You’ve heard the rumours… A birthday cake costs $150. A wedding cake? Add a zero. Same flour, same eggs, same sugar, just three tiers and a little plastic couple on top. Flowers, hair, a DJ, a videographer: put the word “wedding” in front of it and the price seems to jump. The wedding tax strikes again.
And we hate to be the ones to cement those rumours as truth, but here we are. Don’t shoot the messenger. The thing is, when you book any wedding vendor, you’re not just paying for a cake, a bouquet or a camera. You’re paying for someone who will be there, on that one day, no matter what. Here’s what that actually looks like, from our side of the fence.
1. One day, no second chances
Your hairdresser can move your usual trim to Thursday. Your wedding can’t be moved. The venue’s booked, the celebrant’s booked, and a hundred-odd guests have taken leave and booked flights. So when a wedding vendor books your date, they block it out, turn away everyone else who asks for it, and nothing gets in the way of them getting there. A couple of years ago, during the floods, wedding crews were literally being helicoptered across rivers to make sure ceremonies went ahead. Vendors who’d usually be competing for work against one another were all calling each other, sharing equipment and doing anything possible to help one another get to where they needed to be. That’s the industry we love being part of. The extra zero allows us all the expense of doing that when necessary.
2. Nobody’s allowed to get sick
Every wedding vendor knows you picked them for a reason, so they’ll move mountains to be the one who shows up on the day. In our house, that means a “don’t let Daddy get sick” rule. We’ve got kids, and kids bring home every germ going, but in the week before a wedding everyone knows the rules. Hands get washed, Shaun keeps up the gym and the vitamins, and nobody’s having a big one the night before. In 16 years, Shaun hasn’t called in sick to a wedding. He gets sick like everyone else, he just plans around it so you get the full hundred-percent version of him on the day.
3. Every vendor has a Mary Poppins bag
Ask any planner, florist or photographer what’s in their kit and you’ll be there a while. Safety pins, sewing kits, spare batteries, stain remover, and lollies for the flower girl having a meltdown. Shaun’s ‘in case of emergency’ bag is full of pretty much everything that could help on your day, so whatever gets thrown at him, he can reach in and pull out the fix. We’d bet Shaun is the only male videographer who has carried tampons to every single wedding for the last 16 years… just in case.
4. Rain, mud and sand
Weddings don’t wait for good weather. Pouring rain, mud up to Shaun’s knees, a lens that decides to retire mid-ceremony, and beach weddings, which are gorgeous but are also where cameras go to die. Shaun’s still there and still shooting. You’ll never find us saying no before you do.
5. The stuff you never see
Every wedding vendor has a pile of costs hiding behind the scenes. The florist’s cool room, the caterer’s commercial kitchen. For us, it’s cinema-grade cameras, lenses that make you look like a movie star, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of hard drives so every second of your irreplaceable footage is backed up more than once. Then there are the constant upgrades as the technology moves on, batteries, memory cards and all the little bits that need replacing, regular camera servicing, the sand-in-everything repairs, and insurance that costs more than we’d like to admit. None of it shows up on the day, but all of it is the reason your film looks like a film and your experience is seamless and without drama.
So yes, there’s a ‘wedding tax’. But at least you know where your ‘tax dollars’ have been spent.
Shaun and TJ x
