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Like anything else in a wedding, photography services can be grossly overdone and terribly expensive. I went to a wedding recently where the photographer was awfully intrusive. After the ceremony, the guests went to the reception and started the party. We didn’t see the happy couple for two hours! They were busy getting a million pictures taken and were hungry and crabby by the time they made it to dinner. Then, during the reception, the photographer set up multiple flashes on tall poles throughout the room. He took pictures throughout the evening and with each one, the flashes went off, momentarily blinding me. And, I happen to know, that my friends paid almost $8,000 for this service!

For my wedding, my husband and I chose the one photography company we could find that charged by the hour rather than by package deals. We chose three hours and paid around $1000. We took as many family portraits as we could before the ceremony and limited our after ceremony shots to 45 minutes.

During the reception, the photographer took several pictures, but used no fancy flashes. We were very happy with the resulting photos. We also received all of the pictures on two CDs and the rights to print as much as we liked.

Besides charging so much on the day, many photographers will keep the rights to the pictures. That means that anytime you would like to print an additional photo, you have to pay the photographer as well as for the costs to print.

Keep the above issues in mind and you will find you can get lovely, professional pictures for your wedding at minimal cost and with little hassle.