How Do Bridal Studios Sales Talk Us Into Buying Pre-Wedding Photos?

This question is really something worth debating for. Some will say it's worth spending that money, some will say not. This post is dedicated for those who agree with me that it's not worth it!

Therefore to start off, we need to know how photographers at bridal studios earn money so that it will help us to understand their marketing techniques better.

Here's one line that pretty much sums up their source of income:
They earn money not from your bridal package, but from the photos taken from pre-wedding photoshoot.

Therefore, the cheaper your bridal package and the higher the number of gowns they are offering to you for pre-wedding shoots, the more high alert you must be! Because each gown is a potential opportunity for you to select at least 10-15 photos.With each photo costing an approximate of $60 and above for one photo, it's not a small sum! This post is tailored to help couples who wants to understand the top 5 methods of sales talk for pre-wedding photographs.

Some of the possible sales talk techniques which bridal studios or photographers will do to make your heart tingle and probably take out your credit cards:
  1. Banking on the once in a lifetime notion
    • "This is a "Once In A Lifetime" thing."
    • "How many times do you actually see yourself so pretty/handsome? Next time when you have children, you may not have such a good figure anymore."
  2. Emphasizing on the idea that these memories will be gone if you don't buy it.
    • "You will regret it if you don't buy it today."
    • "This offer will not be extended to you next time if you were to want it."
    • "We will not be keeping these photos for long. So can I confirm that you don't want it? Then I will go ahead to delete them?"
  3. Addressing your financial concerns
    • "You can pay by interest free installment, no problem."
    • "You can use your credit cards for payment! Then you can get good rebates! Manhattan card or Amex card! They give you good cashbacks, which means more discounts!"
  4. Normalising the costs of the photos, giving you a good discount
    • "Not expensive! I can give you a discount! I can let you have all the soft copies for just $5000."
    • "Instead of $90 per photo, I can let you have them for $70 per photo. That's $20 discount PER PHOTO! BIG discount!"
    • "It's normal to spend an average of $3000-$5000 extra on your wedding photos. All of my customers will pay to keep these memories. It's definitely worth it."
    • "Everyone invest in these wedding photos!"
  5. Targetting our face and ego weaknesses in front of our partner and family members
    • "You must must must have these photos placed together in order for your album's "story" to look complete. If not your album looks pathetic and incomplete. Your relatives will say "why so little?!"."
    • "Your photo album is just going to look pathetic if you are not going to add more inside."
    • "I can tell your wife/husband really loves the photos. I'm sure you want your wife/husband to be happy right? Don't you want to buy for her/him?"
    • "Your husband/wife can't bear to pay for such precious memories for you although he/she can tell you like it alot."
    • "I'm sure you can afford it right?"
Seriously....

The beauty of it all is... some of us do give into these sales talk eventually. *Ka-ching!*

In my next post, I will cover more details about how bridal studios make you spend money using more illustrations so you wont get bore by all my words! I will also follow up with some ways to help us SAVE MONEY by giving alternative ways to have memorable pre-wedding photos without spending a bomb.

Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Mrs To-Be OOPS

Comments

  1. Hi Jessie,

    Great post. Thank you for the insides.

    I have just a query about pre wedding photography hidden charges. I also engaged feline bridal but was only told about the costs of additional photographs. No where was it written or explained that we had to pay for additional 'themes'.

    Apparently, each theme consists of 2 pages and costs about $160. Is this what you encountered? So if i took additional photographs which i had to pay for anyway, i had to also pay for the additional themes. Is this normal?

    Any advice will be helpful. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The additional cost for that additional "theme" will only be told to you when you are selecting the photos for your album. And yes, I got the exact same quote as you have received. We refused to pay for that theme so we did not buy any additional photos.

      For a clearer idea of what I meant, do check out my other post : Top 5 Hidden Wedding Costs in a Bridal Package. (http://mrandmrsoops.blogspot.sg/2015/08/top-5-hidden-wedding-costs-in-bridal.html) Feel free to drop me with more questions :)

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