she needed 4000 dollars to shoot my wedding..  the laughter coming from me would fog their camera lens for a good week. We all are worth something...  just be sure one uses maturity to determine that amount.... not arrogance.


----------



## The_Traveler

PolarRoids said:


> *Often I find that some golden spoon artists.. where mommy and daddy provide.. while they explore their artistic sides.. beleive that everything they do.. they should be rewarded for.
> *
> A reasonable shoot - FLAT RATE  pricing for the Wedding.. Before.. After.. reception... should be billed...
> 
> Then you own the proofs.. and they can select what photos they want in what quantity..at a pre agreed price.
> 
> If a photographer.. that is UNESTABLISHED.. said he/she needed 4000 dollars to shoot my wedding..  the laughter coming from me would fog their camera lens for a good week. We all are worth something...  just be sure one uses maturity to determine that amount.... not arrogance.



Why the unpleasant _ad hominem_ comments? 
If the model is wrong or unreasonable then you can point to those but attacking someone you know nothing about just to score a point is certainly unprofessional.


----------



## Ballistics

The_Traveler said:


> PolarRoids said:
> 
> 
> 
> *Often I find that some golden spoon artists.. where mommy and daddy provide.. while they explore their artistic sides.. beleive that everything they do.. they should be rewarded for.
> *
> A reasonable shoot - FLAT RATE  pricing for the Wedding.. Before.. After.. reception... should be billed...
> 
> Then you own the proofs.. and they can select what photos they want in what quantity..at a pre agreed price.
> 
> If a photographer.. that is UNESTABLISHED.. said he/she needed 4000 dollars to shoot my wedding..  the laughter coming from me would fog their camera lens for a good week. We all are worth something...  just be sure one uses maturity to determine that amount.... not arrogance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why the unpleasant _ad hominem_ comments?
> If the model is wrong or unreasonable then you can point to those but attacking someone you know nothing about just to score a point is certainly unprofessional.
Click to expand...


I agree. Personal attacks aren't appropriate, the rest of his post is though.


----------



## Tee

PolarRoids said:


> No.. this just smells of someone trying to create an issue.. and more likely.. trying to create an audiance for her blog.. vs. really addressing an actual issue that she is dealing with.



She's driving traffic to her site.  Around this time of the original post there was an article on The Knot telling soon to be brides to go to flea markets to practice their haggling skills with vendors, to tell photographers they can get someone else at a better price and to always haggle for a discount. The Knot ended up deleting that entry and rewrote the blog after the cyber war cry was heard.  This created an uproar and thus many wedding bloggers went apesh!t and started their own cost breakdown posts.  I'd wager when she checks her weekly analytics, this referrer will show up and she'll remember she had posted this on here.  When she does, she'll see my question of why she doesn't post more of her business triumphs and tribulations for other new photographers.


----------



## paross2

This was a good read. I can't wait to read part 2!


----------



## rmr1923

Very well written, I knew a lot of hours went into shooting a wedding but I had no idea it could be as much as in your example.  Makes me REALLY appreciate my aunt for shooting our wedding free of charge.


----------



## nycphotography

Of course it's a 6 mo old thread dug back up... the last time I saw "this" it was on a different blog (it seems this idea's been rehashed a few times w/ a similar spin), but it still suffered from the same issues....

While I agree with the concept, the numbers are complete hogwash.

First, you don't pay 30% taxes on the Gross, you pay em on the net.  IF you have lush extravagent expenses, then you won't have that much net, plus you probably* won't be paying 30% on it either (lower tax bracket).

If you have tight control over expenses, then you'll have most of that gross as net, but you'll ONLY pay the 30% of it, since you won't have the expenses.

So even if I grant you your lush extravagent $1309 in expenses, you're still making (4000-1309)/41 = $65/hr.  Yes it's pre-tax, but that IS the number we ALL compare when we talk about jobs and wages.  To try and pull an after tax number out for discussion just smacks of being intentionally disingenuous.  

*So let's compare that $65/hr (net profit / gross income) that you're complaining about to some national statistics.*

The national average wage in 2011 was 42,000 / 2000 hrs = $21/hr.  Hm.  You're sitting on 3x that.  Hm.

How about the national median wage for 2011.  That was 27,000 / 2000 hrs = $13.50/hr.  *Just to be clear about this... you're complaining about making roughly 5x as much as HALF of all working Americans, basically, as an artist.*  Granted, weddings are hard work, so you're a HARD WORKING artist.  But still.  Get real about the numbers here.  Plus, I'm pretty sure those half of all Americans work pretty hard for their $13.50/hr too.


*IF* I was shooting weddings, *and* someone wanted to negotiate on my $4000 price, I'd simply tell them that there are 20 wedding weekends a year, with 40 wedding dates in them, but realistically, I can only shoot Saturday or Sunday in a given week, but not both.  I have to make my entire living on those 20 days of shooting.  If you want me to do it for $2000, all you have to do is get married in October.  If you want me to do it for $1000, just get married in Hawaii in January and pay my travel expenses.


----------



## bogeyguy

I'm sure when the OP is done paying not just her Federal taxes, but state taxes, city or boro wage taxes, busniness privelege taxes , etc.that the final total is in the 30% bracket.


----------



## bsinmich

As a self-employed person she has to pay SS and both parts.  That just went up on Jan. 1 for this year but that was from a tax cut? that was given bycutting the SS contributions.  Now it is back where  it was a couple years ago.  30% is not an unreal figure if you include alltaxes.  We still  haven't heard about Patrick though.  Does he donate his time?  I did weddings back in the early 60s and chcarged $3-400. for a wedding  with 12-18 8X10s in an album.  That was all on 120 and 220 filmafter that came out.  I would shoot 48-96 pictures and I never had anyone who did not want more than the original 12 or 18.  I then had to print  it all in the darkroom because it was all B&W then with 1 or 2 oiled for color.  I did close to 100 weddings per year as a part time job.  My Granddaughter got married this past summer and she had over 900 pictures to choose from.  Things have changed.


----------



## bratkinson

Unfortunately, we don't pay 11% or less federal tax rate like the filthy rich do. 

Using Year to Date information from my last paystub for 2012, fed, state, FICA, Medicare together took 21% off the top. Double the FICA and Medicare expenses as self employed persons are required to do, you're at 26.5% to taxes! Note that my weekly income is significantly less than the $4000/wedding (per week?, 52 weddings/year?) and I have a significant number of fed and state deductions claimed due to my tax situation.

OK, the OP can deduct documentable business expenses over the year such as depreciation of capitalized equipment, car mileage, miscellaneous expenses such as hardware and software upgrades to accomodate the new Canon 5D3 RAW files, even clothing costs and home office deductions (better have lots of irrefutable PROOF for the IRS!!! (been there, done that!)). Did I mention individual medical insurance costs? If you haven't paid for group-of-one (or family) medical insurance, you don't know what ROBBERY is!!! 10 years ago, at age 55, I was self employed and paid a whopping $755/mo for single medical coverage. If I had a wife and one child as well, $1800 or so, as I recall!

So have we knocked off $300-400 of that $4000 (weekly?) income? If only 1 wedding per 2 weeks, the non-wedding-specific costs will still double ($755/mo ins x 1/4 if weekly, x 1/2 if bi-weekly, etc). 

In short, unless one has done 'time' as self-employed, 'pot shots' at various costs associated with self employment can only be treated as fully meaningless.

And by the way, Mleek posted several very informative discussions about pricing and cost of doing business a couple of months ago...http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...-its-not-answer-what-do-i-charge-for____.html 
and
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...g-your-codb-your-hourly-rate.html#post2758677


----------



## pixmedic

how about this...

I cant shoot your wedding for free  because I don't want to.


----------



## nycphotography

Everyone wants to debate the tax rate and the expenses, yet NOBODY has been willing to address the fact that you only pay taxes on net, not gross, nor the fact that even using the numbers given for both taxes and expenses, she's still making 5x the national median wage and whining about it.

Hmm.


----------



## TwoTwoLeft

Boo F'n hoo... 

That's what she chose to do for a living. She can always sell off her gear and go to something else if it's really that bad!


----------



## jwbryson1

Her website is down, expired, kaput.  Anybody know the OP so this can go back up?


----------



## Mully

When photographers sell their talent and work for cheap ...it gets cheaper and cheaper and that is why it is hard to make a good living today for most photographers.  I have watched this process over the last 40 years which is longer than most of you have been on the planet... In the film days before PS you had to nail it so the learning curve was greater .. today it is easier to get started but so many wanting to do photography the opportunities are less. There are a lot of weekend skimmers that try to take the cream off the top without the real commitment of a full time business.......... *So when do you do a wedding for free.... when your mother gets married a second time. ....*


----------



## kokonut

Hey nice job. You article is really interesting and I love your wedding photos.


----------



## juliarvil973

your picture is really beautiful. it's so lively. as a wedding photographer, you are doing such great work


----------



## aponi

I hear ya, people are like this with everything though. My mom is a tax accountant and people will come in with the proverbial shoe box full of receipts and then when they get her bill get all huffy about how they could have bought TurboTax for $50 and done it themselves. Yea right


----------



## PremOutshine

I went through the blog. Did you really click those pictures?? I loved it. Fabulous job.   Definitely, you can shoot my wedding for free.


----------



## PremOutshine

Nice pictures.


----------



## 2WheelPhoto

Nice post OP, thanks!


----------



## Greiver

jwbryson1 said:


> Her website is down, expired, kaput.  Anybody know the OP so this can go back up?



It's up.


----------



## Ballistics

Greiver said:


> jwbryson1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Her website is down, expired, kaput.  Anybody know the OP so this can go back up?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's up.
Click to expand...


That post is 2 months old lol.


----------



## rivercityphotography

I like that article a lot! good job.


----------



## Ballistics

Ok so, I did a pretty elaborate CODB estimate in my business class specifically for photography if I started a business today. 

The total CODB out of my home, is 1466 a month or 17,600 a year. This includes things like, advertising, communications, gear repair, taxes, insurance etc.
and NOT including deductibles. 

If you are doing weddings at $4000 a pop, you couldn't break even if you tried. You would have to shoot 1 every 2.5 months to be even. 
And at that rate, there's a lot of costs that would be lower, so you would be ahead.

This article is, how the Brits say, rubbish.


----------

