Questions
Asked and answered
Money
What does a wedding actually cost?
Three collections, at the same figure anywhere in Canada: Signature C$3,000 for 8 hours, Legacy C$4,200 for 10 hours, Photo + Film C$5,900 for 12 hours. The city does not change the number. Sales tax goes on top, and travel stays separate only when the wedding requires its own trip.
Is anything added afterwards?
Only what you choose, plus travel if your wedding needs it. Add-ons are listed with their prices. Travel uses the lowest practical early-booked route, and a permit, helicopter or other venue-specific requirement remains its own line.
How do the payments work?
Three payments. A non-refundable 30% deposit with the signed contract secures your date. Then 35% is due 60 days before the wedding, and the final 35% is due 30 days before.
How many hours do we need?
Eight hours, which is Signature, covers most full weddings: a getting-ready, a ceremony and a reception. Once the day runs from the morning to the last dance, or two rooms need covering at once, take Legacy at ten hours. Photo + Film runs twelve, with a dedicated filmmaker. An extra hour on any collection is C$400.
Coverage
What are the social reels?
Short vertical videos cut from the day, included in every collection and sent in the first week. They exist to fill the gap between the wedding and the gallery, when everyone is still asking to see something. They are not the feature film and they do not replace video.
Do you photograph multi-day and cultural weddings?
Regularly, and they are scoped by event rather than sold as one flat package. Tell me how many days, how many venues, how far apart, and which twenty minutes you would be heartbroken to lose. A rehearsal dinner or welcome event of up to three hours is C$1,000.
Is there a second photographer?
Legacy includes one for four hours. On Signature and Photo + Film it is an add-on: C$800 for four hours, which is the minimum, and C$175 for each hour after that, because a second photographer is a real person being paid a real day rate and folding that into a package quietly is how it gets done badly. If the two of you are getting ready in different places, one photographer cannot be in both and I will say so rather than let you find out.
Do you shoot video?
A colour-graded feature film cut from your day: one minute on Signature, three minutes on Legacy. It is shot alongside the photographs rather than by a separate operator, which is what makes it includable at all. A dedicated filmmaker is a different product: it is what Photo + Film carries at C$5,900, and it can be added to any other collection for C$2,900.
Travel
How do you keep travel affordable?
I book practical routes early, including low-cost carriers when they make sense, and group regional dates whenever possible. If I am already scheduled in your region, the travel fee is reduced or waived.
How far will you actually travel?
Anywhere in Canada, and anywhere in the world outside the United States. Inside Canada the collection price does not move: Whistler, Vancouver Island, Québec City, the Eastern Townships, Niagara, Muskoka and the Rockies all buy Signature for C$3,000, and travel uses the leanest practical route for the venue and date, dropping when another regional booking already covers part of the trip. A wedding outside Canada is quoted rather than priced off that ladder.
Do you photograph destination weddings?
Yes, anywhere in the world except the United States, and they are booked on this site rather than on armanarai.com. The three published collections are Canadian prices. A wedding outside Canada is quoted against the country, the venue, the date and the route, as one number given before you decide. There is no published destination figure and no fixed multiplier. Mexico, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Greece, the United Kingdom, Ireland and elsewhere. There is a full page on it at https://www.armanarai.ca/destination-wedding-photographer.
Will you photograph a wedding in the United States?
No. I do not work in the USA, at any price, so if your wedding is there the useful answer is to book someone else rather than ask me for a quote. If you live in the United States and are marrying outside it, that is a wedding I can photograph on the normal collections.
Do you speak French?
No, I work in English. I would rather say so here than have you discover it on the day. In practice your planner, venue and officiant carry the French side of a Québec wedding, and photography direction is mostly gesture and a few words. If a French-speaking photographer genuinely matters to you, tell me and I will point you at one.
The day, and after
What happens if it rains?
We shoot. Every timeline I build names a specific covered location I have already looked at, and I carry the lighting to make an indoor room work. Rain days are frequently the better gallery, but only when the backup was decided in advance rather than in a parking lot.
What is your backup if a camera fails?
Two bodies on the day, both writing to two cards at once, and files held in at least two places plus one off-site afterwards. A corrupted card should be an inconvenience, not a catastrophe.
When do the photographs arrive?
Social reels in the first week. A preview the next day on Signature and Photo + Film, and within 24 hours on Legacy. The full gallery within three weeks, because every collection carries a graded film and real rolls to develop. A dedicated filmmaker's film on Photo + Film takes ten weeks. The date is in the contract, not in an email.
How far in advance should we book?
Peak-season Saturdays usually go nine to eighteen months ahead. Off-season and weekday dates open up much later. If your date is close, ask anyway: cancellations and gaps happen more often than the planning advice implies.