Carnival Wedding Photo Packages

[DG2007]

We are getting married on a Carnival ship later this month and I'd love any information about how much the pictures are going to cost us so we can budget it in for our trip.

 

Is it possible to spend less than $500 and get still get all of our pictures on CD? How many good prints can we reasonably expect to get for under $500? Thanks so much!

[michellesocean]

Hi. I just got married on the Miracle in June 07. The photography part of this whole wedding adventure was in my opinion the most stressful part. I'm not a complainer, and basically I have "went with the flow" with all the details of planning a wedding. I had 36 sailing guests and 50 non sailing.

 

First off, there are no wedding packages. Hector, our photographer, introduced himself right before I was to walk down the isle with my dad on my side. I wished I would have given him a list of shots that I wanted taken....like more of my sisters and I....or now looking back more of my dad and I. We were married in NYC and I have no shots of the statue of liberty or any of the skyline?! So my suggestion to you is to make a little list and give the photograher an idea of what you would like. (Anything in writing will also overcome a language barrier as well)

 

In about a day or so into the cruise, Hector invited us to preview our pictures on a slideshow as well as to see some prints. When he was all done, our whopping wedding package (the one and only) was $2100. Our budget was $500. We weeded out some of the duplicates...meaning some where in color and then in black and white. There were a ton of 8X10s which were of course more costly....so my suggestion here, is to tell the photographer that you don't want 8X10s....how in the world am i going to put these in an album???

 

So we had our price and picked out our pictures. I was bargaining with hector on just the cd, but i was afraid that there was some sort of lock or a way not being able to get the digital prints of the cd. The CD that hector made was a slideshow with some music and cute little frames.

 

So we held out on the very last day holding our ground to what we could spend. Hector began to feel desperate and called our room on the last day and finally met with our price. So, tell him your price, hold your ground and be strong in waiting the photographer out@!

 

Good luck! I had the advantage of my guests and lots of digital cameras taking pictures as well.

 

Email me if you have any questions....

 

michellesocean@aol.com :)

[Saraloo]

michellesocean- Congrats on your recent wedding! I was just reading what you posted about the pictures and i was wondering if you ended up getting the pics for 500$, or how much did you pay and what did you get? Thanks!

[Schasz]

We just got off the July 29th Liberty cruise for our duaghter's wedding, and the photographer's initial price was $2K for the pictures and the CD's. We told her early on that we had taken many photo's too so the $2K was way out of the question. They finally told us that we could have the CD's if we were willing to spend $1K, and since the groom's mother was willing to spend $500 we said OK...mainly because we wanted the CD's. My youngest daughter is a photography major and she will go to work making improvements on the two CD's that we received. One should NEVER take the initial offer, as those pictures must be negotiable.

 

John & Shari

[serene56]

John: how was the wedding? I been waiting and waiting and waiting for your return.

[TygerPawz]

Our photographer was Gilbert on the Carnival Glory, and his initial photography package offer was $3,000 and included around 120 8X10s, 77 5x7s, 2 photo albums, 2 30x20 portrait pictures, and a CD with a slide show and all the pictures on it. We said there was absolutely no way we could do that and came back with the rest of the family to weed through the pictures. We ended up with around $600 worth, when he offered the CD if we purchased $1500 worth of his pictures. Still said no and purchased the $600 worth. He threw in a photo album and 3 8X10s and 1 5x7. He took absolutely wonderful pictures, but it cost way too much. I have video tape of myself after looking at the pictures going "Carnival should not do this to brides. Ever."

 

One more thing - our photographer tried to play at our "heart strings" also. Saying he had 6 kids and was gone for 8 months at a time, etc etc etc. I am in marketing and sales and know all the sales tactics, so I know he was just trying to get us to buy more pictures, but a warning to other brides, they will use sales tactics to try and get you to buy more!!

[southern cruising couple]

My photographer ordeal went the same way on the Carnival Valor. Everything other than the photography dept was PERFECT. But Carnival really should rethink their approach to the wedding pictures. After days of negotiation meetings with our photographer and pity acts from him and his manager we got the cd, slide show, 100 8x10s and 60 5x7s for $1100. Way too much, but he started off at $3,500. He ended up saying that we basically threatened him into that price....I complained but nothing but an appology came from it. Looking back, I am glad we paid that much because it is a once in a lifetime memory. But the last day I felt like saying forget it and pushing the photographer overboard!

 

My advise is to go with the thought of a high price so you are not completely shocked and do not back down on your offer.

[brianroberts2526]

I had a love/hate thing with our photo guy.

 

First of all; he did an absolutely amazing job. He was very nice and the pictures came out very, very good. One big problem was that he got a bunch of pictures of us with my wifes parents; but none with mine.

 

Then the price; Ive read a lot of different things on the price; which I think is ridiculous; I think there should be some reasonable set prices. He offered the big package that included many things that we had no interest in; IE canvas. I think he started in the thousands as far as price. I only wanted to spend about 600; I think we eventually got him down to about 1500 for every picture we wanted and the CD.

[dml1216]

Same thing here. We were married in March on the Sensation. The wedding, reception, food, drinks -ALL perfect. The pictures, most of them were beautiful, but crazy expensive. They started out around $2500 for the entire package. They took entirely too many 8 x 10's. Like someone else said earlier, tell them you do not any 8 x 10's. You can get them blown up later. We spent a little over $300 and got several good pictures. However, several group shots ended up looking fuzzy.

 

If you have someone that can take pictures for you, do it. I had an uncle that loves doing that sort of thing and he took tons and his pics were just as good as Carnival's and ALOT cheaper.

 

We wasted 1/2 of our last day on the cruise looking at pics and negotiating with the photographer. It was ludicrious and Carnival really does need to readdress their wedding photography. Another issue we had was that the photographer couldn't speak good English, so we had a difficult time communicating with him the entire time.

 

Like I said, the wedding was PERFECT - the photography experience not so much

 

Good Luck to you! here are our pics: the first 10 are from Carnival's photographer. www.picturetrail/donnalupori

[Moeve]

The problem is the Photo shop is not Carnival as such it is like the Spa these Dept. are all farmed out. It means Carnival only has a certain kind of influence.

 

However do let Carnival know that this kind of thing is leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

 

Still wouldn't it be better to make the packages cheaper and have the brides talk postively about it than this sort of thing.