by Suzanne Rose

Created on: March 31, 2010

Wedding pictures can cost a great deal of money.  You may spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on such pictures, but these are photographs you will look at for the rest of you life.  There are different things you can do in order to save money, however.  The following are some cost-cutting measures you might want to consider.

Shop around for wedding photographers

Different photographers charge different prices.  One photographer might literally charge ten times the price of another.  You will want to look to see what you are getting for this extra money.  A lot of times the lower cost ones are even better than the more expensive ones.  Of course, you want good quality, but by interviewing different people and looking at different websites you might be able to find someone who is good but who costs far less.

Have the photographer stay less time at the wedding

You might not need the photographer to stay through the entire wedding reception and this might save you money.  A lot of times, most of the big events are over and the people are just staying and dancing. You might be paying a lot of money for those extra hours but not really get a lot more.  You might want to see how much it would save to cut out an hour or two of the photographer’s time. 

Take some or all of your pictures at a photo studio

If you really do not have a lot of money to spend, then you could consider getting your pictures made at a photo studio such as Sears.  Oftentimes the pictures can come out very nice, but be a lot less.

Have a friend take the pictures

There are many people who are amateur photographers who can take very nice pictures.  Especially since today’s cameras are so good, many of them practically take good pictures themselves if you know just the most basic of things about picture taking. You might be able to ask someone (or several people) to do this for you.  Some people leave cameras out at the table to get additional photos.  They even sell packs of wedding cameras for just this purpose.

Buy a CD of the images from the photographer instead of prints

Photographers often charge exorbitant fees on prints.  One option that is increasingly becoming available is to just buy the full size copyright-released images.  They you can go to any discount photo center to get the pictures made. You can often save a lot of money, especially if you have a lot of pictures you want to make.

Consider the above tips to save money on wedding pictures.

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