Only the ceremony price?
 

I will be filming a wedding on short notice (my first one) and as far as I know it will only be the ceremony and party afterwards. How much would that run as far as shooting/editing/dvd production? Also taking into account its my first wedding. I just don`t want to get ripped for not knowing any better.

Nathan,
You could try telephoning other wedding videographers in your area (or get someone else to phone to avoid suspicion) and ask them for their prices, pretending to be a future client.

Or do what I did and ask friends/people who recently got married how much they were charged.

Drew

Whats the charge
 

I still remember my first wedding video shoot (about 18 years ago). The cold sweat, the running around with gear I didn't need, the running around looking for gear I didn't have, the nagging feeling that tape wasn't rolling (VHS in those days, separate deck and a TUBE camera!). At the end of the day, it came out pretty good, but I didn't feel like I should charge for what was essentially a learning experience.

I have no doubt that if you are good at what you do, you will be able to make money doing it. You might want to consider the first one a 'wedding gift' to the couple and charge $0. HOWEVER, I wouldn't choose an arbitrary low-ball amount like $250 or $500. From experience, people tend to expect what they pay for and the ones who charge the least often get the most complaints. So you might want to charge a 'normal rate'...and throw in some extra DVD copies to boot.

Best of luck to you and let us all know how it went.

I really like your response "Oren"

I opened the doors to my business this year, and I still have the noobe monkey whispering in my ears. I did pretty much what you suggested and did some gigs for "Free" to aid in my development and build a portfolio.

Actually I consider this http://motionone.tv/video/wedding/lo...flvplayer.html
to be my first full fledged Wedding documentary, and I did it for free. Although I honestly feel I am far from considering my self a "Pro" I do have a great desire to learn from those before me and to hopefully develop into an expert in this craft I have always desired.

Well its a bit of a special circumstance. Its my bosses best friends wedding. So he offered to just put me on the clock since we work together. It is a learning experience and lacking alot of the equipment other than the H1. But I am sacraficing my saturday as well as alot of editing/dvd creation time, so I don`t want to be handed the short end of the stick just because he`s my boss. Unless editing the wedding can be done during work hours ... but its still just a regular paycheck at the end of the week :\

Just me... But I would still want to do it for free... for a number of reasons. The biggest one being that if something went wrong then it was for free anyway.

But if you still feel the need to be compinsated then I would charge like $200 dollars. More importantly than the money, you will get a video that you can show to future clients.

I live in Sacramento. I completed my first wedding vid for free and then took my highlights video to a Wedding Expo. From that I booked weddings from $1200 - $3000. (The scary part about this is that I now have booked several weddings but have only completed 2).

you guys are right. We settled on $150, and 'hopefully' I can eat while there. I won`t really have any help, it`ll just be me with 2 cameras (H1 in my hands/tripod all night, and a small panasonic for a wide master) My boss never picked up a lav, and the bride and groom said since it was free for them to 'Do whatever you want'... so I`m a little directionless. I made a slideshow story for my gf this year from our last 3 years of photos with a story to it so I can tell heart warming tales...but with a couple I know nothing about and it being my first wedding....a bit overwhelmed.