A Note on Picking a Wedding Photographer, Videographer, Cake Maker, etc.

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When I ran a bridal magazine, we had plenty of photographers who had five phone numbers on their ad—one for Utah, one for New York, one for Paris, etc. Almost invariably these five numbers all went to the same person. The reason they had a bunch of numbers was a) to make them look big, and b) so they could charge you a different amount based on which number you called. Try it. Grab a magazine and call two of their numbers, asking the same question. I knew photographers, videographers, cake makers—you name it—who would say “$1000″ if you called them on their Utah number, and “$15,000″ if you called them on their New York number. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing—it’s just market forces doing their job—but it’s something to know, especially if you’re planning a wedding in New York (or San Francisco or Los Angeles or any of the other randomly expensive places.) In the rawest supply-and-demand sense, there will be more weddings and therefore more competition and therefore a) better prices relative to b) higher quality in Provo or Salt Lake than in Beverly Hills. The Beverly Hills ones will be amazing, but there won’t be many of them and they’ll be viciously expensive. Plus they won’t glow at your wedding, and that was a major concern for us.

So most couples, when looking for a photographer, just open their yellow pages. They don’t even look outside their county. Why? Because you’re young, and you think small. Making a long distance call, albeit free, is still a psychological barrier for most people. But the bottom line is that most of you will not spend any more money, and will often save money, by conducting a nationwide search for your wedding vendors. Using the example above, you could fly a photographer from Utah to New York far cheaper than you could hire the basest amateur in New York. When I got married, I lived in Utah, got married in Arizona, and had an open house in California. The assumption of anyone in my position would be to hire everyone out of Arizona. Quite the contrary, I, working in this industry and knowing exactly what I was doing, flew in a photographer, videographer, and cake maker; and it was cheaper and higher quality than getting the above in Phoenix. My photographer was one of the top magazine photographers in the region, who had taken many famous pictures I was immediately familiar with—and I got him for I believe $2300 (in 2002), including two photographers, two events, two flights and eight hours of driving. Yes, the prices varied that much, even between Salt Lake and Phoenix. I’m from San Francisco, and out there I wouldn’t have been able to get a college student to do it for that price.

So no matter where you’re at, no matter how large or small your town, remember that it’s a small world, and there may be no finanicial or logistical reason to settle for whoever’s in your town for any aspect of your wedding. Your dress, your invitations, your photography, your video—picking the right person, no matter his location, is not a corner you’ll receive a marginal benefit by cutting.

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