Wedding Photography as an Investment

Weddings are those events that are so amazingly memorable that they literally divide our lives into two sections: the time before we got married and the time after we got married.  This is a truly romantic view, but it is one that almost all of us share and yet it is missing one key fact: how amazingly short that wedding really is.  Months of careful planning all come down to a precious short few hours.  Once those hours are gone, they are gone, but they do not have to be lost forever.

All of the money, time, energy, and effort put into planning the perfect wedding ceremony can be retained with photographs.  The better the quality of the photographs, the more of the investment is retained.  This is why many people view professional wedding photographs as a form of investment.  If you have never thought of wedding photography as an investment before, then give it some thought.

On one hand add up all of the expenses of a wedding, regardless of who pays for them, and assign a value to the time and energy expended by everyone who helped make the moment so special and memorable.  How much would losing all of that cost you if it was considered a total loss?  On the other hand, weigh the minimal costs of a professional wedding photographer against the ability to add breathtaking prints to family scrap books, send out memorable cards for the holidays, and have pictures that can be shared with friends and family members for a generation.

The mathematics are clear: it simply does not make sense to spend a single penny on a wedding unless you are going to do what it takes to make the wedding amazing, but you probably knew that from the outset.  Why make a wedding amazing if it will only live in the memories of guests and participants, memories that are imperfect and will slowly degrade over time.  Memories that might be more than a little colored by the celebratory wines and campaigns served before and after the big moment?  Memories that can never be shared with any degree of intimacy or accuracy the way that photographs can.

Like I said, there is a reason that so many people look into wedding photography as an investment, and it is one that keeps giving over time.  As new family members arrive and new friends introduce themselves to your family, you will be able to magnify the value of your investment in wedding photos a hundred fold or more.