little help and insight from experianced photographer's please

[wolf_bluejay]

almost 6 year ago the wife and I got married in the Caribbean. With all the troubles of residency requirement, and all the other junk, we opted to get married on a cruise ship.

Now, just looking at the prices you've got for just the photos -- our whole wedding package cost about $1500 on top of the cruise. (captian to marry, legal stuff, wedding coordinator, reception for 20, food, flowers, etc..

On said ship, we had the use of the ship photographer for about 2 hours. Some of the photos are spectacular, some were pretty good. However, our best man and brides maid (who were married 3 hours earlier) had my point-and-shoot and his. Took lots and lots and lots (1500+ in 2 hours) of pictures.

Yes, most of the point and shoot were really,really bad. But we did end up with about 100 pictures that just by luck were great, just happened to be laughing and in "just so" position when the button was pushed.

So, even if you do go with a professional, have someone with the point and shoot with a large memory card, as you do own the negatives of all those pictures. But the ability to pose you and the spouse to *get* the great photos does sometimes take a pro.


PS. married on a cruise ship -- wow! they did everything, and I mean everything for us. My friend was married in the morning, and us in the afternoon. Instead of running around in a mad panic, and a stressed out wife -- it was not a whole lot of stress at all. Walked onto the ship with the wedding dress and tux, they had someone standing and waiting for us to pick it all up at the door and get it cleaned just to make sure -- chef was there with the cake (just in case something went wrong), florist, a guy that just poured water, etc.

Even had a wedding dress malfunction just outside the door, they made a quick call to the seamstress and she came out and fixed it up right there at the door.

If cost is why you want to go cheap, the cruise lines are cheaper for the whole wedding than the cost of just the photographer. And they do have live streaming video for the folks back home too