Photography Budget

Agree that it will depend upon location. We're in a big city and spent $5000 on photography, and this was considered mid-range. I would advise to keep looking around until you find someone in your budget!

Based on your profile, it looks like you're in the So Cal area? If so, look at https://www.karlverkadephotography.com/ . Karl was daughter's photographer and has now shot the weddings of at least three of her friends. His work is beautiful, he's the nicest guy in the entire world, and his prices are fairly reasonable (especially if you're willing/able to take advantage of his "paid in full" discounts). Daughter had over 11 hours of coverage, received 1100+ fully-edited photos, full-rights to all her images, a beautiful album, a multi-hour/location engagement session, etc. and I think we paid about $2700 (with the paid-in-full discount). Good luck!

We live in LA, but are getting married in Ventura County

A lot of it depends on location and experience. I see that you are getting married in California which is a rather expensive area to get married in. We got married in Scranton, PA, but our photographer was based about 2 hours away in a smaller town in PA so we paid substantially less than what we would have paid if we had booked a photographer located in Scranton. Our wedding package was $2,300. Although we got married in 2019, we got her 2019 pricing because we booked her in 2019. Had we waited a few more months we would have paid her 2019 pricing as her prices go up each year. I know when I researched photographers the venue recommended most of their basic packages started at $5,000 and up. I did a quick search for photographers near you and here are some I found that have good reviews and are less than what you were quoted.

https://www.lilyandlime.com/

https://www.eivans.com/ (they have multiple packages for photo and video that are less than what you were quoted for just photo)

https://www.georgestreetphoto.com/

Location is the biggest factor here. We are getting married in Upstate NY and it's about 2k there on average.

CA here. I'd say you could find a good professional photographer here for 8 hours for 2500 to 3500, but you'll have to look. Most of the "well known ones" are 4-5k at least, and if you want an engagement shoot or album, expect to tack on more. There are some really good photographers that haven't been featured yet in places like Style Me Pretty or Brides Magazine that are just as good though. But if you want the features ones, expect to pay over 6 or 7k

It depends on where you live. I budget about $1000.00 but the photographer that we talked to was willing to work with us. We ended up getting him bc we needed a second shooter which cost us a extra $400.00. We ended up spending $1400 for our package and we wanted. Keep looking and you will find a photographer that you are looking for (within your budget).

Wow! Glad you caught her and locked in that contract when you did. I'm getting married in NC as well, but in a smaller town, my photographer is local and I'm paying just under $1k for 6 hours, 1 photographer, engagement session and usb drive of all my photos. This price also includes the travel for my getting ready location which is out of town.

@Sophi, it's definitely a good idea to shop around, but I will say the photographer is my biggest item on my budget. I don't think many of us truly realized the cost until we started looking.