When you run a website, regardless if it’s for pleasure and enjoyment or as a business, you rely on other people to help make it work.  When they fail you, it’s not just a bummer, it’s costing you money.  When the electric, cable or your home Internet goes out, a cell phone call gets dropped or your GPS can’t give you directions, it wastes time and money.  In all the time I’ve been hosting websites, never before has choosing a domain registrar made such a difference to me.

For the best of my memories I started hosting my own website back around 2000, and the Internet did not make it entirely simply, but by 2001, with the dot com bubble growing, websites became easier to use and the mystery of how to build and host a website become much easier for a younger me to figure out.  There are essentially three parts to having your own website on the Internet;

• A domain name
• Web hosting
• Website content

The first two can and are often done by one company, although many people use separate companies for each.  Without making this article overly complicated and because there are more than enough ehow.com articles on how to register a domain name, where to get hosting and how to build a site, I’m going to focus on the actual choosing of these companies you wish to partner with, specifically a domain registrar.

A domain registrar serves one function, they are meant to help you acquire the lease for the domain name you want, such as Randomn3ss.com for example.  Within their ability to renew this domain for you, you should be quickly and easily able to edit the DNS servers (to point the domain to your web host of choice), renew the domain name and transfer the domain to someone else or another web host.  Those are essentially their core functions.  For over a decade now I’ve been doing this, and most of the time it’s been with GoDaddy.

At first it was because they were cheap, and it was the early 2000′s and buying and selling domains was popular and one could actually make good money at it, so I used them for this.  Everything was straight forward.  Sometime around 5 years ago GoDaddy’s business model started to transition and they began putting more money into advertising, including fun commercials online, sponsoring Indy cars and basically saying to the world hey world, we are the best! What changed, for the worse, was customer service, website usability and the core functions of what their website should do for a user.  In the technical world, this is called the User Experience, or UX for short, and User Interface Designers, or UI Designers, get paid a lot of money to increase the rate at which we buy products on website.

I stayed with GoDaddy, through all their design changes and constant push to up-sell me services, web hosting and email that I didn’t need.

As the years went on, the up-sells continued, but so did the amount of time and energy they put into getting me to renew my domain names.  I started getting email notices 3 months before they were set to expire.  2 months before they expire a post card would show up in my mail with a coupon code and if it was a month before they’d expire I knew a phone call was coming from a sales associate, offering to help me renew, offer me a discount then try to up-sell me on some more services.  At the time GoDaddy domain renewals ran about $7.49, I remember asking the sales associate at what point they made profit.  After postal mail charges and paying his / her salary, how was there any meat on the bone?  They were dumbfounded with the question.

By 2011, even with a nifty iPhone app, my allegiance to GoDaddy was wearing thin.  Just doing something as simple as changing the DNS servers on a domain name, or even renewing it became a huge headache.  In March a story broke about president Bob Parsons elephant hunting expedition in Africa, complete with video.  I’m not anti-gun, anti-hunting and I’m not vegan, although I do support everything anyone I care about chooses to do, from religion to their stand on gun control, but this video is vile.  This now left a bad taste in my mouth, as I don’t want to line the pockets of that man anymore so he can do such cruel and unnecessary things with my money.

November was about the last straw for me, Godaddy publicly came out supporting SOPA. In a nutshell, SOPA is bad, really bad.  So bad that people like Ben Huh sent out tweets saying they’d transfer 1,000 of their domain names if GoDaddy didn’t change their stance, Kevin Rose was equally outspoken on the subject. No one wanted SOPA to pass as law, it did nothing good for the Internet.  The day after this virtually every domain registrar on the web was offering discounts to those who wanted off of GoDaddy, these were put together in one of the most popular Reddit posts ever, complete with transfer instructions for virtually every company.

How bad was this impact on GoDaddy?  Within two days at least 37,000 domain names were transferred away from the company, or roughly one quarter of a million dollars.  I did my homework this time, I looked at more than price, I looked at support time, customer reviews, how active the social media aspects of each business were, I wanted to know that my new registrar was going to be with me for another decade of my business.  I ended up choosing Name.com when it was all said and done.  Not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but for me, the best.

Their website is clean, easy to use and actually makes sense.  Support is top notch and get this, I actually enjoy following them on Twitter.  In the one case I had specific questions and needed to reach out and submit a trouble ticket, it was answered within a few hours and was not auto-generated.  Someone actually wrote it.  I also didn’t have to shift through 500 words of sales copy to find what they were actually trying to tell me.

Now, I didn’t move all of my domains at once, in fact, as of this writing I have 2 left with GoDaddy and have been moving them as they expire.  My options on why they need to be moved today is all that much more apparent.  Yesterday GoDaddy was the victim of an Internet attack, not only did their site go down, and unknown number, presumed to be in the millions of websites, also went down.  Full disclaimer, every web hosting company on earth offers 99.9% up time, what that really means is that 0.1% will equal out to about 2 hours of down time per year.  No lawyer alive will make a 100% up-time guarantee, it’s not possible.  But, because of GoDaddy’s wishy washy stance on SOPA and other matters, it’s opened them up to become targets for hackers.

Today I’m making the move, and they are offering the first 500 transfers from GoDaddy to them for free, limited to 1 per person.  The older I get (now in my early 30′s) the more things like customer service and usability carry weight.  I have roughly a dozen domain names registered a year, spending an extra 50 cents to $1 per domain to host with a company I believe in, who believes in me by providing a service I want to use, that’s easy to use, is worth it.  That company is Name.com.

In closing, I recently watched this wonderful video with Seth Godin titled This is Broken, and I think a lot of what he talks about in here, GoDaddy needs to listen to, specifically the first few minutes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wasted food irks me, a lot.  Not just because I enjoy eating and am equally tight about spending money, but because it’s just downright wasteful on so many levels.  From time to grow, fuel to harvest and transport to market, merchandising and selling at the store, when food is thrown out it costs a lot of people in a supply chain a lot of money.  A recent late night trip opened my eyes to what I’ve only heard about and seen on TV.

Last week I made a late-night trip to Wal-Mart, the super-mega store you either love or hate.  I went to pick-up oranges at about 11:15 so the next morning I could enjoy some fresh orange juice. Why Wal-Mart?  Because it’s close and right now the prices are very cheap for Valencia oranges.  My local grocery store a half mile further down the road only has navel oranges, which I’m not a fan of.  I also try my best to only go there late at night to avoid the crowds.

Being in a nicer part of town, this Wal-Mart is very clean and the produce department usually very well stocked.  While I don’t buy much there, I have taken notice to some of their produce prices and will stop in, as mentioned before, oranges are particularly cheap.   Upon entering the produce section I saw a worker with a shopping cart, he was fondling peaches and every fourth or fifth one he’d put in the cart, which already had mango, tomatoes and corn in it.   The photo above was shot on my iPhone and originally posted to my Instagram account (@mikepanic) which then posts here.

I asked him if this was produce being tossed, his reply was roughly, “Yup, don’t know why either, it’s all still perfectly good. They sent me down here and told me that anything that’s ripe has to go though.”  My reply was complaining about how much that sucks, how I don’t care what it looks like since I juice most of it it was such a shame.  There must have been 30 mango in his cart, nearly $40 worth, thrown out for being ripe.

The whole time I was checking out I was disturbed by this, I wish at the time I would have spoken to a manager.  10 minutes earlier those ripe mango could have been bought by me, now they’re heading for trash cans.

Earlier this year the Food Network did a short series called The Big Waste.  They show celebrity chefs making really amazing dinners out of “throw away” food, but also tackle some of the other problems.  One major problem, these restaurants and grocery stores have to pay to get this trash hauled.  It then sits in land fills, usually in plastic bags, so it can’t even decompose properly.  Curious about some of their policy regarding food and when it should be thrown out, read this.

What’s most terrible? Wal-Mart is actively promoting their goal of zero waste, by reducing, reusing and recycling.  More annoying is that they also promote hunger & nutrition  in an attempt to make a better world and life for everyone from farmers to families.

While I was researching all of this the other night, I got irritated and wanted to go dumpster dive.  I wanted to rescue those mango!  Sure, it may sound gross, but the reality is most of that food is put into clean garbage bags before being tossed into the dumpster, and items like mango have a natural shell to protect the flesh inside.

Around 1:30am I got in my car and drove back, behind Wal-Mart and towards their dumpsters.  What I saw was unbelievable.  A half dozen large blue dumpster marked HUMAN FOOD / NOT FOR CONSUMPTION, and they were padlocked.  Now, I get the fact that Wal-Mart doesn’t want people eating spoiled food and rotten meat, that’s a lawsuit.  But the fact that they have dumpsters just for this purpose of food disposal is sad.  It’s fairly common knowledge that most grocery stores operate on about a 3% profit margin, that’s not a lot, considering most retailers operate on 50-100%.

My next question was, why isn’t this food being donated?  There are plenty of places who will gladly take it and put it to use in my community for those in need.  Well, they are, kind of.  This article showcases the money and food they donate, but they don’t specify the sources.  To me, that’s a problem.  If they are working deals with their suppliers to get discounted or free food to just pass along as donations, that doesn’t help reduce the waste of food that’s simply being tossed.

There are some things we can do as consumers to help reduce the amount of food that’s going to waste, in addition to writing to these companies and asking them to help food banks.  The EPA has a pretty much end all / be all list of how to do Food Donations with a goal of Feed People Not Landfills.  Beyond that, we as consumers need to stop being so picky about the appearance of our food.  I’ve bought hail damaged peaches in the past at an 80% discount because they had hail damage.  They tasted fine!  One local produce supplier I frequent often occasionally sells ripe bananas, that is to say, they have a few spots on them, in 5 pound bunches for $1.00.  Even if you don’t enjoy eating them that ripe, or can’t figure out what to do with 5 pounds of them, they are perfect to freeze at that point and add to smoothies or use for baking purposes.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not just the food that’s going to waste, or me being a cheap-ass, there’s a far greater impact.  People are still hungry, diesel is being consumed to grow, harvest and transport this food, land fills nationwide are already full and it’s bad business to throw money away when it could be used, if for no other justifiable reason, a tax write-off when donated.  Another great resource to educate yourself is Wasted Food.

About 3 miles down the road I pulled into a gas station and upon entering, I thought to myself I should probably get coconut water to better hydrate, and I like the taste.  I was elated to see they carried the larger bottles of VitaCoco, but they didn’t have the flavor I wanted, and plain would have been fine if I wasn’t drawn to what was right next to them on the shelf.  SoBe Lifewater with coconut and mango mandarin.  A mango fan I am, I opened the door to grab a bottle and noticed a small Buy one get one Free on all Lifewater.  Perfect, two 20oz bottles it is.

Paid the kind woman at the register, headed back to my car, cracked one open and chugged half of it.  The point leading up to cracking the top on one is where my excitement ends.  The taste is typical big beverage, since SoBe is owned by PepisiCo (Pepsi).  The taste is artificial, overly sweet and really not that great.  Dehydrated, I drank, and looked at the label while driving down the road.  This is where disappointment in taste turns to annoyance and lack of trust in big companies.  The ingredients are as follows:

FILTERED WATER, SUGAR, COCONUT WATER CONCENTRATE, NATURAL FLAVOR, CITRIC ACID, CARAMEL COLOR, CALCIUM LACTATE, POTASSIUM CITRATE, SEA SALT, REB A (PURIFIED STEVIA EXTRACT), GUM ARABIC

I’m the first to admit I knew sugar, in corn or natural form, would be in here.  I did not however expect to completely not read the words mango or mandarin in here, rather they are chemically engineered to represent those flavors.  Worse, stevia is added, in addition to sugar, and that’s what more than likely causes the weird sugar-like taste.  Just in case that page of ingredients changes, here’s a screen shot of it.

While I did get one for free, I can’t say I’ll be buying them again.  Not only don’t they taste good, I can’t deal with that much synthetic substance in what can be one of the simplest things to provide, coconut water.  Crack the little things open, pour out, filter, enjoy, done.

Infographic courtesy of Open Site.

More people are finding that they need glasses to read, complete school-work, watch television or to work. The Vision Council of America estimate that about 75% of adults wear eyeglasses for some type of vision correction. While some people wear glasses for prescription purposes, there are others who only just need to use click me reading glasses.

Since so many people wear glasses these days, it’s not surprising that they want something that states their personality. When shopping for glasses, some may opt for click me designer eyewear. There are a variety of designer eyeglasses that individuals can select from. Some of the popular brands include Gucci, Calvin Klein, Vera Wang and Amy Sacks. Designer brands can be fun and hip to wear, but if you are on a budget, there are plenty of other stylish options to choose from as well. Your optometrist can help you select a design that will work and fit the best on you.

Lenses and frames are available in a number of shapes and sizes. Those who wear eyeglasses can choose from square frames, click me round eyeglasses, rimless and semi-rimless. It’s often best to take the shape of your face into consideration. Some glasses will fit an oval-shaped head, better than others would fit a round head.

Eyeglasses are also available in a variety of colors. The most common types of frame colors include black, silver and gold. There are others who may enjoy edgier and brighter colors such as blue, purple, red or green. When you are going to have to wear eyeglasses for a good part of the day, you will want a pair that are comfortable, stylish and fit your personality.

If you are a person who is mobile or plays sports, sometimes eyeglasses aren’t always the best option. Contact lenses can be easier to wear if you are out on the court, in the field, running or even biking. Later on in the evening, they can always switch to eyeglasses after a long day of wearing contact lenses.

There are a number of places to purchase eyeglasses. Glasses can be bought at an eye-care specialist or even online. Some retail giants such as Wal-Mart even have optometrists on site too. Depending on your prescription, design and brand, eyeglass prices can be quite flexible. One website that offers affordable eye-wear can be found here. They offer cool stylish designs for both men and women.

Wearing eyeglasses doesn’t have to be a downer in your wardrobe. They actually are quite fashionable and be a fun accessory to a daytime outfit. When shopping for glasses, it is always important to have the correct prescription and a good comfortable fit.

This has been a sponsored article.

Climbing is an exhilarating sport. However, it’s very important to choose the right jacket to wear while doing so. For this reason, you should know about the various types of jackets that are available for you to choose from.

Fleece Jackets Women’s fleece jackets are traditionally a wool product. However, today the majority of fleece is made from a synthetic product. This is actually superior to wool because it doesn’t retain moisture, thus it’s considered to be water resistant. There’s also a protective coating that can be applied to it in order for the fleece to be good for a variety of conditions. Furthermore, fleece is light and not very bulky, yet it is still quite durable. All of these are great benefits to you whenever you decide to purchase a thin, stylish climbing jacket that’s made out of this material. Of course, it’s also great to know that fleece can resist wind and offer ventilation too.

Softshell Jackets There are numerous reasons why these jackets are great for climbers. Their surface is made from a smooth polyester, which is both flexible and breathable. For this reason, they’re considered to be quite resistant to both water (they trap body heat while letting out sweat) and wind. These are just some of the numerous reasons why these jackets are so popular.

The Mammut Jacket This company dates back to 1862 when Kasper Tanner invented the first jacket under this brand name. They are made of nothing but the best fabric and utilize nothing short of the best technology. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that their jackets are able to react to changes in temperature. You will truly appreciate this because it means that you will be guaranteed to always be at the ideal body temperature throughout your entire climb. It is accomplished by the membrane opening up whenever water and heat are present then closing whenever there’s less water and heat.

In Conclusion Now that you know more about the types of jackets that are available for climbing, you can find a great selection here. These jackets are definitely an important part of your climbing equipment. Therefore, you owe it to yourself to take some time to learn about them in order to make a wise choice here.

This has been a sponsored article.

In case you were living under a rock today, Apple announced the third generation iPad today, featuring HD video playback, better this and all of that.  So, for you early adopters who are dying to upgrade from what you’re currently using, eBay is offering really amazing prices via their Instant Sale option where they will buy your product outright from you.  eBay buys a plethora of products but have setup this nice landing page showing prices for the most common tablets and similar tech products like phones and e-readers.

Why sell it to eBay directly?  The fees associated with selling on the site have become ludicrous, averaging out to be roughly 10% of the winning bid plus the shipping costs.  That means if you sell an item for $90 and charge $10 for shipping, eBay wants 10% of $100, not $90 like it previously had.  Furthermore, you’ll lose another 3% on the total transaction when you accept payment via Paypal, which ironically enough eBay owns.  There’s also the hassle of dealing with bogus buyers who don’t pay, countless questions to answer and overall, it can be a real pain to sell electronics on eBay.

Craigslist is a great option, if you have a busy schedule or don’t trust meeting strangers, especially when you have valuable electronics, eBay’s Instant Sale option starts to sound more appealing.  Read over the FAQ‘s that they put together, they answer most common questions that you’ll have, the most common one being, when will I get paid and the answer is about 5 days after they receive your item.  Not just limited to tablets, phones and e-readers, eBay also buys GPS devices and other electronics, so unload your now out-dated iPad2 and have the cash to pre-order the new iPad!

Retail stores are in a fight right now, more than ever.  It’s no secret that Amazon [and a slew of other sites] has crushed the profit margins for many traditional brick and mortar stores, but these store fronts are still very much needed.  Clothing for example, it’s almost always cheaper online but most buyers prefer to try things on and see how they look first, even if the online store offers free return shipping and exchanges.  Other products such as cycling need a retail store front so you can be properly fitted by a professional, the same with most sports for that matter.  That doesn’t mean that after I’ve been fit for a product and taken your advice I will actually spend my money with your business, and here’s why.

I’ve decided to buy a pair of hiking boots, a purchase that I don’t plan to make again for 5+ years and wanted a pair of boots that would last.  Other than that, I knew almost nothing about what I was shopping for.  Fifteen years ago I would head to my local sporting good store and talk with a sales rep, they would listen to what I wanted to do and suggest something for me.  The Internet has flattened this process and I can now quickly use Amazon, REI and a slew of other specialty websites to pinpoint exactly what brand and type would work best by simply ticking some boxes on what I want to do, then read real customer reviews.  Customer reviews to some extend hold far more value than a salesperson, mostly because the customer has no reason to lie and no influence to sell you a specific brand, they have nothing to gain, making them the ideal reason for feedback.  In lass than fifteen minutes of reading I decided on a pair of Keen boots.  The only thing that slightly worried me was an occasional review about them being slightly smaller than true to size.  So I did something that is probably becoming more common for many, I went to a retail store to try on something I had no intention to ever buy in that store, only to get the proper size and fit.

Is this morally wrong? Perhaps.  Am I a bad person for not supporting local stores? I’ll answer this in a bit, my answer may surprise you.  Could I have been swayed to buy them in-store?  Possibly.

After looking on the Keen website I found that my local Army Navy store was an authorized retailer so I drove down to try them on.  This locally owned store has been a staple for decades in my town, but over the last few years has drifted away from the once surplus style store and focuses more on seasonal sports such as snowboarding and skateboarding than it ever has on what was once their core, gun sales, hunting and outdoor activities.  They are also famous for having blowout shoe sales and usually have a buy one get one 50% off sale running, so my fingers were crossed that I could maybe find Keen boots in my size in the racks of sale items, I didn’t.

The massive wall of shoes, boots and sneakers is about seven feet tall and maybe 30-40 feet wide, but I found the Keen display on the wall quickly and saw four employees about ten feet to my left.  I started looking at the shoes and saw the pricing was true to MSRP, about $140.00 for the boots.  Knowing I found them online for $70.00 with free shipping and free return shipping if I wasn’t happy, the sales team really needed to wow me in order to walk out with a pair that night.

Listening to the four sales people talk about guitar cords and the band that they were all apparently in while checking out shoes, I glanced over after picking up several pair and wondered why no one had come over to check on me, much less acknowledge why I was there.  A guy walked up to them and asked where the non-steel toe, non-insulated boots were, one of the salespeople pointed and said, “over there,” without even looking and kept on chatting with his coworkers.  Fed up, I finally walked over to them holding a pair and asked for a size 10.

One guy looked up at me, said OK and went in the back to fetch them, clearly disturbed I interrupted their deep conversations.  A minute later a voice came over a walkie-talkie attached to the hip of one of the salespeople that was still talking, it was the guy who offered to get me the boots.  He said they only had a 9.5, at which point I asked them if they had the “low” version in a size 10.  They did and a few seconds later he reappeared and put the box on a bench, turned and sat back down with his co-workers.  I looked at the other customer who was also still looking aimlessly without any help in disgust and he returned the glance.

There I was, handed a pair of boots to try on, no question as to what I would be doing them in, why it didn’t matter if they were low or mid versions, no one questioned if I wanted waterproof or planned on doing 5 mile weekend hikes or was going on a week long 100 mile adventure.  They didn’t even open the box lid and pull one out for me.  I sat there, dumbfounded, tried them on, stood up and walked around the bench and started to untie them and put them in the box. Surely someone would ask how they fit, if I needed another size, would I need socks (maybe working on an up-sell), but nothing.  I put the boots back in the box, closed the lid and stood up, walking away from the coworkers who hadn’t lost a beat in their conversation I said, “thanks” and looked at them then the box on the bench, one said, “sure” and didn’t even look at me.  I walked out.  The time was 7:30 at night, there were 4 cars in the parking lot including mine and they are open till 9pm.  Clearly the time was there to have a conversation and sell them to me.

Now to answer my own questions.  Could I have been swayed to buy them in-store? It would have been a stretch knowing that they were already available online for $70, maybe if they were $90 in store because I didn’t have to wait, or if it turned out the Keen boots I wanted were actually totally wrong and I was educated on what I did need.  Am I a bad person for not supporting local stores? I don’t think so.  Offer me quality service and a competitive price and I’ll support you.  That said, MSRP for the boots I wanted was $140, I found them on Amazon and a dozen other websites for $97, all with free shipping.  Additionally, buying online doesn’t reduce local jobs, my local UPS driver stopped by this morning to deliver my boots, he still needs a job, as do the people at the sorting facility where they came into before getting loaded on his truck.  In a round about way, someone in my area still has a job.

Traditional retail stores are still very much needed for both personal knowledge, fit and finish, there’s something nice about touching what you’re about to buy.  That said, horrible customer service and lack of attention to detail will continue to drive shoppers online.  Higher gas prices also mean consumers are thinking about where they will drive to buy something.  As of today, gas prices in my neighborhood are $3.65 / gallon, my car gets 29mpg and Army Navy, the store I went to try on my boots is about 20 miles round trip.  That means it cost about $2.50 + my time to try them on, so realistically I spent about an hour driving to and from plus time in the store to save almost 50% off retail and not have to be totally annoyed.

A minute later this was also tweeted:

If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably already ready my reply.  Some quick math says that 98% of $29.1m is $28,518,000, divide that by $250 is 114,072 people, but it’s probably far more contributors since the tweet indicates or less.

What angers me most is that in my purely speculative and totally unscientific opinion, the vast majority of those who contributed to the Obama 2012 campaign don’t donate on a local level, help out a charity or donate time to a soup kitchen.  Furthermore, if money can be raised this quickly, why can’t we raise money to fund further research for cancer, AIDS, feed the hungry people in this country or maybe rebuild New Orleans.  We have recess, music and art programs being yanked from schools for lack of funding but more than 114,000 people have $250 to donate to a presidential campaign?  Please, tell me why!

As soon as I read this it reminded me one of the great rants ever happen on MSNBC:

Click here to view the embedded video.

That pretty much sums up how I feel.  I understand that large corporations and conglomerates donate beyond large sums of money so that they can have a say, or to buy a seat in the white house with some position or other, and that ultimately is where most of the corruption is.  What truly dumbfounds me is what you think you’re getting from a $250 donation and why you didn’t choose to spend it somewhere locally, where it may have more of an impact.

Four and a half long years ago I wrote How not to hire a wedding photographer, an article that was a response to a Craigslist ad about someone who had very unrealistic goals about what they wanted.  In the article I broke down each and every absurd request the person had and gave reasonable answers.  I’m going to attempt to do the same thing with a recent Craigslist ad where a bride is flying off the chain at what she seems to think is a case of hanging out and shooting photos.

The original ad posted to the Seattle Craigslist:

Attn: Wedding Photographers (Puget Sound)

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. They are ripping people off for all they have! Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.
Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos

Like last time, I’ll pick this apart and give some depth to her requests.

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/ Truth be told, it’s not.  There are more options now than ever, magazines and websites like The Knot that specialize in city searches and the abundance and growth of Facebook alone in the last two-three years means it’s only a matter of updating your status with Looking for a wedding photographer, can someone please make a reccomdnation? If you’re like most users, you should have a dozen replies within the first thirty minutes.

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer. Well the old saying is, you can have two but never three of the following: Cheap, Fast, Good.  Also, what is decently priced to you may be very affordable to someone else.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. Actually, yes, it’s partly because the word wedding is involved, but you’re also not fully understanding the pricing structure for a wedding.  We’ll talk about that shortly since you’re going to continue going off into the deep end about it.  And photos are optional, just like a wedding is.  I’m no expert at law but I’m pretty sure most states in the USA only require some paperwork to be filled out at a county courthouse, the actual wedding ceremony, for the most part, is totally optional, along with the reception.

They are ripping people off for all they have! We are?  If all you have is $3,000 then you should probably put that towards your cost of living, student loans and the such, not towards a photographer. 

Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! As I’ve previously stated, it’s actually not $15,000.00, that’s the to hire people who will provide you with the setting and facility to celebrate your wedding.  If you want a professional chef to come to your house and make your dinner, you can expect to pay more for it than if you went to their establishment.

I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. Thanks for the love, can never have enough of that.  Now, I’m not going to argue the $3,000.00 figure you keep because that’s somewhat dependent on where you live, you’d be lucky to find a photographer in New York City for that much and in Po-Dunk, Anywhere it might be three times the going rate, so for this we shall stick to it.  We don’t hang out.  We run a business.  A business that has overhead, such as insurance, gear upkeep and maintenance, transportation, advertising, web design and deployment, brochures, sample books, etc.  All at a cost.  While most wedding photographers don’t have the overhead of an actual storefront, they still incur costs in their home / home offices such as lines for fax machines, Internet, computers, etc.  Also, there is no W-2 form when you are a sole owner or LLC, this means you need to pay taxes in most states quarterly, most photographers off-load this to an accountant, an added cost.  There are no paid sick days, vacation days, personal or doctor days, those are luxuries not afforded to a wedding photographer.  Likewise, business hours are virtually every hour of every day.  There is no show up at 8am, take lunch from 12:30-1:30 and leave at 5pm, it’s in your best interest to answer phone calls at 8pm while you’re enjoying a movie with your family or reply to emails at 1am, so the client always feels their wedding is the most important in the world.

I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? This is the part in the story where I honestly hope you are good at math.  I’m going to break down for you very simply what an average wedding consists of, time wise.

• 20 minutes: Initial in-bound inquirer from potential client via email or phone call + response
• 10 minutes: Follow up to schedule a meeting
• 60 minutes: Initial meeting, this is usually in a home office or a coffee shop of some sorts
• 30 minutes: Time it will take to draw up contracts, review discussions during initial meeting, send to you for review
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you that the first deposit needs to be sent to positively reserve your date
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you the remainder of the deposit needs to be paid in full 1 week prior to the wedding
• 60 minutes: Driving time to and from the wedding and between the wedding and reception.
• 10 hours: Provided you are getting married at 4pm and reception starts at 6pm and ends at 10pm, figure being at the Bride’s house by noon for the getting ready photos, the Groom’s shots, pre-bridal party posed shots, shots between the wedding and reception.  Basically starting at noon and ending at 10pm.
• 60 minutes: To import all digital photos and start the work-flow of editing, backing up originals and preparing for final images.
• 5 hours: Time spent editing photos.  This number varies for everyone, I’ve generally found in my experience that for every hour I’m shooting I can expect to spend one-half hour in the chair editing.  This is also weeding out bad photos and getting the final selection ready.
• 60 minutes: Time to export fully edited photos, catalog them and burn to DVD
• 30 minutes: To back up the edited photos and keep copies safe via external hard drive or more DVDs.

At this point we’re now at 21 hours.  This time has several variables in it and does not include sending files to a printer for photo prints, books, etc, plus picking them up, assembly of them or delivery to you, the client.  Rough math says that’s equal to about $142.86 per hour worked.  That is gross profit per hour.  Let’s factor in 15% taxes, that chops $450 off the top right there, factor in another $25.00 per month for insurance and a solid $150.00 per month for an accountant.  Then of course there is the cost of running a website, Facebook and Google paid ad campaigns, attending wedding expo’s, printing promo material, print advertisement in The Knot and similar magazines / websites.  Gas, car insurance and wear and tear on automobiles traveling to and from meetings and events.  All of this and I still haven’t said one word about the cost of actual camera equipment.  A wedding photographer who is charging $3,000 is probably doing so because they don’t want to undercut their competition but also because they’ve been doing it for a while and understand what it is to run a full business.  That said, they are probably bringing between $4,000 and $20,000 worth of camera gear with them to shoot your wedding.  This stuff is all wear and tear items that routinely need to be sent out for repair and replaced over time.  Let us not forget that this is for a paying client, not everyone who emails / calls will be a paying client due to schedule conflicts, priced too far above (or below, yes I’ve heard of clients saying photographer is too cheap for them), or other various reasons.  Same goes with the initial meeting, you don’t get up to bat and always hit a home run.  All that time is unpaid time spent working.

So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!  It’s interesting you bring this up, as mentioned before this is a luxury, you actually don’t need any of this to get married.  I think what’s also worth mentioning here is that it’s customary here in the USA to expect an engagement ring equal to roughly three month’s salary of the groom-to-be.  By your numbers of the average salary, you’re expecting a $9,000 ring?  That’s a really nice used car.  Moreover, it’s worth probably about $1,500 if you try to actually sell it because the only thing of real value is the gold or platinum in the band, the diamond for all intense purposes is a thing of value only to initial purchaser, there is no publicly traded diamonds out there in the same fashion as precious metals.  It’s a number made up by those in control of the mines, that however is a whole other article.

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.  Well this photographer did read it and I’ll be sharing it with other ones for sure. 

Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos Pull your nose out of the clouds, photographers love to photograph, it’s one of those service oriented jobs where most who do it chose to do it, and they truly love their craft.  They also love to get paid for it, and if you aren’t willing to pay for their experience, talent, skill and professionalism, then you have missed a great opportunity.  There are plenty of new shooters who bottom-feed and try to start at $500 a wedding, your photographs are going to look like they were shot by a $500 wedding photographer.

You complained a lot about a wedding costing you $15,000, if the photographer is going to make up roughly one-fifth of your total investment.  That means that four-fifths of your budget is going to be spent on consumable, forgettable items.  I’m sorry, on your one-year anniversary no one is going to post on your Facebook wall about how much they loved the duck breast and mashed squash they had for dinner or how great the DJ was.  They are going to leave comments on the photographs, that’s how people will remember and more importantly, relive and rejoice at your special day.  For your guests, it’s just a day they had to get dressed up, eat some marginally OK food, listen to music they probably don’t like and give you a gift that you probably don’t need or money that will be used to re-coupe the cost of this whole event.