markschultz25 wrote:
I have a friend who does wedding photography, drone photography and video shoots. His wedding packages start at $2500 for an 8-hour shoot and $3000 for a 10-hour shoot.
What other relatively low overhead job pays those kinds of returns in a single day?
You don't have a clue; I will give you a clue. No matter what type of packages you have, the bride or parents of the bride rarely accepts your package without negotiation. Chances are this shots quite a few weddings for less. Photography has tremendous overhead, sometimes the people who work with you walk away with more than you do. I generally use at least one other photographer, a videographer and sometimes a drone guy. If it is a church with extremely poor lighting, that does not allow for use of on camera flash, I end renting artificial lighting equipment. If you can walk away with 50 percent net-of-expenses, it's a good day. Depending on the size of the wedding, it can take several days to do the post work. Btw, the pre and post work requires more effort than the wedding itself. The average wedding photographer will have about $10G invested in equipment, with monthly fees for your website, marketing and insurance, etc.
It is by no means a get rich quick job, it takes years or practice to get really good as in able to charge $2500 -3000 for a wedding. Most important, it is a job with almost 0-zero margin for error. You absolutely have to get it right or you will catch holly hell. Most brides want their wedding to be a masterpiece, and it is the pictures that tell the story that will often outlast the marriage. If you don't make the bride look better than she actually does, you have screwed up. You can screw up in ways you could never imagine. As in, you missed the photo of father and his 3 sons who haven't been together in a long time, even though the bride never mentioned that shot was important and at no point were the father and sons were together at any point during the wedding. You can take a thousand shots, but some brides will only focus on the one shot you didn't get.
Btw, even if you could average a $2500 wedding 3 times a month for year, you will probably only earn a net income of about $40,000. I will be shooting the IAAF relays at the end of April, a nice gig especially if you love track & field and the Bahamas is not bad place to hang out, but money-wise, I could probably earn the same money working at Kmart. (Photography is definitely not Quick and/or Rich!)