Interviewer: And are you charging people for the job, or by the hour?
Denis Reggie: No, my fees are all inclusive of my time and the film and
so on. I don't believe in going to a wedding in  an
open-ended contract where you take a bunch of pictures, hold the negatives hostage
and then try to sell prints afterwards Even the negatives are part of what we
include in this all inclusive fee, so they can have me large, medium or small.
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Interviewer:
Can you give a sort of ballpark figure of what you charge for a wedding?
Denis Reggie: I've always thought that a bride should consider allocating
10% of overall budget to still photography.
If we added up everything, the flowers, the dress, the food, the reception, the
limousines, the total budget. If she's going to give 10% to still wedding photography,
that's pretty much what it needs to be. In the world that I am in now, that often
is a number of thousands of dollars.
Interviewer: I heard that you take one job in six? Is that right?
Denis Reggie: For me, filling the camera is a first come, first serve
proposition. I get I guess 300 or 400 inquiries a year, I do 52 weddings a
year so figure out the math there. That's what I've done for the past 10
years, it's a crazy pace. Sometimes there might be two or three weddings in
a weekend, so you jump on a plane and go here and there.
Interviewer: What is a typical working day?
Denis Reggie: Generally when I do a wedding I'm meeting the bride and groom
for the first or second time. For me to approach it best as a
photojournalist I really don't want there to be a close association. I want to
know the timeline of what they are planning, when they'll begin and what little
eight or ten minutes we've slotted for the family historical
photographs. If the bride is starting to prepare at 3 for a 7 wedding, then I'll
begin showing up shortly after 3.00 to do some behind the scenes preparations,
usually in black and white. Then I'll go and check on the
groom and see what he is up to. My job is usually until the very end, so a day
for me can be anything between eight and twelve hours.
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