Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Photographer cost vs. quality
All this talk about issues with photographers... I am wondering if there is any correlation between price paid versus the quality of the photos received. I am not thrilled with my pro-photos at all, but we took a gamble on two "up and coming" photographers (a couple who work together) and knew this was a possibility. They were pretty inexpensive since they were new to the wedding business. We tried to alleviate the gamble by doing an engagement photo shoot, but it doesn't seem to have worked... Luckily our friends took a lot of amazing photos that will supplement our pro-photos.
Price paid: $950 for 2 photographers, 2 hour engagement shoot, 6 hours of wedding coverage, digital copies with all rights. No printed photos.
Quality: Eh. Some good shots, but a lot of bad ones. They missed a number of photos on our "must take" list. One of the photogs was being "artistic" and took a bunch of crooked photos on purpose. Like 200 crooked photos it seems... This was not an issue at our engagement shoot, which is why we are particularly annoyed -- we would have asked her not to do that if we had known. A lot of photos seem just a bit out of focus too. They did do some very nice artistic shots of details, so I'll give them that 
I'm just glad we didn't pay more for them.
So how did your photogs pan out?
My two favorite cats!
Re: Photographer cost vs. quality
We spent a crapload on photography (it was the thing that was most important to me, as I'd seen the difference with my cousins - one had a FANTASTIC photographer, where I loved dozens of their shots, and the other one had a crappy one where I considered 2 of their 250 images to be adequate.)
Our package included:
1 hour engagement session (ended up being 2 sessions of almost 1 hour each due to rain on the first time)
100 printed double-sided full color save-the-dates with envelopes
11" x 14" engagement photo (matted and professionally printed)
8 hours (on 2 separate days, due to the style of our wedding/reception) shooting by primary and secondary shooters (primary threw in an extra hour and a half for free on day-of, which was amazing!)
1 50 page GraphiStudio album, with 2 smaller size parent albums
Lots of prints in a variety of sizes, professionally printed
Proof books of 500-700 images (was actually over 800), 4 x 6" all professionally printed
High resolution disk copies and digital rights
For all of this, plus sales tax (which is 8.75% in San Diego) it was $5100. This is NOT inexpensive (although there are several higher-end photographers in the area). But I *LOVE* over 400 of our shots. And really like another 350, all of which is pretty darn amazing, since I'm not very naturally photogenic (even DH admits it after taking pics of me over the years
). It was a huge splurge, but we didn't have a videographer, and this is how we'll be able to relive the day... plus we were able to print photos and use them for Christmas presents for everyone, so it helps a bit there too 
Its funny we found are photographer on Craig's list, at first i was kinda iffy about him he only wanted 500.00 for the whole day plus e-photos. So i said what the heck after seeing his portfolio.
He was a town away which is about give or take 300 miles with constriction and he didn't charge more. we went to him for the E-photos and I must say he did A GREAT job, and he send us home that night with ALL of them to go over and pick the ones we really liked and then he touched up about 40 of them for us.
At the wedding he was great with making sure he called everyone in the party (parents and grandparents bridal party) by there right name, good just about every shoot I asked for, even some i hadn't thought of, Even saved my SAD cake which was the down point of my wedding the lady just f-ed it up beyond believe. again sent us home that night with all 800 photos he took of are little under 5hr wedding, touched up about 110 photos which was so hard to pick cause i was in love with just about all 800.
and he send us an invite to do dinner with him and his wife next time were in town cause She wants to meet us too.
He was a GREAT find for the price and will use him again FOR all are photo needs!!!
We paid just over 3K for our photographer. Our package included 2 photographers for 9 hours, $200 print credits, $200 album credit, engagement session, and a hi-res disc.
I've been a photography hobbiest for years, and got a gig as an assistant wedding photographer, so I'm pretty particular in the type of photos I like to put up on my own wall. The photographers style matching with our style was my number one priority, then I started evaluating cost.
A link to a good handful of favorites I put online:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2270836&id=30101309&l=a5878f36e8
There are a lot of talented 'up-and-coming' photographers out there, however, without a few years of weddings under their belt, they are still trying to 'define' their style of all the particular moments in a wedding day, and there are a lot!
The photographer I work for charges 4K for her "main" package that includes full day coverage. She has been photographing weddings for almost 10 years now, it doesn't matter who you are or where your wedding is, she knows EXACTLY what shots she is going to capture of every minute of the day.
Cost wise, if you want a photographer who's life passion is to always have a camera in their hand, your going to pay more, because this person doesn't have any supplementary income. If you want someone with years of experience, you'll also pay more. And these two factors will often result in great photos.
Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter
TTC Since January 2011 - We have bad spermWe paid $1800 for our photographer. This included:
Our engagement session, about 2 hours, we had to pay an additional $200 (taking our total to $2000) to get a disc of these images (88 images). I only liked about 4 of these pictures. In fact I cried when I saw our proofs I was so disappointed.
10 hours of coverage by 2 photographers the day of the wedding. We had over 1200 (this seems like a lot, but there were 200 of me getting my hair done) images posted to proof online and we should be getting those on a disc (included in package price) soon. There are a lot of images I like, but there were definitely some gaps in the coverage. I am not at all disappointed in the pictures we got, but I am a bit sad that they missed some pretty important moments.
After I get my disc I plan on e-mailing to ask if there are any of the pictures I think are missing, but I want to at least get my hands on something first! Like someone else posted on another thread, what the photographer thinks is good and what we like may be different.
We paid $2,000 for our photographer (not in Chicago area), but he totally gave us our money's worth:
-2 two hour engagement sessions in Chicago **
-Rehearsal Coverage **
-Day-of coverage: 11am - 9pm
-Rights to all photos and all images on DVD (We have 1 from each e-pic session and 6 DVDs from wedding)
-He got about 99% of shots from our must-take list even though he worked by himself and insisted on coming to the rehearsal to learn everyone's names and see how our group interacted
The ** items are items that really were not supposed to be in our package at all (our package included 1 e-pic session but in our hometown where we were wed, not Chicago). The ** items were from the $3,000 package and he must have just liked us to do them for us. Essentially we got everything from the $3,000 package except a wedding album...but since we own the rights to the files, I'm working on making our own and thus saving about $850!
Blog Sale
<a href="http://s582.photobucket.com/albums/ss262/hzswanson/?action=view
We paid $795 for 1 photog, the whole day and night, 1hour total travel time, 3 50-photo albums, and the rights to all of the photos on a DVD, no prints other than the albums.
I really don't have any complaints. I think for the odd shape of our location, she did a wonderful job. There was only so much space for her to work and we got married in the center of a circle, with people seated all around us. I think she did a good job with that.
She also met us 2 days later at our location, early in the morning, to do some shots of just Keith and I since we didn't see each other before the ceremony. That resulted in my very favorite photo of the two of us (the one in my signature). I don't know why I love it so much, but I do. It's very "us" and I think I look totally sassy in it. lol
Some of the my other favorites... (you know I'm a pip wh0re! ;-)
(Aww - my baby cousins... they look like models in a bridal magazine! Hee!)
PAYNE101510-153-2 by Keith_Tisha, on Flickr
PAYNE101510-219-2 by Keith_Tisha, on Flickr
PAYNE101510-299-2 by Keith_Tisha, on Flickr
And the guys lookin' all super cooool! :-P
PAYNE101510-320-2 by Keith_Tisha, on Flickr
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
We paid $2900 for our photographer. She has been published in the Knot and some other local wedding mags. We loved her work.
Our package included 2 photographers for 8 hours and a $2000 album credit. We own our images on our second anniversary and can have a CD-rom at that point. Fair enough I guess.
We got so many comments about our photographers - everyone loved them. The images are amazing. They were never in the way, always got the shot, and I swear I hardly noticed they were there. The only complaint is the album and print cost, even with the credit, we're looking at $1100 out of pocket for the album. Oh and they took a picture of our wedding crashers, but I'm sure they had no idea.
Planning Bio
Married Blog (seriously lacking)
I must have missed that story! Do tell!
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
Planning Bio
Married Blog (seriously lacking)
I paid 2100 for my photographer. I got 1300 wonderful pictures (ok so they werent all wonderful) but I could not be happier with our photos!! Of course there are some pics that I wanted and didnt get but that was mostly my fault because it was cold and I didnt want to stand outside anymore!
I think i got a great deal and am very happy with our photographer