Compared to some of the 'monopoly money' prices bandied around by wedding togs, £250 set fee, or £40/25 per hour looks eminently reasonable.
It's one of the most difficult branches of photography to undertake, as not only do you have to produce top class images under pressure, you need to be able to crowd control, keep your cool, be confident, able to respond to changes in circumstances (eg p****ing down) , you need to be an amateur psychologist, counsellor and at times mediator, and be able to deal with Auntie Ethel who has spilt trifle down her Laura Ashley two piece, or Uncle Jim who is so rat-arsed at the reception that he staggers all over the group shots.
And you can't go back and do it all again when the lights right.
It's definitely not a job for the faint-hearted
Another point is that over the years the parts/labour ratio has changed dramatically.
When I did weddings (25-30 years ago) is was around 50/50 i.e. I'd charge £100 for a wedding shoot, but 50% of that went on film processing/prints/albums etc, in those days a 10x8 print at a pro-lab was around £1-about what it costs at photobox today.
So currently the split is skewed very much towards the 'labour' part, and there is so much more to do nowadays. in the 'olden' days, I'd do a shoot, send the rolls of film for processing, stick them in a proof album, send the negs away for 10x8's paste them in an album and deliver.
Nowadays, you have the extended time in front of the computer post processing, retouching, indexing, sorting, resizing etc perhaps setting them on a website and still have to produce albums.
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