Four and a half long years ago I wrote How not to hire a wedding photographer, an article that was a response to a Craigslist ad about someone who had very unrealistic goals about what they wanted.  In the article I broke down each and every absurd request the person had and gave reasonable answers.  I’m going to attempt to do the same thing with a recent Craigslist ad where a bride is flying off the chain at what she seems to think is a case of hanging out and shooting photos.

The original ad posted to the Seattle Craigslist:

Attn: Wedding Photographers (Puget Sound)

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. They are ripping people off for all they have! Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.
Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos

Like last time, I’ll pick this apart and give some depth to her requests.

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/ Truth be told, it’s not.  There are more options now than ever, magazines and websites like The Knot that specialize in city searches and the abundance and growth of Facebook alone in the last two-three years means it’s only a matter of updating your status with Looking for a wedding photographer, can someone please make a reccomdnation? If you’re like most users, you should have a dozen replies within the first thirty minutes.

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer. Well the old saying is, you can have two but never three of the following: Cheap, Fast, Good.  Also, what is decently priced to you may be very affordable to someone else.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. Actually, yes, it’s partly because the word wedding is involved, but you’re also not fully understanding the pricing structure for a wedding.  We’ll talk about that shortly since you’re going to continue going off into the deep end about it.  And photos are optional, just like a wedding is.  I’m no expert at law but I’m pretty sure most states in the USA only require some paperwork to be filled out at a county courthouse, the actual wedding ceremony, for the most part, is totally optional, along with the reception.

They are ripping people off for all they have! We are?  If all you have is $3,000 then you should probably put that towards your cost of living, student loans and the such, not towards a photographer. 

Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! As I’ve previously stated, it’s actually not $15,000.00, that’s the to hire people who will provide you with the setting and facility to celebrate your wedding.  If you want a professional chef to come to your house and make your dinner, you can expect to pay more for it than if you went to their establishment.

I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. Thanks for the love, can never have enough of that.  Now, I’m not going to argue the $3,000.00 figure you keep because that’s somewhat dependent on where you live, you’d be lucky to find a photographer in New York City for that much and in Po-Dunk, Anywhere it might be three times the going rate, so for this we shall stick to it.  We don’t hang out.  We run a business.  A business that has overhead, such as insurance, gear upkeep and maintenance, transportation, advertising, web design and deployment, brochures, sample books, etc.  All at a cost.  While most wedding photographers don’t have the overhead of an actual storefront, they still incur costs in their home / home offices such as lines for fax machines, Internet, computers, etc.  Also, there is no W-2 form when you are a sole owner or LLC, this means you need to pay taxes in most states quarterly, most photographers off-load this to an accountant, an added cost.  There are no paid sick days, vacation days, personal or doctor days, those are luxuries not afforded to a wedding photographer.  Likewise, business hours are virtually every hour of every day.  There is no show up at 8am, take lunch from 12:30-1:30 and leave at 5pm, it’s in your best interest to answer phone calls at 8pm while you’re enjoying a movie with your family or reply to emails at 1am, so the client always feels their wedding is the most important in the world.

I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? This is the part in the story where I honestly hope you are good at math.  I’m going to break down for you very simply what an average wedding consists of, time wise.

• 20 minutes: Initial in-bound inquirer from potential client via email or phone call + response
• 10 minutes: Follow up to schedule a meeting
• 60 minutes: Initial meeting, this is usually in a home office or a coffee shop of some sorts
• 30 minutes: Time it will take to draw up contracts, review discussions during initial meeting, send to you for review
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you that the first deposit needs to be sent to positively reserve your date
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you the remainder of the deposit needs to be paid in full 1 week prior to the wedding
• 60 minutes: Driving time to and from the wedding and between the wedding and reception.
• 10 hours: Provided you are getting married at 4pm and reception starts at 6pm and ends at 10pm, figure being at the Bride’s house by noon for the getting ready photos, the Groom’s shots, pre-bridal party posed shots, shots between the wedding and reception.  Basically starting at noon and ending at 10pm.
• 60 minutes: To import all digital photos and start the work-flow of editing, backing up originals and preparing for final images.
• 5 hours: Time spent editing photos.  This number varies for everyone, I’ve generally found in my experience that for every hour I’m shooting I can expect to spend one-half hour in the chair editing.  This is also weeding out bad photos and getting the final selection ready.
• 60 minutes: Time to export fully edited photos, catalog them and burn to DVD
• 30 minutes: To back up the edited photos and keep copies safe via external hard drive or more DVDs.

At this point we’re now at 21 hours.  This time has several variables in it and does not include sending files to a printer for photo prints, books, etc, plus picking them up, assembly of them or delivery to you, the client.  Rough math says that’s equal to about $142.86 per hour worked.  That is gross profit per hour.  Let’s factor in 15% taxes, that chops $450 off the top right there, factor in another $25.00 per month for insurance and a solid $150.00 per month for an accountant.  Then of course there is the cost of running a website, Facebook and Google paid ad campaigns, attending wedding expo’s, printing promo material, print advertisement in The Knot and similar magazines / websites.  Gas, car insurance and wear and tear on automobiles traveling to and from meetings and events.  All of this and I still haven’t said one word about the cost of actual camera equipment.  A wedding photographer who is charging $3,000 is probably doing so because they don’t want to undercut their competition but also because they’ve been doing it for a while and understand what it is to run a full business.  That said, they are probably bringing between $4,000 and $20,000 worth of camera gear with them to shoot your wedding.  This stuff is all wear and tear items that routinely need to be sent out for repair and replaced over time.  Let us not forget that this is for a paying client, not everyone who emails / calls will be a paying client due to schedule conflicts, priced too far above (or below, yes I’ve heard of clients saying photographer is too cheap for them), or other various reasons.  Same goes with the initial meeting, you don’t get up to bat and always hit a home run.  All that time is unpaid time spent working.

So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!  It’s interesting you bring this up, as mentioned before this is a luxury, you actually don’t need any of this to get married.  I think what’s also worth mentioning here is that it’s customary here in the USA to expect an engagement ring equal to roughly three month’s salary of the groom-to-be.  By your numbers of the average salary, you’re expecting a $9,000 ring?  That’s a really nice used car.  Moreover, it’s worth probably about $1,500 if you try to actually sell it because the only thing of real value is the gold or platinum in the band, the diamond for all intense purposes is a thing of value only to initial purchaser, there is no publicly traded diamonds out there in the same fashion as precious metals.  It’s a number made up by those in control of the mines, that however is a whole other article.

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.  Well this photographer did read it and I’ll be sharing it with other ones for sure. 

Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos Pull your nose out of the clouds, photographers love to photograph, it’s one of those service oriented jobs where most who do it chose to do it, and they truly love their craft.  They also love to get paid for it, and if you aren’t willing to pay for their experience, talent, skill and professionalism, then you have missed a great opportunity.  There are plenty of new shooters who bottom-feed and try to start at $500 a wedding, your photographs are going to look like they were shot by a $500 wedding photographer.

You complained a lot about a wedding costing you $15,000, if the photographer is going to make up roughly one-fifth of your total investment.  That means that four-fifths of your budget is going to be spent on consumable, forgettable items.  I’m sorry, on your one-year anniversary no one is going to post on your Facebook wall about how much they loved the duck breast and mashed squash they had for dinner or how great the DJ was.  They are going to leave comments on the photographs, that’s how people will remember and more importantly, relive and rejoice at your special day.  For your guests, it’s just a day they had to get dressed up, eat some marginally OK food, listen to music they probably don’t like and give you a gift that you probably don’t need or money that will be used to re-coupe the cost of this whole event.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Photo by: Yogi

But, don’t show up at the doorstep of the house you are at to beg for money and ask where you can valet park your private fucking jet!  Not only did the auto exec’s fly in on private jets, they didn’t even jet-pool!  A quick Google search shows that a private jet can cost around $4,000 per hour!  Checking a few major ticket sites online, It shows that it is roughly one and a half hour to fly from Detroit to Washington D.C., or $6,000 each way.  I can book a 1st class ticket for a wee tad over $800, roundtrip! ZOMGWTF?!Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Prepare to be schooled. Legitimately.

On the second Tuesday in November, history will be made. America will have elected either its first African American president, more than 140 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, or the first woman vice president, nearly 90 years following the ratification of the bill that gave U.S. women the right to vote. It’s a spectacular opening of doors for future generations in America, and a new source of untapped talent for the highest offices in the land. Regardless of the scurrilous gossip strewn about the candidates personal lives, about the disagreements over flip flopping and petty fighting between party lines, there are real issues here at stake that actually matter to our lives and the lives of our children. As Lauren stated, it’s exhausting to witness the bickering, and maybe this is only another voice in the crowd of many. I’ve painfully recognized how uneducated and seemingly uninterested Americans are on the actual FACTS of this election. We have let our reality become distorted by the most backwards and terrifying process of dehumanization out there, the agenda of the corporate American press.

In an attempt to be as bipartisan as possible, I thought that I would try to outline some of the basic issues of both candidates and what they stand for. This is in no way a purpose for me to be stumping for either party (even though you know I’m not afraid to let you know who I support), this is simply an attempt to break down the basic facts. Just because you’ve always voted Democrat, or you’ve always voted Republican, does not mean that you should blindly support whomever that party has nominated. Do you agree with their stance on foreign policy? Their answer to the war in Iraq? Their energy policies? What about education? When it comes down to it, this is a personal decision, but one that should be an informed choice. We can’t base our sources of knowledge in hearsay, propaganda or in the opinions of spouses or parents or friends. I’ve done the gruntwork for you, and here it is. Make your own choices.

In black and white, I give you the facts:

• Taxes
  

In comparison to the policies in place under our current administration, the McCain tax plan will reduce taxes by approximately 4.2 trillion. The Obama plan will cut taxes by 2.9 trillion. McCain’s tax cuts will hit across the board, with the biggest cuts going to the highest income households (top 1% of US citizens making over $1.2 mill/year), while Obama would give larger tax cuts to low and moderate income households and pay most of the cost by raising taxes on high income taxpayers (top 1% making over $1.2 mill/year). Both policies from both parties will substantially increase our national debt over the next ten years: McCain’s would increase our debt by $5 trillion, Obama’s by $3.5 trillion.

What does this mean for you? The typical American, middle class income (incomes of less than $200k yearly for individuals and $250k per year for married couples) will raise 3% with McCain’s plan. In comparison, with Obama’s plan, middle income households will see a boost of 5% back into their wallets.

Things to consider: National debt. Want to see how much we owe? Check this out. We need to pay taxes in order to dig ourselves out of debt and get this tattered economy back on it’s feet. Bigger tax breaks and higher spending pushes this debt onto our children and our children’s children.

(Please note, these are estimations based on currently proposed tax plans. Source: Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute and Brookings Institution)

• Health Care

McCain proposes a refundable income tax credit of $2500 individually or $5000 for married couples purchasing health insurance. He believes that competition between insurance companies will lower the cost and improve the quality of health insurance. This, among other changes that McCain proposes, would cost the US deficit $1.3 trillion over ten years. Obama’s plan is to modernize the US healthcare system and make relatively low cost insurance available to everyone, along with subsidizing premiums for low and moderate income folks. This will cost the US deficit $1.6 trillion, but would also cover virtually all children and the majority of currently uninsured adults. McCain’s proposed plan would cut the number of uninsured people by a little over 6 million in ten years. Obama’s plan would bring the numbers of uninsured people down by 34 million.

(Source: Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute and Brookings Institution)

Things to consider: One in seven Americans are uninsured, living sicker and dying younger. Uninsured Americans effect everyone’s health coverage. Even the insured pay the price with crowded emergency rooms and escalating health care costs, which in turn make health insurance less affordable. The United States spends nearly $100 billion annually to provide uninsured patients with health services, often for preventable diseases or diseases more effectively treated with an earlier diagnoses. Can you guess where this money comes from, loyal tax payer?

• Iraq

The basic discrepancy between candidates on this issue is whether or not to pull out from the war and withdraw our troups. McCain says fight it out, Obama says end it. McCain believes that it is our moral obligation to stay in Iraq until it is capable of governing itself and safeguarding its own people. He supports counterinsurgencies (sending additional troops) in order to control the population and violence in Iraq. McCain will promote efforts within the international community to support regional stability and to bolster Iraq’s economy. He also supports structuring the US’s military posture in order to put pressure on Iraq’s neighbors (Syria and Iran) to stop aiding Shi’ite militias.

Obama believes that we are in the midst of a war without end, and proposes a plan to finish it. He believes that our military resources are dwindling and leaving us less safe at home, and that with a responsible and phased withdrawal, both Iraq and the US will be better off. Obama’s basic plan will have brigades removed at a pace of 1 to 2 per month, to be completed in 16 months. He will also have a residual force remain in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions as well as continue efforts to train and support Iraqi security forces with the support of the Iraqi government. Obama believes in a moral obligation to Iraq’s humanitarian crisis, providing $2 billion to support the millions of displaced Iraqi families while reserving the right to intervene militarily, with international support, to suppress potential genocidal violence within the country.

McCain highlights that the past year has shown a significant reduction in violence in Iraq, and he places the success on the shoulders of the troop surge. Obama supports redirecting our efforts towards Afghanistan where Taliban has since reemerged, pointing out that 2007 was the most violent year in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001.

Things to consider: With hundreds upon thousands of innocent lives lost, almost 5,000 American soldiers dead since the start of the war, and $3 trillion in national debt… the cost of the war continues to rise by the second.

• Environment/Energy Crisis

It seems as though major authorities on the environment and energy crisis don’t think that either candidate has enough policy in regard to these topics. It also seems that both candidates bleed into one another’s solutions, there is a meshing between sides. The major differences are that McCain is touting increased fossil fuel production and nuclear energy, while Obama emphasizes alternative sources and conservation to meet our energy needs.

McCain’s emphasis on increased production of nuclear energy and oil is based in a re-commitment in these energy sources. Nuclear energy produces zero emissions, and could decrease our dependency on foreign oil, however safety can be an issue due to the high levels of radioactivity that can be emitted from the waste (newer plants have a much better safety record, but it makes some reminisce about Chernobyl). There are also concerns about the cost of researching and building nuclear power plants. McCain’s plan also will give $2 billion per year in order to advance clean coal technology.

McCain supports off-shore drilling, deep sea drilling off U.S. coastlines in search of oil in order to increase domestic supplies. Increasing domestic oil production could put a patch on the situation we’ve found ourselves at the gas pump, however ecologically speaking, oil is a non-renewable resource and not a great thing to be dependent on, not to mention the threat of what oil spills can do to our environment. McCain has the idea of providing a $300 million award for “the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.” Anyone know how to make batteries?

Obama will back limited off-shore drilling, as he believes that oil companies should first drill on the 68 million acres that they have which are so far unused. Previously against the idea, Obama has recently said that he now believes a compromise will have to be made in order to prevent gridlocking between oil companies and the government. His main objective is that we need to reduce our dependency on oil completely and move towards new fuel choices and alternative energies. Obama’s proposed policies take it a step further by investing $150 billion over ten years in order to build a clean energy future, along with creating 5 million “green collar” jobs. As for an immediate solution, he’ll give a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay for rising bills, the money coming from oil company profits. Obama would mandate the auto industry in order to influence them towards making vehicles capable of running on alternative fuels, and increase federal support of mass transit. McCain is against these mandates, and once a cap and trade is implemented (keep reading…), would rely on the market to cultivate alternative energy itself.

Both candidates support tax credits to those that buy hybrid cars. Both support a cap-and-trade system that would place a cost on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming, in order to encourage a shift towards renewable energy. Both also agree that regardless of the solution to stop the immediate oil bleeding from the gas pumps in America, something needs to be done to catalyze our shift from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources.

Please see this as well as this for further info.

Things to consider: Where you’ll be in 2050 when the Arctic Ocean has completely melted, the glaciers are gone from the Alps, and over one million species of animals are extinct. I’ll be (hopefully) still kicking it at 68.

• Education

The low standards that our education system has currently in place are dismal at best. American children rank 28th out of 40 countries in mathematics and 19th out of 40 countries in science. Education should be a top priority. Bush’s No Child Left Behind plan was a complete dud, most agree the reason for this is because it was neglected in funding. We have huge issues in America with teacher quality and accountability. (Although this article is Obama based, if you are interested in the current state of our national education system, it is phenomenally written, please devour.) McCain will work to improve the No Child Left Behind Law, Obama will fundamentally extricate it.

McCain doesn’t seem to have a clear plan in regard to changing our education system, although lets hope he focuses more on this issue with the addition of his running mate and mother of 5. He does believe that public schools need to be publicly accountable for test results. McCain supports the basis of using competition in order to obtain greater quality teachers, and thinks that if parents are unhappy with the public education of their children, they should be allowed to change schools. He’ll also reward teachers with individual merit pay. Obama‘s main concerns are in the US’s high school dropout rate (30%), quality of teachers, and extremely high college costs. He will work to create a voluntary national performance assessment for new teachers, as well as work with school districts to create a program for salary increases for accomplished educators that work to mentor new teachers. Obama will also enact an unprecedented American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4000 to families universally. He will also ensure that the tax credit is available to families at the time of enrollment by using prior year’s tax data to deliver the credit when tuition is due.

Things to consider: Children are our future!

The basis of this article has grown out of Project votesmart. I believe that being informed is so important, and I am up for anyone willing to question. If we are open to it, we can all learn something here.

Signing off before my fingers fall off, as your CNN addict/political adviser chick, I bid you adieu…. DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!!!!Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Yeah… it’s one of those days.

I work in retail. It’s not the most glamorous job in the world, but it pays the bills (kind of) and it’s what I gotta do at the moment (my college degree is collecting dust in the other room). This means I don’t have a choice to be in the shopping center, so if you could not be an asshole and nearly sideswipe me trying to steal my parking spot, that would be great. And, no, I’m not going to steal your spot so stop waving like a lunatic and just let me pass you. Seriously, stop waving and let me pass so I can run my car into a brick wall and end my misery.

Don’t come into my store and expect me to shop for you. I’m here to guide you and answer your questions about product tech. I’ll help you find whatever you need, but I don’t know if your kid will like the Sand Uggs or the Chestnut Uggs better. You should maybe pull yourself out of your Xanax haze to talk to them once in a while and see what they’re into. Plus, we don’t have them in size 6. No, I do not find that to be a problem, you should have bought them before the rush. No, I cannot pull them out of my ass. I can give you the waist-size equivalents in inches for pants, but I don’t know if your husband will look good in them. He doesn’t wear clothes while we’re banging, so I wouldn’t know. And please stop acting like you know anything about winter running or outerwear technology and just fucking let me tell you what you need. If you knew anything, you wouldn’t be trying on the fucking thinnest (and cheapest) fleece in the store and ask if it’s “really warm.” And what the fuck, how warm do you need your shit to be? You live in goddamn Pennsylvania, you don’t ski, and you don’t enjoy activity so throw on a sweater and get the pretty coat. If you just want to look good and don’t need tech info, find a color you like and leave me to deal with people who actually care about what they are spending their money on.

Shut the fuck up and let me do my job. If you know how to do a return, ring a giftcard, postvoid (all while juggling grapefruits and baking cookies, simultaneously, yes), then you pop your privileged ass behind the register so I can take a piss break. Or, you know, you could be a completely evil and angry person and announce loudly that you’re astounded that any company would let me be a manager. And then you could call me stupid and unhelpful and make me cry. Yeah – I cried. And you know what? YOU LOOKED LIKE A COMPLETE ASSHOLE. A COMPLETE ASSHOLE WITH A BRATTY CHILD YOU DON’T LOVE BUT A $4000 PURSE THAT YOU DO. And you’re not an extra-small… not naturally, anyway, you Botox-faced, unintelligent, bad mother evil fucking bitch. Kill yourself.

From now on, I’m crying immediately. All the time. It’s the only fucking thing that makes people consider you human and that their actions may be out of line. Crying… not the birth of the Christian God, or the fact that now is a time for generosity and kindness, or the time to start anew. No – you would need to have a soul to have any of those things touch your life.

Fortunately what you lack in a soul, you make up for in a black AmEx.

Merry Fucking Christmas, you miserable motherfuckers.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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