Wedding photographers - How many weddings do you do a year?

It depends on a lot of things....

The industry average for a FT pro who is in the £1,500 + bracket do about 35 (or they aim to). Some are so in demand they have a cap at like 40 and do no more.

Some shoot as many as they can squeeze in, as they like to get all the local work so they can shoot 4 in a week...they can shoot like 70 a year, these togs won't be charging £1500+ though.
 
An Exception said:
^^^
Just curious, how many are you shooting these days Raymond?
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About a dozen this year, 14 last year.

I've turned down as many as I take on though, for various reasons, mostly double booking, some because I only shoot one a weekend, so I can't shoot Saturday and Sunday. People think I am crazy but I am dead after a shoot, I am there until midnight, 99% of wedding tog are gone after the first dance. Therefore I need time to recover, go home to backup, charge camera etc. I also like to travel around, I shoot all over the country and I've only ever shot 2 venues twice in like 35 weddings.

Because I have a full time job, I can't really take on a wedding in midweek unless it's really worth it. Because I only get so many days annual leave, hence if I shoot a wedding on Wednesday, I'll need 3 days off if it's at the other end of the country. That's not to say I won't, I've shot Messiah khan's wedding last year up in Scotland and took a week off for it, because it was a wedding I cannot refuse, they sold it to me well!

So generally I only shoot weekends, one a week. And only once a year I have the luxury to take a midweek wedding (to have enough holidays left for my actual days off). I've turned down 3 weddings in July alone because they were all midweek. Turn down about 3 more because it's a day before or after an existing booking. I've also turned down a few because my trip to NYC in October. That's 9 just off the top of my head.
 
30 would be a nice number. :)

I find November, February and March generally a dead for weddings. Strangely December and January aren't.
 
I'm a wedding videographer so ever so slightly different (although almost the same for what you're asking!) but we had 32 last year and have 36 already for this year so will probably end on 40.

We can do 2 or 3 every day so our maximum is technically about 208 a year but that's obviously quite ridiculous! June is our busiest month this year with 9.
 
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No, the business is two of us and one of our packages is a one-camera shoot, so we can internally do two a day. Three Saturday's this month we've had two weddings on a day, for example.

We also have one (almost two) trusted freelancers who we're slowly weaning/training to do solo shoots on their own. He did his first last month (after doing about 10 with us on two-camera shoots) at St Paul's Cathedral and did well so that opens us up to taking 3 bookings on a day.
 
Lol, I was thinking its just you...not exactly what Rhys was asking when you have 2 of you and 2 freelancers.

It's a totally different business model.
 
Not really, most pro photographers have full-time second shooters.

Assuming it was only me we've got bookings on 29 separate days for this year so far so it'd be that.
 
Another aspect I think that limit's the amount of weddings people can take on is processing. I hear that some togs spend 3x longer on processing than shooting the wedding. That seems a little excessive imo, is that normal?
 
Certainly the editing takes a while, but you have to remember everything else that comes with running a business too: advertising, sales, chasing clients, customer care, tax returns, general stationery and all those kinds of gubbins.

Most pro photographers won't sort through the photos themselves but only edit the chosen finals or have the final say. And again, I know many pro photographers who don't even create the albums themselves but instead just send the photos to an album design company (normally overseas) once the couples have picked which ones they want.
 
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Russinating said:
Not really, most pro photographers have full-time second shooters.

Assuming it was only me we've got bookings on 29 separate days for this year so far so it'd be that.
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I think he is asking how many wedding a wedding photographer, singular, shoots a year.

If some one from Venture comes here and answer, it would totally be unrepresentative of the market average. "well, our Bristol office has 8 togs, about 300, and Cardiff office has only 6 togs, will get back to you with the London numbers..."

You can shoot 2, up to 4, that's a company, not an individual. Not really what OP was asking for.
 
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He's asking what the average is not how many you've got. The average for a pro, full-time wedding photographer will be 40-50 a year, assuming they work alone.

Most do have full-time second shooters which naturally opens up the opportunity for taking double bookings.
 
Russinating said:
He's asking what the average is not how many you've got. The average for a pro, full-time wedding photographer will be 40-50 a year, assuming they work alone.

Most do have full-time second shooters which naturally opens up the opportunity for taking double bookings.
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Exactly, an average for a tog. Not an average for 3 or even 4 togs in a company! You might as well ask "how many burgers can you make an hour?"

"errr, 60?"

Some other guy says "I can make 60 million, well, my company can, I own McDonalds."

40-50, fine, but when you open it up with "we can be in 2 places at the same time"

That's not how many you do, that's how many your company can shoot.

Different kettle of fish.
 
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Most wedding photographers are a company so I don't see the difference at all :confused:. You work solo during weddings and full-time in an unrelated job but that's very rare.
 
Raymond, how much time would you say you spent processing an average wedding?
I'm tempted to look into options for outsourcing like russinating pointed out, although I think I'd struggle to relinquish control, and trust the outsourcing company.
 
Russinating said:
Most wedding photographers are a company so I don't see the difference at all :confused:. You work solo during weddings and full-time in an unrelated job but that's very rare.
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More togs don't have a party of 4 either.

And when people ask how many they shoot, it means them, physically.

I might as well say I can shoot 100 because my friend shot 28, and i know someone else shot 40 and someone else shot 25.

But somewhere, there is a parent company that binds us all?
 
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