One of the most common questions I get from new filmmakers is: how much should I charge for my first wedding video?
You’re asking because a friend or a family member saw that you own a camera and said hey, I’m getting married, will you film it? And you said sure, how hard could it be. Then they asked what you charge, and you said I’ll let you know. Then you went to YouTube and typed in how much should you charge to film a wedding, and here you are.
You’re in luck, because today I’m going to answer that.
My Answer
I filmed my first wedding in 2010. Yes, I’ve been doing this for over a decade. Possibly just like you, I was in college. A girl I knew from one of my classes was engaged, she knew I had a camera and made videos, and she asked me to film her wedding. When she asked what I would charge, I said I’ve never filmed a wedding before, I’ll do the best that I can. How does $500 sound?
You’re now thinking, great, Matt charged $500 for his first wedding, I’ll charge $500 too.
Hold on just a second. That $500 number isn’t actually the important part.
What Is A Wedding Film
Wedding films, just like photography, painting, sculpture, basically any art where you’re being paid to make something for somebody else, come with a catch. More important than the price you charge is the expectation you’re setting for your client.
If somebody hired Picasso to paint a painting, you’d better believe they’re expecting to receive a Picasso quality painting, as good as the rest of his work.
And if a couple hires you to film their wedding, they expect you to make them a wedding video. But because this is your first wedding, this couple doesn’t have a portfolio of your work to know what to expect from.
So you’re thinking, great, Matt, I know I don’t have a portfolio. How do I set their expectations, and what the heck does that have to do with what I should charge?
My Recommendation
Here’s your answer. A couple’s expectations are directly related to the price you charge.
When I filmed that first wedding in 2010, the couple had a healthy budget, a beautiful ceremony venue, a nice reception hall, and I guarantee you their photographer charged multiple thousands of dollars more than I did.
I would bet that if I had told that bride I wanted $2,000 or $3,000 or more to film her wedding, she probably would have had room in her budget to pay it.
But remember, expectations are tied to price. If I had charged them $3,000, they could have gone and looked at what other videographers charging $3,000 were producing and thought, right, we’ll be getting something like that.
Instead I did the opposite. I told them I was brand new to filming weddings, and I charged low. And that is exactly what I’d recommend you do for your first wedding.
Now you may be thinking, Matt, I can knock this out of the park, I’ve seen $3,000 wedding videos that don’t look that good, I bet I could do better. Talk to any wedding videographer. A lot of us start out believing that.
Filming a wedding may sound easy, but watch any of my wedding filmmaking behind the scenes videos if you want that illusion broken quickly. Whatever can go wrong on a wedding day will go wrong, and if you don’t have the experience to handle it when the poop hits the fan, you’re going to be in trouble.
Set your couple’s expectations low. And because expectations are tied to price, charge low too.
How Does Free Sound?
How low? For me it was $500, to a couple who could probably have easily afforded six times that. For you it may need to be lower.
How does free sound?
If you don’t charge your first couple any money at all, that’s okay. Charging low or free frees you from a couple’s expectations of what their wedding film should be. You probably won’t make something that looks as good as what a videographer charging two or three thousand could make, and that’s fine, because you charged much less than them. This couple won’t expect as much, which gives you a safe environment to learn.
Plus, if you do end up making them a really awesome looking film, it’s going to completely blow them out of the water, because they weren’t expecting much.
Change Your Perspective
Let’s look to the future. You’re thinking, Matt, I want to turn this into a business. How do I do that charging free or basically free?
Time to change your perspective. More important than making money on your first wedding film is starting to build a portfolio you can show to future couples.
If you film your first wedding for free and you make them a great film you’re proud of, you now have a film in your portfolio. You have proof of your talent and your capabilities, and you can show it to the next couple who reaches out. And they are going to want to spend more money on you.
Conclusion
So don’t try to charge a lot for your first wedding film. A couple’s expectations are tied to the price you charge, so set your price low, focus on learning and gaining experience, and start building the portfolio you’ll use to charge more later.
If you’ve read this far you’re probably wondering what the next steps are. You know you need to build a portfolio and charge more money, but there are a lot of unanswered questions. How do you turn filming your first wedding into a sustainable business? How do you set prices in a way that actually turns a profit? When do you raise them, and by how much?
I made a course called Learn Wedding Film Pricing that answers all of that. It walks through a proven method for pricing wedding films that has worked for me for over a decade.
And if you want to book more couples, which is an essential part of building a wedding filmmaking business, I made a free guide with practical steps you can take right now. It’s a free gift to you and you can download it here.
Two more things worth reading while you’re here: how to book more weddings from Facebook, and why your wedding videography website isn’t booking clients. If you want to see how bad a first wedding film actually looks, I sat down and reacted to that 2010 wedding, the one I charged $500 for.