I (Kaiden) have spent too many an hour looking for answers on how to honestly and opening ask clients to cover travel costs associated with filming their wedding.

In this blog post I'll go over why we charge for travel (and why you should too), but also how we do that. Let's get super practical!

1. Setting Realistic Expectations

I understand what it's like being asked to cover travel expenses for a wedding vendor. When we got married we made a list of the vendors we'd be willing to outsource from another state. That ended up being the makeup artist for Carly and the bridesmaids, our videographer, and our photographer. For those three we payed the necessary costs that came with them traveling a long distance to serve us; some even gave us a discount on the cost! My point is, I'm no stranger to this process, which is why I wanted to write about it today in the off chance it helps someone else.

It's important for couples to know that in regards to wedding vendors, charging for travel is not a way for us to say "gotcha" or for us to squeeze a little bit more cash out of you. The reality is that if you expect to hire a vendor more than 2 hours away, anticipate compensating that vendor for their travel costs.

2. How We Do It

Truth be told I've gone back and forth countless times on how we calculate travel costs. I've factored it into our total package pricing, I've charged a flat rate that changed according to the distance to your venue, and we've covered travel costs ourselves (wouldn't recommend). Now, we calculate costs on a per-client basis. Let me briefly touch on what hasn't worked in the past.

When factoring in the cost of travel into our pricing or charging a flat rate based on the distance from the venue, I essentially played a guessing game, "Would travel to this state cost this much, or that much?" Over time it became clear that while I appreciated the ease it brought our clients, this method hurt us in the long run. Yes, this comes down to user error, but 9/10 we lost money when it came to covering the cost of getting to and from the wedding venue. Are we going to fly? Drive? Do we need a rental? What are current rates? Do we need groceries while we're there? Where are we staying? For how long—two nights or one? In my opinion, there's too many questions to answer to charge a flat rate. When this happens, you end up paying the client to travel to their wedding—not ideal.

So, here's how we do it. First, we've included on our website that "Travel expenses are not included." Right away, when couples browse our website, they'll know that they could incur travel costs in addition to the cost of filming their wedding. Secondly, during our discovery call, when we go over our services and pricing, we make it clear that we'll calculate travel costs based on where their venue's located. That may mean we quickly look up the average flight cost to the nearest city and look up the average cost of lodging. That way they'll receive a ballpark on how much travel could cost—again, setting realistic expectations. If they decide to book with us, we'll calculate the total amount, book the flights and lodging (if applicable), and include the total in the invoicing.

If the venue is under 2 hours for us, we'll let the couple know there won't be any travel fees. Why? Any venue 2 hours or less away from us is a venue we can drive home from the night of. Any venue farther away would require more coordination and planning, which means some sort of stay, travel plan, etc.

3. It'll All Work Out in the End

At the end of the day, charging for travel as a vendor is a necessary action if you're looking to grow as a business and support your family— it took me a long time to realize this. I always thought to myself, "I'll just cover travel, it's not big deal. I've driven farther." Or, I've thought, "If I ask them to cover travel they won't book us!" With both mindsets, I wasn't thinking like a business owner. Fear was and can be the driver if you're not careful.

When you're just starting out (like we are) and you're trying to make your business full-time, there's little room to cover massive travel costs for the client. As we grow and gain more business, we can't wait to bless couples in that way, but understand that it's a luxury to do that and it should not be the expectation.

Also, we find that that charging for travel is directly correlated with long-term sustainability in the wedding space. Compensation for flights and lodging means we don't have to pay with our personal finances set aside for other things— this means less stress, and more excitement! Travel shouldn't be something to dread; it's simply a necessary part of being a wedding vendor. I'm growing in that mindset every day!