What To Do When Wedding Photography Prices Plateau: Dear Devlin
DEAR DEVLIN
The Plateau that is not a Plateau
Dear Devlin,
I’m an experienced photographer, with 15 years under my belt. I’ve a really solid brand and the bookings are healthy – but that doesn’t mean I don’t want more for my business. I see my peers, who shoot similar to me, commanding a higher price point. My strategy has always been “get 50% booked for the following year, raise prices by ยฃ300” but in the last few years that’s stalled. I’ve had to roll back.
I know there are many contributing factors but my friends don’t seem to have the same issues. I’ve a strong brand, although our friend AI tells me I’m firmly mid-level, my price point is not. I don’t want to do more work – I just want more money! Am I being unrealistic?
Greedy Gal
“Wanting more at 15 years in isn’t greed. But wanting more without changing anything? That’s where we need to talk.”
Dear Greedy Gal
First, let’s start with the good news, and there is genuinely plenty of it. Healthy bookings right now is not a small thing to brush past. The wedding industry has felt genuinely unpredictable for the last five years and I hear from photographers regularly who are really struggling with their numbers, worrying about filling their calendars, questioning whether their business is sustainable. You are not in that group. You have built something solid enough to weather a very bumpy few years in this industry, and that matters.
And 15 years in, still hungry, still wanting more? A lot of photographers at your stage start coasting. The ambition fades, the comfort sets in, and they stop pushing.
The fact that you are sitting here asking this question, that low-level frustration still fizzing, tells me a lot. That drive is exactly the right thing to be working with. You are not burnt out, you are not done. You are ready to level up, and that is a pretty exciting place to be starting from.
Right, now let’s talk about the comparison trap, because you have walked straight into it, and most of us do at some point.
Comparison Is the Thief of Joy – and of Clear Strategy
You are measuring yourself against two things: your peers, and your former self. And neither comparison is as solid as it feels right now.
On your peers – are you certain they are actually charging what you think they are charging? Can you see their contracts? Do you know what happens on their discovery calls, or what their enquiry-to-booking rate actually looks like? A lot of photographers present one price publicly and then quietly discount when an enquiry wobbles, or negotiate down because they are not confident holding their rate. You might be feeling inadequate against a number that does not actually exist in the way you think it does. Social media in particular is extraordinarily good at making other people’s businesses look tidier and more successful than they are. What you are seeing is what people choose to share. It is not the full picture.
And on previous you – the trajectory you had before 2020 was built in a fundamentally different wedding industry. Steady, predictable year-on-year price increases were possible then in a way they simply are not now for many photographers. The market has shifted, couples’ spending habits have shifted, and the whole landscape has changed in ways none of us fully anticipated. Holding yourself to a pre-2020 benchmark is not a useful exercise. It is just unkind to yourself.
That said, I do not want to dismiss the feeling entirely, because that gut-level frustration you are describing, that sense that others have something you want, that energy is real and it is not nothing. Spent poorly, it drags you down. It keeps you scrolling, comparing, feeling stuck. Spent well, it is rocket fuel. So let’s put it to work.
Get Precise About What You Actually Want
“More money” is not a goal. It is a feeling, a direction, a vague sense of wanting things to be different. And you cannot build a route to somewhere you have not actually defined.
So the first thing I want you to do is sit down and get genuinely specific about what more looks like for you. Not vague and wishy-washy – actually precise. How many weddings do you want to shoot this year and next? What do you want to be charging per wedding? Where do you want to be shooting them, and for what kind of client? Write it down with real numbers. None of us get in an Uber with just a postcode as a destination – we put in an exact pin. It should be the same for your goals, because that is the only way to figure out a direct route there.
Define what your own success looks like. Then, and only then, can we start building a route that actually leads somewhere meaningful.
Are Your Wedding Photography Prices Being Presented Well?
Sometimes, the number isn’t the issue with pricing because I have seen this pattern many times. Moving up a price bracket is no longer that simple. In today’s market, it requires the whole picture around that number to match, and that takes real work.
That might mean a portfolio review. Is everything you are showing publicly actually at the calibre of wedding you want more of? Are you still showing old work that reflects where you were five years ago rather than where you want to go? It might mean looking seriously at how your pricing is presented, because I see this so often – photographers with genuinely strong brands, consistent enquiries, and good social media presence who are losing people the moment they hit the pricing page. Not because the number itself is too high, but because of how it is framed, how it is structured, and the experience of encountering it. Wedding photography prices presented badly can make a completely reasonable rate feel wrong. Presented well, a higher rate can feel like an obvious, comfortable yes.
There is absolutely a version of “I want more money for the same work” that is achievable. I am not here to tell you that is unrealistic. And I always say that you know the point when prices should be raised because you are fully booked. But the work is in making sure everything around the price – the brand, the portfolio, the presentation, the experience of enquiring with you – is doing its job at the level you want to be pitching at.
Are You Leaving Money on the Table With Existing Clients?
You said you do not want to do more work, just more money. That is fair, and it is actually really useful to be honest with yourself about that. But here is something worth considering: more revenue does not always mean more weddings. How are you serving your existing clients after you deliver their gallery?
This is something I see constantly. A photographer delivers a beautiful gallery, the client loves it, and then the photographer essentially falls off a cliff. No follow-up, no conversation about what comes next, no guidance on what to do with all those images. Meanwhile, the client would genuinely welcome help with printed products, albums, wall art – things that would mean a lot to them and that they would happily spend money on, if someone just had the conversation. That does not have to be a pushy sales exercise. It can just be a natural part of how you close a job and look after your clients. And it adds real revenue without adding another full wedding to your calendar.
IMAGES: Lisa Devlin
MENTORING PROGRAMME FOR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS
When You Have Gone as Far as You Can on Your Own
I want to talk about this one from personal experience, because it is how I have made my own biggest leaps forward.
There have been points in my career where I have felt genuinely stuck – where I have tried everything I could think of, looked hard at my own business, adjusted and tweaked and pushed, and still could not see clearly what was not working or what the next step was. And every time that has happened, the thing that has actually moved me forward has been bringing in someone from outside, someone who is further ahead, someone who could look at my business without the blind spots that come from being too close to it.
A good mentor can lift the bonnet of your business and actually see the engine. They can spot what is not connecting, what is not working as it should, and what needs fine-tuning in a way that you genuinely cannot see yourself – not because you are not smart or experienced enough, but because you are inside it. When you have got as far as you can on your own and you still cannot find the next gear, that is the signal to call someone in.
This is something I work on specifically in my Mentoring Programme, and the situation you are describing – everything looking solid on the surface but something not quite clicking into the next level – is one I have worked through with a number of photographers. More than once, those photographers have gone on to become exactly the benchmark that their peers are measuring themselves against. The person in the group who seems to have cracked it. That can be you.
THE TAKEAWAY
Are you being unrealistic? It is hard to say without looking under the bonnet of your actual business – and I am never going to tell someone with 15 years of experience and healthy bookings to dial back their ambition.
But in today’s market, ambition on its own is not quite enough. The people who are commanding the wedding photography prices you are looking at are not just talented – they have made sure everything around their price is doing the work too.
A little focused effort now, on your goals, your presentation, and how you are serving your existing clients, could absolutely bring the dividends you are after. The drive is there. It’s time to make it count.
PLEASE NOTE: THE IMAGES IN THIS POST DO NOT REPRESENT ANYONE MENTIONED
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