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How much!? Date: 19-10-02 Went back to the place where we got the engagement ring from to see what they had in terms of weddings rings. Not a bad selection - we're not being particularly picky with these rings, just something simple like a plain band. Saw a plain ring that goes well with Katherine's engagement ring (which is the main thing!), although it was in gold, so a little bit of imagination was needed to "see" what it would be like in platinum, and the wider band didn't look too bad on me (again, hers would have to be 2mm, and mine 4mm). We'd prefer to get it from this shop seeing as we got the engagement ring here, so it's nice that they've got something we like. They're going to phone us during next week to let us know how much it would cost for the two of them in platinum. Checked out some photographers. One of the major ones in Cambridge is not free on our (still provisional) date, so we didn't bother with them....we just checked out a small one outside of Cambridge and one in the centre of Cambridge (not giving names away so I can be a bit more frank with the opinion). We've only ever seen price lists from various places, advertising 40 photos for X amount of pounds, which we thought was pretty measily. Imagine our surprise when the first photographer we saw only did 25 pictures (out of all taken during the day) for £800 + VAT. The most expensive package means that you get *all* of the pictures taken during the day, but that costs something like £1500 + VAT. How much!? For a bunch of photos? Expensive business, this, obviously. It turned out that it was only formal style photos, too, which isn't quite what we want - we want a mixture of formal and informal in colour and black & white. It seems that he's a bit of a "lone-ranger" in the business, but employs extra photographers if needed. Oh, and he'd only hand around for about 2 hours after the service - up until the reception kicks off - and he had another booking at 4pm, so it would be a bit on the tight side. So, we left this place thinking that, although they looked good, you don't really get much for your money and we can't really afford the most expensive package, which would give us the most flexibility, and he just wouldn't be there long enough to get the shots we'd want. The second place was better - 40 shots (from a selection of 65) for £800. But they're only formal shots. If you want informal, then it's another £200 (for another photographer, basically) who'll take around 40 shots. You then get to choose 40 pictures from a total of 105 shots (65 formal, 40 informal). You can buy extra pictures for around £7 each, which isn't too bad. If parents and other people want copies, it costs a bit extra. So this place you got better value for money, but at the cost of a "personal" service - they have around 11 photographers on their books, and they looked at us a bit odd when we asked if we could meet up with the photograper before-hand to go through exactly what we'd want and where. Hmmm.... Maybe we're missing something here, but surely you ask what the bride and groom actually want from their photos? Anyway, at least we've started looking at photographers now. And we picked up some brochures for the honeymoon. Still loads to do, though, and the clock's ticking (although we still don't know for definite what date it's ticking down to!). |