If you think about it, wedding photography is a rip-off from beginning to end.

Folks are spending a large amount of money to 'create' memories' but really, what is left after a few months?

Very little, possibly an image or two on walls that will never be looked at again, a couple of albums that will gather dust until lost during a move.

In a few years the images will be yellow, desuet on some piece of furniture among other equally old and part of a scenery some call home.

Years later the album may be reopened one day by a kid who was snooping around and sees images of a wedding they do not relate to. “Is it you mom? Dad?” Then the album is placed back into a dark corner and forgotten again.

Nostalgia lasts only as long as someone remembers.

When reopened next, it might be when someone cleans out an attic and finds a trace of an event, does not know who is in the pictures, guesses about it for a few moments. The album is placed on a pile, 'keep' if the person wants to look at it again but probably will forget that too. With a little less luck the album ends in an estate sale and those that did not make the cut, the greatest majority, in a literal bin disposed up in a field full of trash... Who wants a cracked, dried up book made of people no one knows?

So thousands of $$$ to fill the dumpster, historical or real...

Those here who speak of the 'ethics' in pricing should stop and think about their 'commodity' offerings and realize that they are ripping up folks who need their revenues toward something more useful than spit in the wind.

Now, yes there is a market so why not profit from folk's gullibility? You must have a photographer because the Jones had one.

At the very least, now, be honest about it when you work, at least in your mind.