How Many Hours of Wedding Photography Do You Actually Need?
When you're looking at wedding photography packages, one of the first questions you'll probably run into is: how many hours of photography do we actually need?
The answer depends less on the size of your wedding and more on how your day is structured.
As a general rule, we recommend 8 hours as a good starting point, but there are a few things that can push you towards 9 or even 10 hours.
8 hours: enough for a relatively straightforward day
If your getting-ready location, ceremony and reception are all fairly close together, 8 hours can cover a lot of ground.
It gives us enough time to photograph the important parts of the day without spending hours hanging around waiting for things to happen.
For example, an 8-hour wedding could comfortably cover:
Getting ready
Details and a few portraits
The ceremony
Family and bridal party photos
Couple photos
Canapés and some guest photos
Reception details
Speeches and/or the beginning of the party
If everything is happening in roughly the same area and the people in charge are conscious of the time and timeline, you don't necessarily need to pay for hours you won't really use.
9 hours: a little more breathing room
If you'd rather not have the day feel quite so tightly packed, 9 hours is a really comfortable option.
That extra hour can make a surprisingly big difference.
It gives you a little more room if hair and makeup run late, guests take longer to organise for family photos, or you simply want us to stay for a little more of the reception.
It's also a good option if your locations aren't right next to each other but aren't particularly far apart either.
10 hours: when there's travel involved
If your getting-ready location, ceremony and reception are spread out across different locations, 10 hours is often the better choice.
Travel takes time and unfortunately your wedding photographer can't photograph you while they're driving down the road.
If you're getting ready in one town, getting married somewhere else and then heading to a reception venue another distance away, those gaps need to be accounted for.
So, what should you book?
Our general rule of thumb is:
8 hours → Locations are close together and your day is relatively straightforward.
9 hours → You want a little more breathing room and don't want the timeline to feel rushed.
10 hours → There is significant travel between locations.
And if you're still unsure, don't feel like you need to work it out by counting every single minute yourself. Send us your rough wedding-day plan and we'll happily tell you what we think makes sense.
More hours aren't automatically better. The goal is to have enough coverage to tell the story of your day without having a photographer following you around simply because you've paid for the time.