Average price of video
 

Here's a new blog post up that goes over the cost of a wedding. Video is surprisingly higher on the list than I expected.

What A Wedding Costs (When You Use Professionals) | Every Last Detail

Video came in at $3800.

Re: Average price of video
 

complete malarky. Taking a look at CostofWedding.com looks a LOT more accurate. This person seems to have only surveyed high-end vendors, which is how they ended up at the ridiculous $50,000 average, when reality puts it much closer to $20,000 (or less). And of course, that doesn't count weddings that don't hire all these vendors.

Re: Average price of video
 

I think I agree too... All a survey needs to do is take a couple of super high end Hollywood vendors and the complete survey average is pointless. I could also do a survey of the price of cars and toss in a Ferrari and Lamborgini along with two family sedans and the average price of a car is $100K They obviously took a very small local sample of prices and figured they were the norm!

Our median wedding price over here is also around $25K and certainly not double that. Based on what the general video price is from people posting here $3800 is certainly not average although I'm sure it would be nice!

Chris

Re: Average price of video
 

In the Toronto market, I would estimate that wedding videography averages somewhere between $4000-$5000 CAD for a mid-price package.

John Summerfield
Summerfield Films | Toronto Wedding Videography

Re: Average price of video
 

Hi John

If you do a search of "wedding video prices Toronto" you get from just over $900 up to $2300 for a full day package ... I'm quite sure the high end people would be charging $4K to $5K but that wouldn't be the average price. The "survey" didn't specify what regions were involved and also whether it was based on a groom prep right thru to the end of the night but one would also assume that an average wedding video would be maybe just bridal prep thru to the first dance which is what most videographers and brides want.

If your average is indeed $4K plus I think I will move to Canada!! ( I have a son in Montreal and he is renewing his vows and having a full wedding in August and he is paying nowhere near that)

That's excellent money for just an average shoot. I see your wedding films which look fairly high end are a lot lower than your mid-range average so, based on that, one could charge substantially more for a higher end wedding then?

Chris

Re: Average price of video
 

Here is part of the reason the amounts seem to be a little skewed:

"Before we talk data and numbers though, it’s important you know something: the weddings I talk about here on ELD don’t encompass all weddings… they are a certain type of wedding. (Yes, there are types of weddings!) These weddings that I speak of are weddings that use professionals."

I also think another part of the skewing is they are not disclosing a percentage of respondents that had no video at all. If you look, the average photog price is less than the video guy. We all know that's an every day occurrence !!! [/sarcasm]

So I think they have a far higher percentage of respondents who bought photogs and bought in all price ranges making that average believable, compared to the number who bought video and what level they bought.

Re: Average price of video
 

Sod it I am off to Canada !!!

Re: Average price of video
 

Hey Steve

A while back John Knight was saying he makes around $300K plus a year in New Zealand so double sod it..I'm off to New Zealand!! A lot easier to go there and work instead of Canada. Also bear in mind that the Canadian Winters talk about 36 degrees below zero ... not sure I could take that and their wedding season would also be a little shorter than ours!

When John posted his income I recall a guy in Canada say "I'm off to New Zealand" ... There seems to be a huge market for Japanese couples that want a New Zealand wedding.

Chris

Re: Average price of video
 

Chip?

Averages just are not practical.
If you take 10 guys that charge $1500 and then one guy that charges $15K the average jumps from $1500 to $2700 ... subsequently take the 10 at $1500 and then add 10 weekend warriors who do it for $300 a pop then the average plummets to $900 a wedding so brides are now shattered that they have to pay 3 times more than the first survey.

To be totally practical a survey needs to have upper and lower limits to give a correct figure which excludes the high end $20K shooters and all the Craig's List weekend pocket money dudes who will shoot your wedding for $99.00

Chris

Re: Average price of video
 

My son's thinking of moving from Queeensland to Canada (Totonto) - might get him to look for some bookings for when I go to visit :)

Re: Average price of video
 

Every region is different. I live in a town of 80,000 total. Here are our actual stats, based on a survey of brides:

total wedding budget
49% spend less than $10,000
23% spend between $10,000 and $20,000
15% spend between $20,000 and $30,000
13% spend $30,000+

Videography
30-40% hire a videographer

Average cost
$700-$1200

average cost for a "well-experienced professional"
$1388-$1850+

Re: Average price of video
 

Just to show what parts of the market expect in the UK.
Although I no longer do weddings I still get enquiries which I pass on . This is part of one I received today:

"We have already booked our Photographer for £1000 so we were really looking for just a videographer closer to £500."

Re: Average price of video
 

Hey George

Yeah we are always second never first and they usually seem to have to scrape together just enough to be able to pay us half what the photog gets!

Based on all the prices tossed around here I guess we are still all going to move to Toronto and make big bucks? There certainly has been a huge variation!

Chris

Re: Average price of video
 

Chris,

The video number is skewed and my guess it is skewed high because the sample is small and from a disproportionate group. The photog average, my guess is that might be close, and probably has close to 80+% responding in the sample. If they had an overall average of $50K, there had to be quite a few high end weddings in the sample to get the average up that high. Those high end weddings, also probably had video and had high end video packages. So if you have 100 respondents and 85 have a photog, that's probably going to be a close average. If you have 100 respondents and only 15 have video, depending on the overall price point of those 15 weddings, it is going to skew the average higher as the pricier package probably was selected.

It's a poor survey at best, most likely a tiny sample size and no average was weighted to adjust it proportionately. If one could get ahold of the raw data, there's something in there to pursue, if one could figure out how to connect with those high end weddings.

Re: Average price of video
 

Right. That article is what you get when you have a statistical analysis posted by someone who slept through the single statistics they took.

You don't need an average, you need a median.

Re: Average price of video
 

Had to leave a comment because I disagreed as well. No way it's that high. Must of asked some of their vendor friends lol.

Re: Average price of video
 

Long story short my friends (bride/groom) hired a company for $900 although as a gift I had a buddy shoot it as I attended and later I would edit it. Next to my buddy the company shooter looked like a joke. A guy with a Vixia on the end of a long broom stick pole (no joke), with camera mount duck taped to it. He would just hold it up in one spot throughout everything. I could'nt believe my friends hired this company. Did they bother to look at their work? Geez its all about the money and "fake" reviews.

Re: Average price of video
 

Technically Sean they have supplied a wedding video...Hmm maybe a GoPro on a piece of PVC pipe would work for me and save a fortune in Pro Cameras?? On our local talk-back radio last night they were talking about "pop up weddings" being offered by a venue. You get a one hour slot and they provide the officiant, cake, bouquet, flowers and photographer for $1000 .. I would assume that video would have no part in these but if they did it would be a camera on a stick too. It wouldn't exactly be a classy wedding would it??

Prices vary a huge amount ...obviously a posh hotel and church would expect to pay for a higher priced video whereas a country self catered wedding bride at home is not looking to pay $5K for a video!

A median price would have to also be specified for an area too as the median price in a rural area is going to be way lower than a wedding in LA.

Re: Average price of video
 

Chris, this is the video they released of my friends wedding:
Well my thoughts are, if this is what people think of when thinking wedding video, then I don't blame people for not wanting to spend a fortune. I had a friend think exactly this until I made her watch something I edited, she was blown away and hired someone a week later.

Re: Average price of video
 

Hi Sean

You make your point!! I cannot imagine a ceremony without any vows audio! Where is the sense in that!

No wonder brides say "we won't bother with a wedding video" ... not that bride's tend to be too fussy about quality but I reckon I could have done better with a Gopro purely for clarity ...Probably a guest with a cell phone would have done a better job.

Videos like this just do damage to the industry and after seeing that people think that's what all wedding videos look like so they pass on it!!

Thanks for sharing

Chris

Re: Average price of video
 

I think it's a bit unfair to post someones video on here without their knowledge or permission just to have it criticised and mocked without any sort of context or right of reply by the unsuspecting videographer.
Not very professional especially when members value and try to protect copyright and usage of their work.
The place to make comments if you need to is on his youtube channel where the person can defend his work and style if he feels it's necessary.

Re: Average price of video
 

There is no copyright infringement as the video has not been posted here on this forum as all that has been posted is a link to where the video IS posted i.e. YouTube. It was posted in the public domain so is not some private video that has been uploaded.

I also don't see that discussion here amongst us video guys is unprofessional at all. The point being made was that there are some crap videos produced by alleged professionals so why shouldn't an example of a crap video be linked to?

Re: Average price of video
 

It's no just a link, it's been embedded so that it's plain to see it playing on this site but it isn't the copyright situation that I am concerned about it's the way that someone has grabbed someones work without as far as I'm aware telling them purely to pillory them because they don't do it the way the poster thinks it correct, or doesn't charge a price he thinks is acceptable, and as far as I know the videographer is not in this forum to reply to any criticism, though I may be wrong.

I realise that by posting work on youtube (or anywhere on the internet including your own site) you by default, or at least by common practice, loose any copyright control . My point about copyright and use is rather to suggest that anyone here might well be annoyed if they found that their work had been taken into someone else's site to be singled out for a beating without them knowing.

We all have opinions on the quality of other work we see and the concerns about the way 'professional' video is described and priced but I don't think that a professional forum is the place for personal attacks on someone's work who hasn't offered it into this forum for that purpose.

For what it's worth I don't think it's too bad if that's what the couple wanted and felt it value for what they paid. Its not my style or taste, but then I wasn't asked to do it.
Not everyone making wedding videos aspires to be the likes of Still Motion, nor does every couple expect that.
It is noticeable that the person who posted that video on here is not so forthcoming with allowing his work to be seen and commented on so that it'd be possible to see the stand from which he is criticising.