Someone is *wrong* on the internet!

 

Jenna here!

Holy freaking doodle, have you seen the interwebz today? It’s blowing up (at least in my little corner of the wedding blogosphere) at a bride in Puget Sound having some serious issues with the price of wedding photography. Now far be it from the Details crew to ignore pressing current issues, so here’s her post (and the link in case the resolution isn’t great: http://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/evs/2804332414.html) :

 

I’ve seen a ton of responses about this today – ranging from the costs of being a wedding photographer (numerous and sort of astounding), to the time a wedding photographer actually spends on a client (WAY more than you think they do – trust me), to the dreaded wedding hangover (no joke, every single wedding leaves most vendors feeling like we’ve been hit by a collective Mack truck.). All very awesome, very valid points.

But from me, you’re going to get a slightly different point, which I personally consider to also be valid and awesome. What are your memories worth to you? You say you’ll remember it – You won’t. I promise. For the hundreds of hours that go into planning your day, it will be over before you can blink.

My photographer captured about a zillion moments I don’t remember. I could go through my pictures and point out every moment I don’t remember, but we don’t have that kind of time. So instead, a little secret for you: I do not remember my husbands face as I walked down the aisle. I remember trying to blink away ecstatic tears, I remember my dad telling me he loves me, and I remember trying really hard not to fall on my face as I walked pretty much blind, but I couldn’t see through the tears well enough to see the look on my husbands face. And what’s worse, I didn’t know I couldn’t remember it till weeks later as I sat replaying my wedding in my head. PANIC!

Getting that one single picture back, of that one single moment, was worth every cent I paid for photography. I’d have paid double my entire photography budget for that one photo. And I didn’t get *just* that photo. I got hundreds upon hundreds of moments with the people I love.

Trust me when I say you will notice an amateur photographer fumbling for a lens. You will notice them getting way too close  or never being anywhere near you when you need a shot, and you will notice the lack of style in the shots you get back if you choose to go with a cut rate photographer who doesn’t value their craft enough to invest in it. It is an incredibly fine line to walk to be not only part of the scenery, but a source of support and to constantly see thousands of shots and angles, to decide on a split second how to tell the story of what is hopefully one of the best days of your life.

Walking that line comes with practice. Learning how to tell that story comes not only from the heartfelt place of seeing what your clients want to say, but also from the technical standpoint of knowing how to get the shots that tell the story. What is that worth to you?

I can’t tell you how many clients and friends I’ve had to comfort when they’ve made a bad choice, and it rips my heart out every single time. The craigslist post says something to the effect of “you get paid all that money for ONE DAY and it’s ridiculous.” I get where she’s coming from. I do. But think of it another way: It’s ONE DAY. If the photos and the moments aren’t there the first time, they’re gone.  Something to think about from a former bride, current planner, and constant support!

 

xoxo – Jenna (and the Details crew)