What's it Cost to Produce Average Wedding?

What's an average wedding video production cost?

There are certainly other, different and alternate incidental and real costs, but I break down the average cost to produce an average wedding to this = $1,709.

And that is not figuring on two operators at the event for 8 hours, only 1; also only 30 total hours editing, not a possible 40 to 50 or more in some cases.

Person hours 8 x $50 per hour = $400
Road time hrs 2 x $25 per hour = $50
Gas/car exp = $16 avg
Food = $20 avg
tape stock = $18
Editing 20 to 40 hours @ $35 per hour = $1,050 for 30 hours
Insurances = $20 avg per event, based on a $1K annual premium?
Electricity = $5 (no logic applied, arbitrary number)
Equip depreciation/wear = $25 per gig avg
DVD, ink, paper, cases = $5 per unit
Postage = $10
Web costs = $20 per gig avg est cost
Advertising = $20 per gig avg est cost
Space, office, room use = $50 per event/gig est

At $1,709 a wedding video producer would have to make $50 per hour based on an estimated 38 hours per wedding/gig to break even.

Based on $75 per hour for 38 hours, the producer would be bringing in $2,850 - a potentially feasible/reasonable price point. And a fair price to offer the potential client.

I'm not averaging this on weddings. And, I strongly suspect that there are not too many others averaging $3,000 per wedding production either.

Essentially, wedding video producers are all losing money on weddings that call for an investment of 40 plus hours and are bringing in less than $3K. Using the less is more principle it is possible to do WAY less and make something, if not actually MORE.

This makes wedding video production truly a labor of love, no pun intended. Clients often do not realize that they are getting a good value if they hire an independent professional video services provider with referrals and experience who has a $3,000 base fee for quality production work, based on the hours and REAL costs involved.