Planning · money
Fly them in, or hire here
The arithmetic, and the one good reason to ignore it.
The arithmetic, and the one good reason to ignore it.
Every couple planning a wedding in Vietnam from abroad asks this, usually quietly, because it feels like a question with a rude answer. It is not. Here is the arithmetic from a team that would obviously like you to hire them, with the case against us included.
Hiring here is cheaper by a wide margin: a wedding day photographed and filmed by our team is from USD 3,000, all in. Flying your own photographer means their fee plus flights, four to six nights, and a travel charge. Bring your own anyway if you have a photographer you genuinely trust with your faces. That is the one reason that survives the maths.
Our side is published and does not move: from USD 3,000 for a wedding day covered by our crew on both photography and film, USD 2,980 if you want the founder to photograph you himself for eight hours, USD 780 to 1,480 for a pre-wedding session depending on the city. Everything is on the price list, in dollars, with what is inside each line.
The other side we cannot publish, because it is your photographer's number, not ours. But the shape of it is the same every time: a day rate, two long haul flights, four to six nights of accommodation, airport transfers, and in most contracts a travel or destination fee on top. Ask for all five as one figure before you compare anything, because the day rate on its own is not the comparison.
One more line people forget: a visiting photographer usually arrives a day or two early and photographs nothing on those days. You are paying for the jet lag too.
Not the price. The price is just the headline. What you are buying is the part of the day that has nothing to do with cameras.
There is one argument and it is a good one: you already know their work on your own faces, and you trust them. If somebody has photographed your family for a decade, the money is not the point and we will not pretend otherwise.
Two smaller ones. If your wedding is unusual in a way that needs a particular photographer, bring that photographer. And if your guests are almost all flying in from the same place, a photographer from home will sometimes read that room better than we will.
If the reverse is true and your wedding is not in Vietnam at all, we do the same journey in the other direction, and we price it with flights and stay inside the fee rather than added afterwards.
Plenty of couples bring a photographer and hire local coverage as well, and it works when it is agreed in advance. What breaks it is two teams landing with two plans.
So we settle it in writing first: who leads each part of the day, who is on film and who is on stills, where each person stands during the tea ceremony, and who the family asks when something changes. Then nobody is in anybody's frame and you are not refereeing on your wedding morning.
If you want to see how we plan a whole day before you decide anything, it is written out here, hour by hour.
Almost always, and the gap is larger than couples expect. A full wedding day photographed and filmed by our team is from USD 3,000. Flying a photographer from North America or Europe typically means their day rate plus two long haul flights, four to six nights of accommodation, and a travel fee, which lands far above that before anyone has taken a picture.
One: you already know their work on your faces, and you trust them. That is a real reason and we will not talk you out of it. If you have been photographed by someone for ten years, the money is not the point.
The order of a Vietnamese wedding day, which hour the light is usable in a given city, how to get a crew and equipment across town during a ceremony, and how to speak to your parents and your venue. Most of what goes wrong on a wedding day here is logistics and language, not photography.
It works if everybody is told in advance. We have worked alongside visiting photographers more than once. What makes it fail is two teams arriving with two plans, so we agree who leads each part of the day in writing before anyone lands.
Yes, and we price it the way we would want to be priced: USD 5,888 for eight working hours anywhere outside Vietnam, with flights and accommodation inside the fee rather than added later. That page is here.
A deposit of USD 100 holds your date and locks your price, by bank transfer. The balance is settled when you are here, in cash or by transfer. Nothing is charged until the plan for the day is agreed in writing.