September 2009

Wedding Photography Pricing

by Eric Hegwer on 30 September, 2009

My wife and I live in Austin, Texas. Not San Francisco, or Chicago, or Miami but those are all fun cities, too. We decided to come to Austin because we saw that housing prices and the cost of living in the Bay Area (where I used to live) were just crazy. So we came to a fantastic city,one full of culture, the arts, and amazing people, all at a price level in which we could afford. And we love it here. Austin is a fun, vibrant city, full of great people and amazing opportunities at every turn.

How does this help you with your wedding budget? Easy. I charge for my services based on your wedding size. This isn’t like every other photographer in the area. They charge based on time – 5, or 8 hours of coverage. I’ve been to enough weddings to know that that model doesn’t work. Not if you want a fun, relaxed wedding. Trying to capture all the important moments in a 7 hour timeframe causes you to rush around making sure everything is on schedule, and that makes for horrible photos.

So to make your wedding more relaxed, I do things differently. Every single bride and groom gets the best service before, during, and after the wedding. What does this mean, exactly? Let me tell you. You get:

All day coverage (unlimited hours)
A CD with the full size digital images (I’ve got my own wedding pictures, these are yours)
a gallery on-line for 3-months to share your wedding photos with friends and family who couldn’t attend (and the ability for them to download copies for themselves)
at least 1 additional experienced photographer (2nd shooter)
an engagement session
a bridal session
prints to display at the wedding (at the sign-in table, or gift table, or whatever)

All for one reasonable cost based on your wedding size. You see, if you are having a small wedding (under 150 guests), I don’t have to work as hard as if you were having a large wedding. To me this just makes sense.

There is even a package for the something in-between weddings that includes all the same stuff.

And if you are having a very small wedding, with only a few guests, lasting only couple of hours, I offer hourly wedding photography in Austin. Just send me an email and I’ll tell you all about it.

I also travel for weddings. Quite a bit, actually. Since I live in Austin, and I don’t advertise, my rates are lower than a lot of big city professional wedding photographers. You can fly me in for the weekend, and still save money on your wedding photography. As long as I am in your city, I’ll be working for you, covering rehearsals, weddings, and post wedding brunches. The same thing goes for destination weddings, too.

So if you are looking for a local wedding photographer or a destination wedding photographer, just send me an email with your location and date, and I’ll send my rate card right over.

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Lake Travis Sunset Pictures - Draught at Lake Travis

Stage 3 Water Restrictions In Austin

by Garage on 26 September, 2009

Last night, while watching the local news, I heard that even though we have gotten a bunch of rain in the last 2-weeks, Central Texas lake levels are still at an all time low, and the LCRA (LCRA means Lower Colorado River Authority) is considering tightening restrictions on water use yet again.

So the very first thing I did was head over to my laptop, and Googled Austin Stage 3 water restrictions. Nothing. Nada. Zip, Zero, Zilch. This is probably the same response you got, and the reason you are visiting my page. But don’t fear, I’m on a mission to find out what Stage 3 restrictions means.

So I called 311, the city non-emergency and question hotline, and asked the operator. Who had no idea of course.

Then I surfed over to the website of the local paper, and I was able to find this article: Tougher water rules on way? LCRA reviewing drought plan.

Let me summarize what the new restrictions will be:

Watering your lawn less

Is this for real? There are so many other ways to conserve water. Now is the time to enact rules for our future that ensure water conservation, and make sure future generations have enough H2O to drink, cook, and bathe with. I’m thinking of things like mandating tankless water heaters for all new construction, requiring drip irrigation for all new commercial landscape projects, and adding a tax to all sales of water bottles (did you know it takes approximately 6 times the amount of water inside the bottle to manufacture and transport the bottle? Here’s the source to how much water it takes to produce a bottle of water).

According to the LCRA, 2009 is the most severe draught on record since the 1950′s. Stage 2 water restrictions call for a 35% cut of use, and stage 3 will add an additional 10% – resulting in a 45% reduction in water use over regular levels.

Of course I’ll add more things to this list as I learn more.

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