How many guests should we invite?

You’re getting married! But you’ve most likely never got married before or even planned an event of this scale. Typical New Zealand weddings range from small intimate gatherings of 20-40 people, to a typical sized average kiwi wedding of 80-120 people, to bigger occasions and parties of 200+ guests. Cost per head can vary depending on food, beverage and venue location - but budgeting from $120 per head to cover all the food and drink is a great start - from there you can work out your budget for your wedding and how many guests, and how much budget you have left for everything else.

When and what do we need to book?

So you’ve said yes! So a typical engagement can be from 3-24 months, depending on how keen you are to make it official and how much time you want to save and wait for the big day.

I cap my enquiries at 18 months - any further out, I’ve found a lot can change, eg people can get pregnant, personal taste in style trends can alter quite quickly and people just change their mind. So using that 18 month timeframe from the date of your wedding day as a guide to start enquiring, will give you plenty of time to plan and also lock in all your favourite vendors.

The order of booking your vendors will slightly vary depending on it’s importance to you, but as a guide, this is the typical wedding booking food chain.

Wedding vendor booking pyramid
Venue | Photographer 18 months
Your Dress | Planners & Co-ordinators | Marquees | Videographer 12-18 months
Caterer (if your venue doesn’t provide catering) 12-18 months
Florals | Hair & Makeup | Band/Music 6-12 months
Celebrant | Suits & Bridesmaids Dresses | Rings | Hireage items eg lights, portaloos | Stationery & Signage 3-6 months

When booking vendors, it’s highly recommended you get referrals and reviews from multiple sources. Even the vendors you book will be able to give advice, as the industry is smallish in NZ, so knowing who does a good job and is reliable gets out quickly. It’s a team effort by the vendors on your wedding day, so you want to ensure everyone is on board and work well together.

Wedding Video, is it important?

Picking your wedding vendors is important, even more so when adding a videographer. Sink or Surface is New Zealands best videographer whose work ethic, personality, professionalism and films are unmatched in the industry.

Finding a good wedding videographer is quite difficult, do they direct, stage or force a lot of unorganic moments or do they pressure you pre ceremony to show emotion if you’re not an overly emotive person.

Some photographers also offer both photo and video, but this sometimes means they get someone in last minute for a few hundred dollars - so it’s important to find out who and how they offer photo and video as well. As well as delivery times and music - music licenses cost and if they a using the latest Six60 tune, it’s most likely they haven’t paid the license fees for it. And delivery times can vary greatly from company to company. 4-8 weeks is good but there are some horror stories of couples not seeing any footage even 12 months after the day, pays to do your homework.

Also a common thing I hear often shooting weddings from married guests, is they regret not getting video - so if your budget allows, it’s a great addition.

How much does a good photographer cost in New Zealand?

As the wedding industry is pretty unregulated, you have a huge variation of pricing with not only photographers but other items on your wedding day - other variables are, how long you have them for, package add ons and travel.

As a guide, good, professional, experienced and well sort after photographers range between $4000-6000 NZD. Hobbyist, student photographers and instagrammers can come in as low as $500 NZD (most likely cashies or not paying tax or GST). On the other end, “High end” pricing range can start from $8000+ NZD where it becomes more so about vanity and social status than overall product.

The best thing to do is to figure out what you want to allocate in your budget to photos, see if you like their work, read the reviews and get recommendations and make sure you vibe with the people you end up hiring. The photographer is the one person who will be with you the majority of the day. They’ll be present in some of the more intimate and emotional moments. Check out multiple full galleries, are they good at capturing all aspects of a wedding day. Find out how they work on the day, do they keep to time schedules, do they bring someone along to do social media content for themselves rather than actually being their to capture your day? What is their delivery times for previews and completed wedding images, 4-8 weeks is a good timeframe to get your complete gallery.

Why do photographers charge that much and why are booking retainers non refundable?

The basics behind how a photographer prices their service? Straight off the bat there is Taxes, GST and ACC which is approximately a third of their rate. Other elements are their equipment, professional photographers standard camera kit will consist of multiple lenses and a couple camera bodies (this can easily be in excess of $20,000) plus computers, software & subscriptions, website, studio/office leases, vehicle expenses, business, contents and liability insurances, admin, accountants and maintenance just to name a few. Then finally, their actually professional time and service.

And why do professional photographers charge a non refundable booking retainer? That’s because our line of work, we are booking dates that are 12-18 months in the future. So this allows us to turn away other enquiries and pay for the ongoing day to day costs of running our businesses. The standard booking retainer amount is usually 20-30% of the total invoice cost along with a booking contract that protects both parties.

So that’s a basic rundown of how they workout their charge out rate.

The experience is just as important as the photographs.

Traditions, what are they?

New Zealand weddings vary, but as I tell all my couples, it’s your wedding day, you do what makes you happy. As long as you do the legal part then everything else can be unique and special to you. Don’t want to do a cake or first dance, then don’t. Want the bridesmaids to wear whatever they want, then fill your boots.

When to send out save the dates and wedding invites?

Sending out save the dates 12 months out from the wedding usually gives family and friends especially overseas ones, time to save and plan for your wedding day. 6 months is a good time frame to send official invites if you go down the paper route. And, this is the big one, 50% of your guests won’t RSVP, so chasing them up 2-3 months is the go to confirm final numbers for your venue/caterer. You may likely have some pull out the week of the wedding, that’s just kiwis for ya. Annoying if you’ve paid per head, so have a couple mates on stay by as last minute invitees if you don’t want those meals to go waste.

I’m getting married at the family farm or in the our own property!

Want to get married in a place with a bit more meaning is always nice. The big thing to think about is, if you’re getting married at your parents farm or your own property, that is a massive task to take on. You’ll need to bring everything onsite, Marquee, lights, portaloos, caterers, chairs, tables, cutlery, linen - plus the property prep and clean up. So think about that before dropping that bombshell to mum and dad. But you also can’t beat a backyard wedding.

Will doing things ourselves and DIYing save on costs?

Yes and no. If you value your families, friends and your own time, you’ve got to weigh up how much DIY you want to invest in. Self catering can seem like a cost saver, but at what expense - if that means your parents, aunties, uncles and friends are in the kitchen cooking food all day, the day before and day of, they won’t be around to enjoy and celebrate with you on your wedding day.

Same with wedding cakes. If you’re going to get a friend to make one, think about the 2-3 hours worth of their time plus the cost of ingredients, don’t just expect it all for free or atleast acknowledge and be grateful if friends and family do offer to lend a hand.

Some practical and good ways of saving is getting second hand dresses or letting your bridal party chose and pay for their own outfits and suits, even if you give them a colour palette, at least they will choose something they are happy and comfortable in. If you’re doing a private property wedding, then BYO saves a tonne too (just remember this can lead to it getting messy if old mate loves a 12% Codys).

Also, just a hot tip, having a rural rustic wedding doesn’t mean you need your guests drinking out of a old jam jar wrapped in hessian, a normal cup works a treat.

Want to know more and like the sound of what you’ve read above, get in touch below and I’d love to capture your wedding day. Wedding days should be one of those highlight moments in your life, so make it personal and special and do you!