Thank you for your insightful information! I have been in business for over 25 years and agree about the Wedding Photography industry changing rapidly! I find in my business the biggest change is that customers do not want custom albums, even when included in the package, so they try and ask for a “credit” for the album towards the package? I have been trying to give those folks a credit toward reprints instead of an album. I have only booked a couple of Weddings using this so far. I also tend to advise customers that starting the day earlier and then leaving after the cake cutting and before the night gets too crazy will warrent much better images for telling the Wedding story, unless they are planning a great escape, such as a hot air balloon, horse carriage, etc.
Thanks again,
Clay H. Wieland

Unlimited does have its issues. We loved using unlimited photos and unlimited time. Yet when we were coming up with the timeline with the bride and groom, we simply brought up a few points to help them understand the true meaning of unlimited. If they want you there at 7 am as you head to the bridal salon, and there at midnight as you drive away, explain you are only human and the end photos will simply not be as good – nobody can realistically work 17 hours. They immediately get that. Then ask them what means the most. They really want the first dance, dance with dad, and a few candids. Yet the rest is things everyone else will get. The same goes with following them around while they sit, have breakfast, get their nails painted, etc. Once they start realistically looking at a time frame, you can get it down to reasonable levels, yet still be flexible for things that are unexpected.

The same goes with unlimited photographs. If you hand them a disk with 2000 images, its too overwhelming. Instead, we took 2000 images, and incorporated them into a multi volume wedding album. I typically would show how about half of those images would look in a series of wedding albums – portraits, wedding, reception, intimate/getting ready, etc. And a lot of my clients would buy all of those albums, using the extra images to trade out images I used they simply weren’t fond of.

The key is giving them more service – album design – and not just a shooter that hands over your concepts. They don’t know why you took some of the images if you don’t put it together in album layout.

Lori

unlimited photos I tell my couples i will take as many as i can with the time line that i am given
unlimited means there is no end to the images

another point i have been a wedding photographer for 12 years now and i hear constantly from others that have got married what is this all about giving 1000 images my brides find 500 prints a lot to look at and it takes them forever to pick for their album there are just too many I heard a couple had who was given 3000 on a disk . when do you draw the line.
as i was going through them i was gettting bored far too many iwould rather take 500 really good images than over 1000 and they can’t decide I am the one having to go through them all after wards picking out the bad ones.