Re: wedding videographer rates

What Ron said.

and..

Here is my limited experience:

If your primary job is not wedding videos, do not tell the bride you will give them what the local wedding video guy gives them, because of what Ron said.

Even for the guys who have a day job but do wedding videos on the side, I'm talking every weekend - they still follow the formula and charge a lot.

If you are doing this for a friend, cousin, niece etc, or for a stranger who somehow found out you may be good at this, tell them:

"I don't do wedding videos for a living. I'm not going to charge you $3500 like the other quotes you got, but you are not going to get $3500 worth of wedding video for the $1500 I will charge you. Using my sensibilities as an editor and my non-wedding production experience. Thus, your video will look very good but will be tastefully edited without wipes, motion backgrounds, cheesy animations or immediate playback at the reception. If you want those things, I am not the person for the job. But if you want a video like I would make for my own daughter or sister, then let's go."

That's what I said and did the few times I did a wedding. it is still 8 hours on your feet and 40 hours of editing.

Once you get into the price range of the top guys in your area, you had better be able to do exactly what they do and how they do it - HDV x2 cameras and lots of cheese.

Manage expectations. Go to the rehearsal with your camera. Be prepared for the reception - cake, dances, speeches with the lights on, then pitch black for dancing.

Mike Cohen