Wedding Rip-Offs

Fighting Irish

for the past ten years, everyone taught they were millionaires

Das Kitty wrote: »

No they're not!

No one shops around in this country. It's mad.

Last Saturday I saw the same game in 4 different shops with prices from 30 to 75! The shops are all within a 200yard radius. Yet people will pay the higher price just because it's the first place they saw it.

I'm a big advocate of shopping around. I never buy anything in the first place I see it. I'll check other stockists and online before I part with my cash, this has transferred to my wedding as well and I really feel like I've got the best price on pretty much everything I've booked.

There's no better way of complaining than not giving someone your custom IMO.

ilovecars

racer55 wrote: »

€550 just for church, bouquets and button holes?!! I am looking to do a wedding on as low a budget as possible.. with the credit crunch we're only looking for basic flowers and reception do. if anyone has any tips it'd be really appreciated~!!!

where are u

cibro

ilovecars wrote: »

where are u

wow i agree i cannot afford that. Might go to Smithfield market??

Sage'sMama

Getting married in Majorca in September. Had a wedding planner organise the church & reception incl. entertainment. Cost me €575.00. The church is up in the mountains and is beautiful and the reception is a 17th century mansion and is fantastic! Cost of the reception including 4course meal and dj for 3hours and open bar is € 8,000. In total our wedding is giong to cost about €12,000.00. The wedding car will be a rented normal car to do us the whole time were over there and my parents are doing the flowers, my sister did invites and booklets and my sister in law is doing the cake. You just need to be smart about using pple to your full advantage. No photographer either cos they are totally overpriced! Friends can take the picture's! But do shop around and tell them to give you a 15% recession discount!

newbridgemom

I'm a wedding photographer and just thought I'd respond. The photographs are the only record of the day you'll have after the wedding. You won't have the flowers, the food, the car,etc. You may have some friend who has a fancy camera, but I'm sure they do not have the skill and experience that most wedding photographers have. Do you want "snapshot" style pictures with a big ol' flash and black background of your wedding day? I'm really surprised that people think of cutting out a photographer because they're on a budget, and yet they will still spend thousands on other stuff that will not last past the wedding day.
I agree some wedding photographers charge high prices. Hopefully they have they have the stunning photographic skills to back up these prices! And some photographers charge very low prices. Look at their photography...maybe your friend with the camera could do better than these people.
There are a lot of old-fashioned photographers working in Ireland. These photographers probably still shoot with film and will charge you for prints after you've paid their basic fee. I have a friend who hired a well-known local photographer and was given a proof album that he had to return to the photographer and then order prints. While the basic price was good, he ended up paying much more money for prints and didn't even get to keep his proofs!
My recommendation is this. Look at lots of websites. If a photographer doesn't have a website then he is probably the old-fashioned type who will charge you extra for prints. Find a style that you like: this can be traditional posed-type shots, or the more-fashion forward modern reportage-type. Some do both! You will be showing these photographs to your grandchildren some day so find a style you love!
A lot of photographers, including me, will give you all of the photographs on a high-resolution DVD. This means you'll be able to print your own photographs and enlarge up to poster size. A CD package won't have high enough file sizes to print enlargements, only DVDs do. I give you your pictures (up to 600 or so), because personally why would I want to keep them?
Professional albums can be expensive to make. This is why a photographer has to charge a lot of money if your package includes an album. I sell albums as part of a package or separately to give people more options.
Most photographers will work for an hourly rate too if you don't have the money for the full day. Just ask. I do this and it work out well for budget minded couples.

If anyone has more questions just PM me. I don't want to advertise my photography services here. I'm just trying to defend the photographers!

DublinWriter

newbridgemom wrote: »

I'm a wedding photographer and just thought I'd respond.

Fair enough, but I do believe it's standard practise among Wedding Photographers in Ireland to retain possession of the negatives.

That's a rip-off, pure and simple.

newbridgemom

I agree. That's why it's prudent to look past though photographers that are still doing this. That is a very old-fashioned way of doing business in the photography world today. And I know there are still alot of these old-fashioned photographer getting business. It's all up to your own personal taste I guess! Usually these photographers are using film cameras or medium format (the traditional type of wedding camera). Film costs alot compared to digital which costs the photographer nothing. The film photographer might give you a selection of 200 images to chooose from, and then you have to buy the prints and they keep the negatives. A digital photographer will give upwards of 500 pictures as digital files on a disk. I can't imagine most digital photographer keeping the images. But you have to ask when you meet the photographer to make sure.

Even if you do find a photographer who shoots digitally and will give you all the pics on disk, make sure you like their style. There are a lot of chancers trying to set up business right now who just don't have the skill. The problem is that some people just see a really cheap price and roll with it thinking they are getting a bargain. But truthfully, your uncle with a nice camera might do a better job! Harshly lit flash with shadows on the face and walls, and blacked-out backgrounds are a dead give away that a photographer doesn't know what he's doing. Good luck!

ellie1981

mod deletion

Gotchacovered

newbridgemom wrote: »

I'm a wedding photographer and just thought I'd respond. The photographs are the only record of the day you'll have after the wedding. You won't have the flowers, the food, the car,etc. You may have some friend who has a fancy camera, but I'm sure they do not have the skill and experience that most wedding photographers have.

I completely agree with this, as a wedding supplier {not a photographer} I understand that we have all become more price conscious {particularly in the past year} but please please please please don't think that low cost suppliers are giving you the best deal!

Check the quality of everything before you pay a deposit!

Eevie

Happy to hear I'm not the only one baulking at the prices quoted when I open my outh and say the 'w' word! Unbelievable.

My fiance is Irish and myself Australian. It's almost worth our while paying the flight and fee to ship over photographers from home than pay for one from here, which is really disappointing!

As a photographer myself, I am surprised by the lack of range and quality I'm finding, and shocked by the prices quoted. Is it just me or are there a lot of wedding photographers still doing the pose and tilt style for weddings over here? I haven't seen this for years...truly.

Also, no photographer should be providing significant numbers of photographs on a CD, at least not at print quality. It's not a practice I've heard of as common in the industry. Maintaining copyright control is key to the profession, so I'm not sure where that would be coming from.

It really does seem as though the 'boom' gave people a sense of false worth as what you've been paying for weddings has been mad. The lack of options for those wanting something substantive but cheap has also come as quite a shock. Fortunately we've been able to find a nice suit on sale at Arnotts for my fella but I've had to go to London for my custom dress, which works out cheaper than much of what I've seen off the rack over here. The London dress even makes it into my Aussie dollar budget had we been married back home!

Thankfully we have managed to find some lovely people in the Galway area (although from Dublin we're getting hitched in the West), who are happy to do a low key reception with everything we want and no silly extras like a red carpet or bows on seats (honestly, I could care less about fricken bows on seats). Unfortunately, we have to get married in the Registrar's nominated location as any other potential venue we have contacted wants a 2k deposit, a guarantee of 100+ people and to charge for the seat bows (here we go again)...

I'll be glad to get to the day, because at the end of it, what you're going to remember, or at least what you should, is the loving look in the eyes of your partner, the nerves of walking down the aisle or waiting for your bride to do so, and the wonderful dinner conversation shared with friends and family. No one really cares, or should care, about anything else.

Our upper limit is around the 5k mark, and we're probably going to achieve that....maybe 6k including the honeymoon though, admittedly!