Christopher Hartt's wedding and private client business comes primarily from many years of referrals and word-of-mouth from happy clients. This eliminates the need for significant advertising and business promotion expenses to attract clients and results in substantially lower costs for Brides and other clients in general.

Q:     Why Do Many Wedding Photographers Charge So Much More?

A:     Many less established and newer wedding photographers often charge 2 to 3 times the rate I do because they have huge advertising costs to cover. The Knot (www.theknot.com) is one popular website for Brides (which basically provides links to vendor websites). To be a "featured photographer" on The Knot here in Dallas, photographers are charged $1,226 per month ($12,312 a year) to be listed as a featured photographer in the vendor directory (Nov 2007 price). Many times, these same photographers also have listings in places like The Wedding Channel (www.Weddingchannel.com) and My Wedding (www.mywedding.com) which also charge very high rates to photographers who want a listing on their site. Add to that a "Sponsored Link" on a search engine like Google (Avg $1500 per month) and this results in huge advertising expenses for the photographer who passes the cost along to brides. Ironically, many brides are persuaded by the "free" advice offered by sites like The Knot, but those sites collect large fees from her indirectly when she uses any of the featured vendors on the site. Of course, the free advice offered by such websites to the bride is that she has to spend a hugely inflated amount for her vendors if she wants quality work. That is simply misinformation.

    These same photographers who spend so much on advertising often have photography equipment that doesn't meet professional standards like writing to two independent memory cards (in case one card fails), large aperture lenses, etc. As a professional photographer, I use Canon EOS 1Ds Mk II cameras (3 of them with various lens combinations). These are full frame, 16.7 megapixel cameras which are required by nearly all of my commercial clients but which are rarely seen among wedding photographers. Great pictures require great equipment, a fact often overlooked by brides who don't have a lot of experience evaluating wedding photographers.

Wedding & Reception: starting at $500 for 2 hours of coverage. (addl. hrs at $250 per hour)
  
    * Photographer & Assistant
    * Retouching and enhancement of all images
    * All hi-res images on DVD within two weeks of ceremony with rights for you to print
    * Online website for viewing and orders.
    * Retouching & Enhancement of all images

Add Ons:
    * Additional hours at $250 each
    * Bridal or Engagement Session $295
    * 16 x 20 archival print on museum fiber (from Bridal or Engagement sessions) $195
    * Rehearsal Dinner (limited availability) $200 per hour

Complete Wedding & Reception: $2,000
   
    * Up to 8 hours of wedding day coverage
    * 2 Photographers
    * All hi-res images on DVD within two weeks of ceremony with rights for you to print
    * Online website for viewing and orders.
    * Complementary Bridal Session & disk of retouched images
    * Complementary Engagement (E-Pics) session & disk of retouched images
    * Complementary 16 x 20 archival print for framing
    * Retouching and enhancement of all images

Album options beginning at $250
  
    * Magazine style bound album $250
    * Flush Mount album (mid level) $500
    * We represent Graphis, Zook, PictoBooks, ArtLeather and others