How can they copyright part of you life?

So one of the interesting things about planning a wedding is all the different way people try to fleece you. If you do a quick Google search you will find that the average cost of a wedding is anywhere from $20-30k. Everywhere you look there is something else to spend money on. In fact the wedding industry – I find it amusing that it is even considered an industry – now represents multiple billions of dollars per year. Whether you are having a big church wedding or a theme wedding there are plenty of places to cater to you. I fully expected some of the items to have high costs, the ceremony and reception site of course, the rings, and the catering. But beyond these you still need to purchase invites, a cake, a dress, garter belts, rent a tux, you need to hire someone to perform the ceremony, hire a DJ, and hire a photographer. What amazes me is that most of the people think nothing of charging $1000 to start. In fact, talking to many of my friends they hired people that cost 6 times what I expect to pay for some of these roles.

What really amazes me about these costs though is how matter of factly these people will tack on fees like it’s expected. ‘Oh yeah, well if you actually want me to play music it will cost more’ or ‘well if you want me to stay the whole night that will be an additional cost’. But the one part of this that really has struck a cord with me is how much the photography costs. Most photographers won’t even show up for less then $500 then there is an additional charge for more than 2 hours of work, and then you still have to buy the photos. Most start there wedding packages at $1200 bucks and the price goes up from there. I understand the idea of paying someone to dedicate their time to just taking photos. I also understand that professionals have high overhead just in the equipment that they keep. But for the most part I do not see anything that special in the actual photos that they take. Most are pretty standard that anyone with a good eye can take.

Yes, some of the benefit with hiring a professional is they will typically color balance and adjust the photos after the fact. They will also help you pick the best proofs and can provide scrap books and other extras – of course all of this is for an additional fee! Where I feel they pull a dirty trick however, is the fact that you do not own the photos at the end of the day. You paid them to shoot your wedding and prepare the photos but they retain the copyright. You are the subject matter but they own the results. Therefore you have to go through them for all of the prints. And of course you guessed it – those are at additional cost and at a premium. One photographer that we visited with fully admitted that he didn’t process, print, or physically create any of the final products. He did them on-line and sent out for them. The software he used is widely available and honestly does half the work. So why then do we need to pay the man $400 to show up $300 to stay for most of the event and then we can only have the photos if we continue to shell out.

Now this was one of the cheaper photographers, many of those I found easily cost four times this much. When you are only looking to get 3-4 really good shoots this seems a little excessive. I know this is a day you treasure your whole life but that certainly doesn’t mean you have to throw money out the window. We are going to play it a little riskier. We have hired a college student whose artist photography we admire. We pay her hourly and pay for her to rent the equipment needed. After that she will give the photos on CD or DVD and we can take them to Pro-ex ourselves to be printed. As long as she gets a couple of shoots that we can make 8 x 10s for the family we should be happy. And on top of it we get the copyrights to our own lives upfront!