Hugo and Harvey were the first couple to have a civil ceremony on Brighton Bandstand this weekend, after the granting of a wedding license for the venue by Brighton and Hove City Council. They had a fantastic sunny day for it and managed to cram over 120 guests in for the event.
The grooms hid in the Brighton Hotel opposite until the guests had arrived and furniture had been set up for the ceremony. In fact the couple were so well hidden that the registrar couldn’t find them for his pre-wedding interview, until friend and organiser E.J. let him in on the secret. When everybody was ready Hugo and Harvey made their grand entrance and stood in the middle of the bandstand with the guests forming a circle around them. Despite the number of people attending it didn’t feel too crowded and seemed quite private. A few curious members of the public tried to join in but were gently turned away at the entrance, which had been roped off for the occasion.
After the ceremony all the guests made their way down to the terrace at beach level for a drinks reception, and I had a chance to take photos of Hugo, Harvey and their families on their own, with a bit more space to work in. I spent a couple of hours on the terrace as well, taking informal photos of everybody chatting and socialising.

Later in the afternoon the party made their way to The Old Market for the wedding breakfast. This was a short booking for me, so, after taking some shots of the receiving line, I said goodbye and left everybody to enjoy their evening.

I’ve taken newly weds on to the bandstand a few times since it’s restoration last year and it’s always a great spot for wedding photography. This is the first time that I (or anyone else) have attended a full wedding ceremony here and I’m sure it will be a very popular venue.

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It’s the time of year when work quietens down and I get a chance to review my wedding photography prices and packages. I’m currently somewhere in the mid price range for weddings, a typical client might spend £1,200 to £1,500 for full coverage plus a nice album, between £500.00 and £850.00 without an album. I’m aware that some clients look at the prices and think b***** h***, he’s only here for six/eight hours, that’s £xxx.00 an hour! So I thought I’d write a quick explanation of how I calculate my charges and convince you how extremely reasonable they really are.

A decent photographer will spend a lot longer on a wedding than the time that’s been booked. There are initial meetings with the client, normally taking several hours, then phone calls and emails to confirm details, writing contracts, visits to the venue etc. I usually expect to have done a day’s work before I get to the wedding.
On the wedding day itself, normally a Saturday or Sunday, an eight hour booking will probably take ten to twelve hours by the time I have travelled to the venue and allowed plenty of extra time for safety. On returning home there will be another hour or so downloading the cards, then doing two backups to reduce the chances of losing any images if a hard drive fails.
After the wedding comes the post processing. Digital images don’t come out of the camera in a finished state and will always need some work done on them. These can be straightforward colour and density corrections or more time consuming retouching. Once the images are processed they need to be burnt to disc, then sent to printers and album manufacturers. This can take from a day for a fairly short and straightforward shoot, to three days or most of a week for a larger event and an album design.

Good equipment is vital, I need to have top quality camera bodies, lenses, flashguns, studio lights, computers, cases, cables and all of the many accessories to go with them. If you are a responsible professional wedding photographer you make very sure you carry backups as well, so for every item you use, you bring at least one spare, in case the first one packs up in the middle of a ceremony. Equipment also needs to be cleaned and serviced from time to time. This can all get very expensive, especially when you will be replacing most items within two years. I try to work this out as a weekly or monthly cost and spread it fairly between jobs.

It’s not just about having a nice big camera (though actually I do have a very big camera), the first thing that every client is looking for when they are booking a photographer is a style that they like, If you see a photographer who has a record of good work they will have been working long and hard to achieve that look. Good style has to be backed up by technical competence, which also takes time and study to perfect. Anyone who has worked to improve their skills will be looking for some sort of financial return for their effort. It’s hard to put a price on this, but my wedding photography charges have slowly crept up from low to mid range as I think I have more to offer, though I believe I’m still a bit of a bargain!

Albums prices can make up a large part of the costs. My current range of albums comes from a top U.S manufacturer, there is a huge range, they look great and the quality is very good. They are not ridiculously expensive but, by the time I have paid for the album and done the design work, they aren’t cheap either. I don’t normally offer the cheaper albums for a couple of reasons: firstly, I give all my clients the digital images after the wedding, so, if they are looking to save some money they can go to Paperchase or somewhere similar and buy an album for £45.00, print their photos from disc and assemble it themselves, the second reason is that I don’t really like cheap albums and don’t think they will do my reputation any good in the long run.

I also take into account all the other expenses involved in running my business, dedicated office space, car, other transport, public liability insurance, accountant, web hosting, online galleries, SEO, advertising etc.

When I’m looking at my charges, I work out what I need to do to keep everything to a high standard and maintain a sustainable business at the same time. Currently, these prices seem about right for me, I won’t be retiring early but I’m making a living. In the ongoing recession I won’t be putting them up for a while, and will be very happy if I keep the same level of bookings that I’ve had this year.

You can always find a cheaper photographer and you can certainly pay a lot more, but I’m offering a level of coverage that I think gives a high standard of service and good value for money. So, if you are getting married and you like my style of photography, please get in touch.

More details of wedding and civil partnership photography here.

Maurice is originally from New Zealand and Tony comes from Thailand, they met when Maurice was working over there as a teacher. Both their families had made the long trips to the UK to see them get hitched. I joined them in the morning, where everybody was at their home in Brighton getting ready for the day. We left the house just after 10.00am to be at The Pavilion for the ceremony at 11.00am. The Red Drawing Room was packed out and the Pavilion staff had provided extra seats to try and fit everybody in.

After complaining about the rain for two weeks I’d now like to make a further complaint about the sunshine this weekend, it was much too bright, can’t you turn that thing down a bit? When the ceremony and photos in the Music Room were finished at about 1.00pm we went outside for some group photos, just when the sun was burning down on the front of the Pavilion from nearly it’s highest point in the sky, with not a cloud to be seen. This is probably the worst time of day for taking photos of people, the light’s horrible, the highlights are too bright, the shadows are too dark and everybody is squinting in the light. Normally I can get around very bright sun by taking the photo in the shade or turning people so they face away from the light. But, the whole point of having photos taken outside the Royal Pavilion is to show the Pavilion, so most people had the sun in their faces for the main group. As it happens I think it looks OK, and at least Maurice and Tony had something to show where they’d been.

I took a few more photos of Tony and Maurice on their own, some in the shade of the pillars at the front of the building, and finally at the North Gate posing with a vintage car, before they left for the reception at Havanna in Duke Street. I stayed for the wedding breakfast and finished the day with an hour at the evening party. Congratulations to you both.

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