The last year flew by, and the holidays were upon me long before I was ready for them. That’s not to say that I wasn’t ready for a break! (Believe me… I was ready for a bit of time off with family and friends.) It’s just that I wasn’t quite ready for 2007 to be over just yet, as I had planned to get a few more things done before I rang in the new year. I had been working on setting up some new relationships with vendors so that I can start offering their products, and also taking a bit of a step sideways into doing some non-wedding photography work, which was an incredible experience, and taught me a few things that I will definitely be applying in future wedding work. And once the holidays got here, I had to do what I promised myself I would do at the end of the year; archive 2007’s photos to make room for this year! Naturally… in the process of archiving, I had a chance to go through the 2007 pictures, and do some thinking and planning for the future.
This image jumped out at me as I was going through the pictures from Amy & Steve’s wedding at the Crossed Keys Inn. I remember the day, and I remember taking that shot. I remember thinking how cool it was that the sun was creating highlights on the bouquet of roses, and also shining through the petals in the back of the bouquet causing them to glow . And there it is!
One of the things that I have been thinking about, starting over the holidays, and the couple of weeks since then, is that the packages I offer need to be re-evaluated and redone. The current packages are pretty heavy in loose prints. There was a reason for this when I came up with them, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense in practice. Most couples don’t want a whole big set of loose prints. Parents and guests may want a loose print or two, and the couple may want a few enlargements… but the main output that people want is albums, and in some cases slide shows. So I am at a crossroads here; I can offer packages with albums already included… or I can offer packages that just include shooting time, and leave the final output to be added on after the fact. And there are pros and cons to both approaches. Bear with me hear as I think aloud for a bit. (I’ve found that this blog is a great way for me to organize my ideas and see things a little bit clearer, as much as it lets you look behind the scenes of what goes into that bottom line price.)
On the one hand, since albums are items that most couples want, it would make a whole lot of sense to include albums in the packages that I offer, and let people add prints to the order if they want them. It looks great on paper… but there is a flaw here that is not readily apparent to most folks that have not ordered an album before. There are many album manufacturers, and each manufacturer sells several styles of albums, and each style has several options that can be used to customize the final product that the couple receives. Sounds great, right? Which album would you want to see in the package? In 2007, I had a great relationship set up with Miller’s Lab. When someone orders prints from me, this is where they come from. Miller’s is an outstanding professional lab, with incredible quality, and an insanely fast turnaround time. I couldn’t be happier with them! They also offer albums in several styles and price ranges. Some of these albums are made specifically for Miller’s, by Miller’s… and some are albums that they re-sell with the prints that they make. (In other words, I send them print-ready images, they print them, mount them into the album at their facility, and send me the finished album.) To give my clients more to choose from for their albums, I’ve also set up relationships with two other companies; Renaissance Albums and Zookbinders. Renaissance creates beautiful albums, and there is no one that I know that can tell you otherwise. Everyone I have spoken to that has dealt with them, or owns one of their albums, has raved about the quality and craftsmanship of these books. Same with Zookbinders. I have more personal experience with their books, since my own wedding album is a Zookbinders album. Each of these companies has different cover materials, different styles of albums… from the traditional album that contains essentially matted prints, to flushmount albums that offer two-page panoramas and an infinite number of design possibilities, and everything in between. Each album can have different numbers of pages… I think you see where I’m going with this. Which one do I include in the packages?
On the other hand, since albums have so many variables that can change their price drastically, I could offer up packages that contain only the time spent shooting. This sounds great! If albums are such a huge pricing variable, eliminate them, and just stick to what is constant! Ah… that would make it so easy. But then, I put myself in the shoes of my client. A couple is about to be married, they are planning their wedding, and trying to get all of the pieces to fall into place. As a photographer, I know what is involved on my end, how much time I will need to spend doing that work, and how much all of that is worth. But as a human being that also got married, I happen to ALSO know that budgets are a very real thing when you are planning a wedding. We were lucky. We had a lot of help. In fact, it was more than just a lot of help. But my best friend is in the final stages of planning his wedding, and he is footing the bill himself, so I don’t need to look far for examples. What does this have to do with anything? It’s simple. A couple looks at my packages, and says “Hey! This is well within our budget! Great!” but what they don’t see in the list of things is any sort of output. There are no prints… there are no albums… So they get in touch with me, and we sit down to talk. Then I pull out the list of album options and prices. Suddenly, the cost of the wedding package has gone up. WAY up. Albums are expensive. To put things in perspective; the lowest cost for an album is some $300. This makes things look like it is a hidden fee. They didn’t know how much it was going to be until they got in touch with me. That situation is not something that I relish. When I am a customer, I do not like hidden fees. I do not like walking in thinking that something was going to be one price, and then finding out that on top of what I thought I would be paying, there are a bunch of add-on costs that I pretty much HAVE to pay to get something of value to me. It’s not the way I would prefer to do business. In some cases, the addition of these costs of the output to the package price is not an issue, but in some cases… it is. I would have rather them seen the price from the outset, know that when all was said and done, it was not going to be in their budget, and moved on, than for them to get their hopes up and set themselves up for disappointment. Maybe I’m a rotten businessman. I don’t know.
So. Bottom line. The packages are going to get redone very soon. I’m just still debating what I am going to redo them TO. I think I am leaning more towards the first option… but then, I have some ideas about making the second option work as well by making notes of the starting prices of output and clearly pointing out that the packages do NOT include output. Decisions decisions.
