How much does a wedding videographer cost?

Add up what a wedding videographer actually costs from the quotes you have: the hours of coverage, the second operator, the audio and drone add-ons, the licensed music, the deliverables you are choosing between a highlight film and a full ceremony edit, plus travel and the raw footage you may or may not be offered. The line that decides the price is rarely the one people negotiate.

§ 01 Your numbers

Change anything. The answer updates as you type.

Hours of coverage on the day

What the contract says, from getting ready to the last dance you want on film. This is the number every package is built around.

Ask where the clock starts and stops, because the two ends of a wedding day are the parts that overrun. Getting-ready footage means an earlier call time than most couples expect, and a sparkler exit means somebody is still working after the bar closes. Overtime is usually billed at an hourly rate set in the contract, so ask what that rate is before you need it rather than after.

Their hourly or day rate, per hour (dollars)

If you were quoted a package rather than an hourly figure, divide the base package by its included hours and put that here. The default is ours and it is a placeholder.

A package price divided by its coverage hours is not the videographer's wage and this page never treats it as one. It is the whole business: two camera bodies because one will fail, lenses, audio kit, batteries, storage, insurance the venue will ask to see, the editing suite, the accountant, and the months of the year when nobody gets married. Our photographer page does that arithmetic properly against the wage BLS actually publishes.

Second operator (dollars)

A second camera means the ceremony has two angles and the speeches are covered while somebody is also filming the room. It is the add-on that most changes what the finished film can be.

One operator filming a ceremony has to choose, in the moment, between the faces at the front and the faces in the seats, and whichever they choose is the one you get. Two operators means a cut between them, which is most of what makes a ceremony edit watchable. Ask whether the second is an experienced shooter or an assistant, because those are different roles at different prices.

Drone, extra audio and lighting (dollars)

Drone footage, wireless microphones on the officiant and the couple, and lighting for a dark reception. Priced separately by most studios.

Audio is the add-on couples never think about and regret most. A ceremony filmed from the back of a room with on-camera sound gives you vows you cannot hear, and no edit fixes that afterwards. Ask specifically how the vows and the speeches are being recorded. Drone work depends on the venue and the airspace: some venues prohibit it outright, and some sites need authorisation the operator has to hold and file for.

Licensed music (dollars)

The track under your highlight film has to be licensed for it, and the licence is a real cost the studio either passes on or absorbs.

A film scored with a commercial pop song is not something a studio can legally deliver or post, which is why the song you had in mind is usually not the song you get. Licensed catalogues exist for exactly this purpose and the per-track cost is modest. Ask whether it is included in the package or billed on top, and ask before you fall in love with a particular piece of music.

Edit and deliverables (dollars)

The highlight film, and any longer edits you want: the full ceremony, the full speeches, a documentary cut. This is where the working hours actually are.

A short highlight film is not a short job. It is hours of footage from several cameras and separate audio recorders, synchronised, culled, cut, colour graded and scored. A full ceremony edit and a full speeches edit are usually priced as separate deliverables because they are separate passes through the same material. Ask what the delivery timeline is in writing: several months is normal and several months of silence is not.

Travel, accommodation and permits (dollars)

Mileage beyond an included radius, a hotel night for an early call time or a distant venue, and any permit a location requires for filming.

Most packages include travel inside a radius and bill beyond it. If your venue is far from the studio, or your day starts early enough that arriving the same morning is not realistic, the hotel night is yours. Public parks, historic sites and some estates require a filming permit that is separate from anything you paid the venue.

Raw footage or extra copies (dollars)

Some studios sell the unedited footage, some decline to release it at all, and some charge for the storage and transfer. Leave at zero unless you are actually buying it.

Raw wedding footage is a very large amount of material that is mostly unusable on its own: unsynchronised, ungraded, and full of the takes that did not work. Studios who decline to release it are usually protecting their reputation rather than upselling you. If you want it, ask before you sign, because it is a term of the contract and not a purchase you can make later.

Estimated cost

$3,800

Coverage on the day (hours by rate)$2,000
Second operator$500
Drone, extra audio and lighting$400
Licensed music$100
Edit and deliverables$800
Travel, accommodation and permits$0
Raw footage or extra copies$0
Total$3,800

See next steps →

Recommended next steps

Some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them, Calcatrice may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only suggest tools that fit your result, and a company can't pay to show up here.

$2,500 to $6,000 is two operators, proper audio, a highlight film plus the full ceremony and speeches, and usually a drone. Get the deliverables and the delivery timeline in writing, because that is the part of this package you are still waiting on months later.

PlanningWedding budget tracker↗Seven separate lines, quoted as one package.InsuranceWedding & vendor insurance↗Venues ask vendors for certificates. Ask yours.

What this assumes, and where it could be wrong

Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.

EVERY FIGURE HERE IS FROM YOUR OWN QUOTES. THIS PAGE ESTIMATES NOTHING.

No federal survey publishes what a wedding videographer charges, and we are not going to invent a national figure or average one out of a wedding site's survey of its own customers. The defaults in the form are ours, they are placeholders so the page has something to draw, and replacing them with the numbers on the quotes in front of you turns this from a sketch into an exact comparison.

A package rate divided by its hours is a gross business rate, not somebody's wage.

Out of it come two camera bodies, because one will fail on a day that cannot be repeated. Lenses, audio recorders, microphones, batteries, cards and the drive array the footage lives on until delivery. The liability insurance the venue asks to see. The editing suite and its subscriptions. The tax, the accountant, and the weeks of the year when nobody gets married. Our wedding photographer page does this arithmetic against the wage BLS actually publishes for the occupation, and the gap is the business rather than the margin.

The edit is the half of the job you never see, and it is the half that is priced last. A short highlight film is hours of footage from several cameras and separate audio recorders, synchronised, culled, cut, graded and scored. A full ceremony edit and a full speeches edit are separate passes through the same material, which is why they are separate lines. Couples negotiate the coverage hours and accept the edit price, and the edit is where the working weeks are.

Video and photo are two crews, and assuming otherwise is the expensive mistake on this page. They want different positions in the same room at the same moment, and a videographer who has to keep out of every photograph gets you a worse film. Book them knowing about each other, introduce them before the day, and ask each how they prefer to work alongside the other. One person doing both is doing neither at full attention.

Audio decides whether the film is watchable, and it costs less to get right than almost anything else on this page. Vows and speeches recorded from the back of a room are unusable and no edit repairs them. Wireless microphones on the officiant, the couple and the speeches lectern are a small add-on relative to everything else here. Ask specifically how each of those three is being recorded before you compare two quotes on price.

This total is the film and it stops there. The photographer, the venue, catering, attire and the DJ are separate budgets and mostly larger ones. What the videographer changes about the rest of the day is mainly the timeline: getting-ready footage moves the call time earlier, and a filmed exit means somebody is still working after the reception has ended.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a wedding videographer cost?

Take the quotes in front of you and add the lines: the coverage hours at their rate, the second operator, the drone and audio add-ons, the licensed music, the edit and every deliverable you want, travel, and raw footage if you are buying it. Put those in the form above and the total is exact rather than estimated. There is no national wedding videography price to quote, because no federal survey measures one, and a figure averaged across studios and markets would describe nobody's actual quote.

Why is wedding videography more expensive than it looks?

Because the price is quoted as a day and the work is a post-production project. The coverage hours are the visible half. The other half is synchronising footage from several cameras and separate audio recorders, culling it, cutting a highlight film, colour grading it, scoring it to licensed music, and rendering the longer edits you asked for. That is weeks rather than hours, and it happens after the invoice is already agreed. Add two camera bodies, audio kit, insurance, storage and the seasonal nature of the work, and the day rate stops looking like a day rate.

Do I need a second videographer?

It depends on the ceremony more than the budget. One operator filming a ceremony has to choose in the moment between the faces at the front and the faces in the seats, and whichever they choose is what you get for that moment, permanently. Two operators means a cut between angles, which is most of what makes a ceremony edit watchable, and it means the speeches are covered while somebody else films the room. Ask whether the second person is an experienced shooter or an assistant, because those are different roles at different prices.

Should I book a videographer or spend more on the photographer?

They are different objects and the choice is genuinely yours, but decide it deliberately rather than by default. Photographs are what gets framed and looked at; film is what keeps the vows, the speeches and the voices. Couples who skip video most often say later that the voices are what they wanted back. What does not work is assuming one vendor covers both, or booking them without telling each about the other: they want the same positions in the same room at the same moments, and they need to have agreed how to share them.

Related calculators

Wedding photographerWage data

A photographer earns a median of $21.47 an hour. The median across every occupation in America is $24.51.

Open the calculator→

Wedding DJYour numbers

The hourly rate is not the bill. Ceremony sound, lighting, travel and overtime are separate lines, and they are what separate two quotes that looked identical.

Open the calculator→