Why You Won’t Find Wedding Photography Prices on Our Website

If you search our Services page on our website it no longer has a list of wedding photography prices and packages. This is intentional.

For the longest time, we believed that websites that didn’t contain prices were trying to up-sell us. But then we had an experience with a true salesperson and it completely changed our view on pricing.

While shopping for a new vehicle, we had a basic idea of what we were looking for, but we weren’t sure what would fit our needs. Imagine walking into a dealership and asking, “How much is a truck?” Is the answer $30,000? $50,000? $90,000? What’s the difference in prices? 7 passengers or 5? Do you need heated seats or want them? (The answer to heated seats is ALWAYS need, BTW)

The definition of service

The salesperson sat down with us before looking at any vehicles and asked questions about how we were going to use the vehicle. Questions like, what features we liked and what we were willing to live without, and listened to our needs. His expertise in his field, helped narrow down what we needed as well as what we wanted and what our budget was. Because we had never owned a big truck before, we didn’t know the cost or the options available. We had to make many decisions; new or used, warranty, options, payments, were we willing to spend more than we budgeted on things we wanted because we went in to the dealership not having any idea what they cost, and we learned that they were important to us through conversation.

But what does our truck shopping experience have to do with our wedding photography prices? The point is this: Wedding Photography prices in Ottawa are all over the place. This many photos, and this many hours, for this price. What does that even mean? What do you truly get? What do you truly need?

My guess, is that you don’t know what you want yet, because you’ve never planned a wedding, and you simply don’t know what you don’t know.

If you’ve never been married before, how do you even know what you need? Can we do your wedding in 6 hours or 8, or 10? Speaking to a photographer is so early in the planning process that I’ll bet you haven’t even thought about a timeline. (Pro tip – everyone ALWAYS thinks they need more hours for wedding photography than they actually do)

Will we be travelling to different locations? We need time for that. But if it’s important to you, it’s worth the time. Are prints or albums important to you? We can give you 10,000 photos, but half of them will just be random shots. Is that what you want? Are more photos better than good photos? My guess, is that just like our experience with the truck, you don’t know what you want yet, because you’ve never planned a wedding, and you simply don’t know what you don’t know.

We want to get to know your needs

Without taking the time to find out your needs and your wants, all you have to compare photographers is how many photos you get, in how many hours, for how much money. Then it comes down to which photographer gives you the most photos in the most hours for the price that you think you should pay for wedding photography. Which is hard considering you’ve never hired a wedding photographer before. And that seems just seems like bad sales pitch.

That’s where our expertise can help discover your needs, and allow us to make custom collections for your unique wedding.

Will your venue, music, menu and decor be exactly the same as everyone else’s wedding, or will it be unique for your style and taste? Your wedding photography should be no different. A photographer who doesn’t take the time to learn what you need is just selling you what they want to sell, not what you want to buy. We take the time to learn your needs during a Discovery Call.

Simply put, a discovery call is a quick phone call or virtual meeting where we take the time to discover what is important to you. You also discover what we offer, and we all discover how we interact with each other and if we are a good fit by just having a simple conversation. With your needs in mind, we can then create a proposal with different options for your specific needs, wants and budget.

And just to be clear, we are not trying to up-sell you. If prints are important to you, we will quote you a price with prints. If getting ready shots are not important, you won’t need as many hours and we can take them out. Maybe you want an album instead of having us stay later taking shots of everyone on the dance floor. Maybe that album is your heated seats.

Everything about your wedding is unique. Why should you settle for a cookie-cutter wedding photography package that has been put together by someone who has never even spoken to you about your needs.

We would love to get on a discover call with you to discuss all of your needs for wedding photography. You can book a meeting with us below.

Book a Discovery Call with us.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Guylaine and Gord
Avalon Wedding Photography