Our Pricing Explained
We oftentimes get questions about our pricing. Let us walk you through what goes into it.
Time
We work with you throughout the entire process of your wedding.
Before the wedding - From that first inquiry, phone call or meeting, we invest hours replying, answering questions, preparing or discussing timelines, scheduling events, speaking to or recommending vendors, and creating your contract and invoice. We also take time to charge batteries for our equipment, clean lenses, and test the equipment to make sure it's all in working order for the big day.
During the wedding - Depending on the hours of coverage, we will be capturing your day from 4 hours to up to 12 hours. We also take time to arrive on location with time to set up prior to our start time. Since we service weddings throughout Florida, this might mean driving 1 hour or 4 hours to get to your location in addition to our filming time.
After the wedding - This is when we edit your wedding. Yes, we do the editing. We don't subcontract it to someone abroad to cut on costs like many companies do. The editing process involves uploading all the footage and audio files, and backing them up to decrease the chance of losing anything. We then go through the footage from two cameras. So for example, if your wedding was 8 hours of coverage, that's 8 hours times two cameras, for a total of 16 hours of footage that is reviewed and organized in our editing software. We go through and choose the shots we want, sync audio, stabilize shots, color correct each clip, and add music. Once the video is ready, we render it out and upload it for your review. When approved, we then package the usb and have it shipped out to wherever you are. As part of our packages, we also offer revisions which is additional editing time as well.
If we add up all this time, it can be anywhere between 40 to 60 hours of work per wedding.
Gear
Even though we are a small business, we pride ourselves in keeping up with the latest technology and upgrading it as the camera world comes out with better gear on a regular basis. It's also about making sure everything is in working condition. This mean sometimes replacing equipment that does not work as well as when it was new, including stabilizers or audio equipment.
This gear is quite expensive. It typically includes at least four cameras, two that are used at all times and two reserved for backup purposes in the event a camera does not work. This also includes a set of lenses with different focal ranges to fit the event needs. The lenses we have are excellent quality as far as aperture and speed to make sure we get the clearest, best shots possible.
Here's a list to better understand how much gear we carry on us and actually use on a given wedding day:
Monopod
Tripod
Stabilizer
Cameras
Lenses
Batteries
SD cards
Lens wipes
Lavalier mics
Camera mics
TASCAM recorder and cables
LED lights
Light stand
All in pelican cases and backpacks
Cost: All of this gear totals about $15,000 and counting. If you see we are a bit overprotective of it, now you know why.
Expenses
In order for us to operate successfully as a business, it requires additional investments that are not equipment. These include:
Marketing and advertising - How do you find us? We pay subscriptions on sites like The Knot, Weddingwire, and others to be seen by our couples. We also have a paid website with our blog (that we write ourselves) and an Instagram with ongoing posts (that we work on ourselves).
Software - We use several software to edit your video. We also pay stock music membership to be able to post our videos online without copyright infringement.
Education - In order to be knowledgeable of the latest technology, how to use it, and new wedding industry and video trends, we invest in educating ourselves to better serve you.
Fees - Most payment platforms, now nearly all, have processing fees for payments. In addition to that, we also pay fees to have a registered business with the state.
Insurance - We are insured. It is oftentimes a requirement to be insured by many venues that our couples choose. This requires a yearly premium.
Taxes - We do not charge our clients any taxes on our services, which means we pay them out of pocket every year.
Travel - Gas, car insurance and maintenance, parking, tolls, or hotel stay expenses.
Supplies and shipping - Hard drives to store your footage and back it up, high power computers to edit the footage efficiently, 4K monitors to clearly see what we are working with, and usbs we ship out.
Cost: Average monthly expense - $2000
Skill & Talent
Throughout the 7 years we have worked in the wedding industry, we learned, grew, and developed into the cinematographers and business owners we are now. The main reason you reached out is because you liked what you saw in our videos and are a fan of our work, and hopefully of us as people. You appreciate our style, expertise, and personality, and that means the world to us.
We will be by your side the majority of one of the most important days of your life capturing it all. And we make sure we do it right. We have seen what can go wrong and are prepared for it. We try to give you the best advice possible to have your day run as smoothly and carefree as it can. We have mastered the art of standing for long periods of time while using our equipment to it's maximum potential. We are sometimes referred to as video ninjas because we manage to capture it all without being annoying about it, especially to our beloved photographers. We are often complimented on how we don't get in their way and work well as a team.
Cost: We'd like to say the skill and talent part of all this, is priceless.
