H2B found a videographer - great price; reduced from £695 to £495.
We watched the DVD; really good quality and seemed to do what we wanted.
So I thought, I'll book him, but I'll just read the small print first...
Let's just say, once I'd finished adding all the little extras and VAT it came to £915!!!

So, we won't be booking him after all.

surely the prices shouldnt be hidden in the small print! shame it was too good to be true hun, good luck in the continuing search

I'm not sure prices should be in the small print, that sounds a little underhand to me.

i never read small prints i better start x

well done for reading the small print hun cos i wouldnt have stupidly x

Ok so it was going to cost nearly a grand for all that, but did it actually say anywhere that the guy has to bring his camera or was that extra too?

he he I'm so dry and sarcastic :) I hate getting ripped off!

I'm so frustrated about it. We find one we like, then they cost too much; we find a cheap one, but their style of videography is from the 80s...

Andrew,

I think you've been a little over-zealous in posting today and your last two sentences come out as being somewhat sarcastic.

From my point of view I treated photography as being more important as it can be displayed on the walls of our home and of family homes across the world for generations. While I'm sure we'll watch our video more than once, it's not going to be something I'll watch every day.

We have booked a videographer who I think come in at a very reasonable price but we were not going to spend over £1k on our video, particularly because I had a very bad experience with a wedding videographer in the States when I was in my teens.

Thanks,

Rowan

The shoot it yourself company I saw charged almost as much as we're paying for two videographers and three cameras for 7-8 hours!

We are paying £1,295 for our videographer which includes 2 people to film they are there all day from 75 minutes before we get married. The dvd looks great and the attention to detail and for what they do is i'd say is definetly worth paying that bit extra for, the way I see it is that the video will catch the parts of the day I may miss out on and it goes so quick I want the dvd to look back on and it looks a really fun thing to watch. I was going to go for someone slightly cheaper who did a family members wedding in 2007 but they recorded for my mum's friend's wedding last summer and she still had no dvd! Because I was going for the more expensive video package I was going to go for a more basic photography package (obviously still a good photographer through), that didn't turn out as planned though as it is £1000 but we get a beautiful wedding album, its a modern digital style and we also get all images on dvd to print out as we wish.
Anyway I hope you find a good videographer, what I found was that there was a limited number of videographer's which would cover my area but there was plenty of photographers xx

LOL, I wouldn't say that everyone accepts what photographers charge - surely you've seen the equivalent threads in here about 'tog costs?! ;p

Personally I think these is a feeling of almost exasperation that almost everything relating to a wedding seems to come in over £1000. There appears to be something about weddings that suppliers all appear to aim to be charging that much, and I guess sometimes, us poor (almost literally in some cases) brides, we would occasionally like to be able to go "wow what a bargain" instead of "how much?!?!?"

The problem that photographers and videographers are up against, I think, is that many people know how much it costs to buy a camera, so by that reasoning, all the other charges are for invisible things, like editing time etc. Yes I know your kit is way better than the high street handycams you get in Currys, but not everyone can appreciate the technical differences.

Honestly, I think there are far greater time/effort vs cost rip offs out there than photographer/videographer - at least you guys spend the day actually working, visibly, for those hours, followed by producing a high quality end product. Much of the rest of wedding "stuff" is alot of money for stuff that looks wonderful, but could just have easily been mass produced by machines, or underpaid workers in a far flung country!

But, like everything, people like to be able to have options. We like to be able to choose whether to spend under £500, or £5000 on a videographer, and accept the quality or lack thereof that we end up with. And I think frustration comes when there is not a budget option for those that need it.

What about doing a similar thing to the photographers, where some offer a cheaper package that doesn't include finished prints, just a CD of all the pictures they took? Could you perhaps offer the unedited footage? Or maybe edited but not captioned/soundtracked etc? So basically they are getting kind of what they would if Uncle Gerry filmed it for them on his handycam, but obviously with far better shots taken, and far better coverage, thereby making it worth paying for. Or offer different costs based on a length of time that you film for, again like the photographers do?

I guess the difficulty for you guys is that, the time you would save in the post-production process, can you realistically spend that doing more weddings and bringing more money in to make up for it?

Actually Faeth, you may be a genius! I'm going to have to do some sums and see if it's viable.... A filming only package. Good idea!

Thanks for some great feedback! :-)


Kind regards,

Andrew.

Hi Faeth,

I've been running some figures and doing some thinking. As mentioned, I could run a package or two that would only be available to book if the wedding happened within 28 days of the booking being taken. What do you think? Do you reckon brides would be interested in something like this?

*** Please note: Anyone reading this.... these are not real packages. They're just an idea I am working on to help serve the cheaper end of the market for wedding videography! ***

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Package One (£195.00):

- We film your entire wedding day with ONE camera
- We film in standard definition or high definition (your choice)
- We use a broadcast quality camera and microphones
- We dump all the raw video and audio onto your external USB hard drive
- We supply the hard drive directly to you to keep

Package Two (£295.00)

- We film your entire wedding day with TWO cameras
- We film in standard definition or high definition (your choice)
- We use broadcast quality cameras and microphones
- We dump all the raw video and audio onto your external USB hard drive
- We supply the hard drive directly to you to keep

Simply plug the USB hard drive into your computer or laptop and you can then edit the video however you like!

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I've not decided whether to add an option for us to supply the external USB hard drive for say, £50.00 or to include the hard drive in the above prices. Of course, you could also supply your own USB hard drive.

I don't really know of any wedding videographers that offer 'filming only' packages because if I'm honest, a lot of the time it takes to create a good wedding video is the editing itself. Also, I'm not convinced many brides have the skills / equipment / know-how / inclination to edit their own wedding videos. But it would be interesting if a lot of people gave feedback.


Kind regards,

Andrew

I think they are great packages. I would say that from a tecchie standpoint you'd probably be safer supplying the hard drive, as if a customer were to give you theirs, and then something happened to it whilst in your possession, it could get trickier....

I think the price level is spot on personally - as they are about similar to the cost of a camera in the high street shops, which means it might appeal to those who perhaps were thinking of buying a camera and doing it themselves, but didn't want the hassle of finding someone to hold the camera, and hope for the best!

This may be just me, but it seems to me that brides who can only afford this sort of money to put towards a videographer (and I include myself in this), are probably geared up to thinking they can't have one. So if they find they can as a last minute bonus then great! I don't think there is anything wrong with saying to a bride who asks earlier than 28 days before, that you are free on their date currently, but you can't confirm until 28 days before, as full price bookings would take priority.

So long as it's clear up front, then I personally don't see a problem with that.....