It’s the middle of spring. You’ve shot every Saturday since the start of October, a couple of Fridays and one Sunday elopement you couldn’t say no to. Lightroom has a column of weddings with no stars on them yet. Two couples have emailed, very politely, to ask when they might see their photos. And when you open your calendar, March is already full.
That is not a personal failing. It is the shape of the Australian wedding year, and it can be planned around.
When Australians actually marry
Australian weddings don’t spread evenly through the year. They bunch into spring and autumn, with winter the quiet stretch.
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics put November as the most popular month in 2017, at 11.1% of marriages, and June as the least popular, at 5.3%.
- In the ABS figures for 2010, October was the top month, at 14.8%.
- McCrindle’s analysis of ABS data puts March and November at about 12% each.
These are older figures. The most recent month-by-month ABS breakdown we found was for 2017, so check the current ABS marriage release if you need the latest. The pattern is clear enough to plan around: an October and November rush, a busy summer, and a second peak around March before winter.
The editing problem follows from that. Every spring Saturday adds a wedding to the queue, and you don’t get a quiet week to clear it until the season eases.
Step one: write down every promise
Before editing anything, make a list. One line per wedding:
- Couple and wedding date
- What you promised: sneak peek, full gallery, film, album
- The delivery date in your contract
- Where it stands now: not started, culled, graded, delivered
Sort it by delivery date. It is usually less frightening on paper than in your head, and it shows you which weddings are actually at risk.
Add one more column: how much of each wedding needs you. A wedding you have already culled and only need to grade is a different job from a full card you haven’t opened. Knowing which is which makes the next two steps much easier, because you can see at a glance where your own hours are going and where they don’t need to.
If any are already late, email those couples now with a new date you are certain you can keep. A clear date a week later than they hoped is far better than silence.
Step two: triage by contract date, not by wedding date
The natural instinct is to edit in the order you shot. That works until a wedding from three weeks ago has a shorter promise than one from six weeks ago. Edit in order of what is due.
Sneak peeks go first. Twenty to forty finished frames in the first week keep couples happy and buy you time for the full gallery. They also tell you early if a wedding has a problem, such as a card error or a scene that needs extra care.
Step three: decide what stays with you
Not every wedding needs your own hands on every frame. Your weddings probably fall into two groups:
| Keep in-house | Consider handing off |
|---|---|
| Weddings where your personal style is the reason they booked | Weddings that follow your standard look closely |
| Galleries that need heavy creative retouching | The cull and the first colour pass on large sets |
| Repeat clients or referrals from a key venue | Engagement sessions booked as part of a package |
| Anything you have a strong creative idea for | Highlight films, when your stills are your main product |
The point is not to give away your work. It is to spend your editing hours where they matter most, and to stop the straightforward weddings stacking up behind the hard ones.
Send a typical wedding, not your easiest, as a test before you rely on anyone for the rush. That tells you whether the match is close enough while you still have time to change course.
Step four: use rush only where there is a real deadline
Our standard turnaround is 7 business days from the moment the footage link works and the brief is complete. Weekends and Australian public holidays don’t count. That stays the same through October, November and March.
Rush, in 72 hours, adds 50% to the whole order. A Wedding gallery at A$120 becomes A$180 on rush. That is worth it for a couple flying out on their honeymoon or a family who need photos for a relative who couldn’t travel. It is not worth paying on every wedding. If everything is urgent, the list from step one is usually the better fix.
We won’t claim to have spare capacity in the Australian season. What we do is confirm the delivery date for every project before work starts, on the same 7 business day terms.
Step five: price the season, not just the wedding
If spring and autumn mean four or five weddings in some months, look at the monthly plan. Send five or more projects a month and every package is 15% off. Our standard prices in AUD:
| Package | Price |
|---|---|
| Engagement gallery, 100 to 200 images | A$75 |
| Wedding gallery, 300 to 500 images from up to 3,000 raws | A$120 |
| Highlight film, 5 to 8 minutes | A$150 |
| Signature, Wedding gallery plus feature film | A$300 |
Every price is a fixed amount in Australian dollars, with the Lightroom catalogue or project file and the listed revisions included.
How the hand-off works in a busy week
Our team is in Pakistan, three to six hours behind Australia depending on your state and daylight saving. The gap matters less than it sounds, because the editing team works 24 hours a day, in shifts. In practice:
- The team works in shifts around the clock, so a link is picked up soon after it arrives, whatever the hour in your state.
- Questions about a brief can come back to you at any hour, and your replies are picked up soon after you send them.
- Revision notes are picked up soon after they arrive.
- Turnaround is still 7 business days, and weekends and public holidays don’t count, so a weekend upload starts the clock on the next business day.
You paste a Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer, pCloud or Box link. Nothing is uploaded to us. We confirm the brief, the price and the delivery date before you pay.
Send your next wedding free
Your first project is free: any Gallery tier or the Highlight film, with no card. If you are staring at a spring backlog, send the next typical wedding on the list and see whether the match is close enough to lean on before March.
Want the detail on time zones? Read working with an editing team behind your time zone, or see what outsourcing costs in AUD.