To price your wedding services, work out what one wedding really costs you — every hour before, on and after the day, the travel, your kit, your running costs and tax — add the pay you want, and turn the result into one main price a couple can read at a glance. Then write down the few rules that change it, such as overtime, travel or a busy-day surcharge, so every couple sees the same honest total for their date.
A price couples can see gets compared and booked; one they have to ask for is easy to skip. Below are the sums, with worked examples. Every number is invented to show the method, not a market rate.
How to work out what one wedding costs you
Start from the wedding, not the day: the hours a couple sees are only part of the work. Count everything one booking takes:
Time before: messages, calls, the meeting, planning, a site visit, a tasting or a trial.
Time on the day: the journey both ways, setting up, the wedding, packing down.
Time after: editing, the gallery or the film, the invoice.
The wedding's own costs: fuel, parking, an assistant, ingredients, prints, hired equipment.
A share of your running costs: kit, software, insurance, website, advertising, your accountant, divided by the weddings you take in a year.
Tax: the pay you aim for is before income tax and social contributions. VAT comes last, on top.
Weddings bunch on Fridays and Saturdays in the warmer months, so count the weddings you can do well, not the days in the calendar.
A worked example: one photographer's wedding
A photographer has running costs of €10,000 a year:
replacing cameras, lenses and the computer, spread over their life: €4,000
software, storage and online galleries: €900
insurance: €600
website, phone and advertising: €1,500
accountant: €1,200
the car's share: €1,800
She takes 25 weddings a year, so each carries €400 of running costs. One full-day wedding takes her 40 hours: 4 for messages, calls and the meeting, 1 for planning, 2 on the road, 10 at the wedding, 4 for backing up and selecting, 16 for editing and 3 for the gallery and admin.
She wants €50 an hour, before income tax: 40 × €50 = €2,000. The wedding's own costs come to €100. Her price is €2,000 + €400 + €100 = €2,500. Had she priced only the ten hours at the wedding, at €50 each, she would have asked €500 — exactly what the wedding costs her, with nothing left for 40 hours of work.
If she charges VAT, the price couples see includes it: at Germany's standard 19%, €2,500 becomes €2,975. In the EU, consumers must be clearly told the total price, including all taxes and additional charges. VAT rates differ by country, and a small-business scheme may mean you charge none; your tax office confirms what applies to you.
One main price that stands for you
Couples compare one number per supplier. Make it what most of your couples actually book — the full day for a photographer, the evening with sound and lighting for a DJ — not a stripped-down version that looks cheap on the card and grows in the cart. Then say:
how it is charged: for the day, per hour with a minimum, or per guest;
what is included: the hours, who comes, the kit, what the couple receives and when;
what is not: travel beyond a distance, overtime, an album.
On Eventadore, the price of your service stands for you everywhere: on your card in the search, at the top of your profile and in the AI planner's proposals. The first step of registering your business asks how it is charged and the amount; later you change it under Prices & services.
Packages and add-ons, only where they help
Most suppliers need no packages. Add a variant only if you really sell a second version — a ceremony-only set beside the whole day. Two versions that match real weddings let a couple choose; ten that differ by an hour make them do arithmetic. A variant lives on your profile, never on your card or in the planner's proposals; if one should stand for you, Make this my price swaps them.
An add-on, such as an album or a second photographer, is booked beside a package. Price it with the same sum: the extra fee, the extra editing, your hours.
Day rate, hourly or per guest: how to charge
Charge the way your costs grow.
For the day, with hours included
This suits photographers, DJs, bands and planners, whose work is one booking with a natural length. Say how many hours are included, and price each further hour from what it costs you. Above, every hour at the wedding brought two hours of selecting and editing (20 hours for 10), so a further hour is three hours of work: 3 × €50 = €150, before VAT.
Per hour, with a minimum
This suits part of the day: music for the ceremony and drinks reception, photos at the registry office. Always set a minimum: your journey, your set-up and the evening you can no longer sell are the same for one hour or four. A singer at €150 an hour with a three-hour minimum charges €450 for a forty-minute ceremony, and €600 for a ceremony and drinks reception that take four hours.
Per guest, for caterers and venues
When your costs rise with every plate, charge per guest, with a floor: the chef, the staff and the kitchen do not shrink below a certain size. A minimum spend is the least a booking with you costs.
A caterer charges €72 per guest for a three-course dinner with service, with a minimum spend of €4,500. For 90 guests: 90 × €72 = €6,480. For 50 guests, 50 × €72 = €3,600 is below the minimum, so the booking costs €4,500. From 63 guests up, the price per guest counts (63 × €72 = €4,536).
Venues often price the hire and the menu separately, and many step the hire by party size. When it registers, a venue says how catering works there — its own kitchen only, a partner list or free choice — and one with its own kitchen adds at least one menu. Read what couples learn about catering prices per person from your side of the table.
Travel: one clear rule, charged once
A travel cost that appears late feels like a trick, even when it is fair. Choose one rule and publish it:
per kilometre, after a distance that is included, when you travel far and often;
included in your price, when nearly all your weddings are close;
plus an overnight allowance from the distance at which driving home at night is no longer safe.
Set the rate per kilometre of distance so it also covers the way back, your time at the wheel and the wear on your vehicle.
A DJ includes the first 40 km, then charges €0.90 per km, with an overnight allowance of €120 from 250 km. A wedding 100 km away adds (100 − 40) × €0.90 = €54. One 300 km away adds (300 − 40) × €0.90 = €234, plus €120 for the night: €354.
Charge the trip once per booking: if the couple also books your ceremony set, you still drive there once. In your partner area, travel and your other conditions are one line per booking, never one per package, and couples see the trip inside the price for their day.
Surcharges for Saturdays, peak season and weddings abroad
You can sell each date once, and many couples want the same few Saturdays. Price that openly, not by feel:
Set your main price for an ordinary day.
Add a percentage surcharge for the dates you sell out first: certain weekdays, certain months, New Year's Eve.
Keep it to one or two rules, so a couple can guess what their date costs.
A band charges €3,200 for the evening, with a 20% surcharge on Saturdays from June to September. A Friday in March costs €3,200; a Saturday in July, €3,840. Under Surcharges you name it, tick the days of the week, set the dates and the percentage, for every service or just one.
A wedding in another country can mean a flight, a hire car and a second night. Decide once what changes and set it under Weddings abroad, before anyone asks.
Your deposit and payment terms
A deposit protects the date you turned others away for. Set it to cover what a late cancellation would cost you — a 30% deposit on a €3,000 booking is €900 — and write down, in plain words:
the deposit: a percentage, and how many days before the date it is due;
the rest: when and how it is paid;
how couples pay you: the methods you accept, and how your invoices show VAT;
if the couple cancels: what happens to the deposit.
In your partner area, your own deposit sits among your conditions, paid to you before the date. It is not the Eventadore booking fee: couples pay that to us only when you accept, and your share directly to you — how couples pay shows their side.
Why "price on request" loses couples
"Price on request" feels safe: you can size up each couple and quote. To a couple it reads differently:
They cannot compare you. Among four photographers, the one without a price is the easiest to skip.
It sounds expensive. Silence about money often reads as "more than we can afford".
It costs them a message and a wait, just when they are deciding.
Couples build their budget category by category, and a supplier without a number does not fit into it. "Every wedding is different" is what rules solve: the hours, the distance, the date and the guests make the difference, so write down what each does to your price.
On Eventadore you are in the search either way, but couples can add you to their Planning only while Couples can book this price is ticked. Once they add you, the price is locked and nobody renegotiates it: a reason to get it right, not to hide it.
Check your price the way a couple sees it
Before each season, price three weddings as a couple would: a quiet weekday, a Saturday in July, a wedding two hours away. If a total surprises you, it will surprise a couple too.
In your partner area, Price check does exactly that. Choose a package, a day, the number of guests and the place, and press Check the price. You see every line, what The couple pays, the booking fee already inside it, and what goes To you, directly, with your deposit — make sure that still covers your sum. Improving your profile walks through each screen.
With a date and a number of guests, couples see that day's price on your card, all in; without them, a price range. Open the search for photographers, or your own trade, add a date and guests, and compare.
A new price applies only to couples who add you after you save it. Price is one of five things couples weigh; how to get more wedding bookings covers the other four.
Multiply the hours one wedding takes you — before, on and after the day — by the pay you want per hour. Add a share of your yearly running costs and the wedding's own costs, then VAT if you charge it. That is your floor; experience and demand decide how far above it you go.
Should wedding suppliers show their prices?
Yes. Couples compare suppliers side by side, and one without a price is easy to skip or to assume is too expensive. Show one main price, what it includes and the rules that change it.
How should I charge for travel to a wedding?
With one rule, stated up front: included in your price, or per kilometre beyond an included distance, plus an overnight allowance from a distance you choose. Charge it once per booking.
Can I charge more for Saturdays in summer?
Yes, and say so openly: set your main price for an ordinary day and add a percentage surcharge for the dates you sell out first. Couples accept a busy-day price they can see, not one that appears after they ask.
Can I raise my prices after couples have added me?
Not for them. On Eventadore a price is locked into a couple's request the moment they add you. A new price applies to couples who add you after you save it, so review yours before each season.
