Paying for the day, in pieces.

We started offering payment plans in 2012. The reason was small and faintly unflattering. A couple we really wanted to book had told us, with some embarrassment, that they couldn't put down a four-figure deposit in the same month they were also putting deposits on a venue, a band and a marquee. They'd booked elsewhere because elsewhere said yes to spreading the cost. We thought about that for a fortnight and then added the option to our own packages.

More than half of our couples now take it. Here is the plain-language version of how it works.

---

01Why we offer it

Weddings are the only large purchase most people make where the deposits land in roughly the same eight-week stretch — venue, band, dress, photographer, florist — and the wedding itself is twelve to eighteen months away. That bunching is the problem, not the cost.

An interest-free payment plan unbunches it. You spread the same number across twelve, fifteen, eighteen months. We get the same total. You get to keep funding ISAs and paying car insurance without a hole. Nobody loses anything.

02How it works

Plainly:

• If you choose direct debit, there is no deposit to pay upfront. The plan secures the booking and starts the monthly schedule.
• The full package price is divided into equal monthly direct-debit instalments running from the month of booking to the month of the wedding.
• For photography bookings, the last instalment lands in the month of the wedding. If you add video, the plan runs one month longer and the last instalment lands in the month after.
• No interest. No admin fee. No credit check. GoCardless fees still exist; we cover them rather than add them to your plan.

That's the entire mechanism. The only thing that varies is the length, which is determined by how many months sit between today and your wedding date, plus that extra month if video is part of the booking.

03What couples actually do

Three quarters of couples who take a plan run it for the full length we offer (twelve to eighteen months). The other quarter pay it down faster — usually because a parent or grandparent gifts a lump sum that closes the balance.

"The plan is not really about the photographer's bill. It's about the eight-week stretch of deposits landing simultaneously. We just stop adding to that pile."Jody Nesbitt · Shine Pics

The only thing we ask, and it almost never matters, is that the direct debit isn't bounced. If it is, we contact you directly first — we have never cancelled a plan over a missed payment without a conversation, and we never will.

04The conversation worth having

If you take one thing from this page, take this: have the money conversation early, with each other and with anyone contributing. The vast majority of wedding-money tension we see is not about the total — it's about discovering, six months in, that one person assumed the parents were paying for the meal and the other person didn't.

Once you've had that conversation, a payment plan is just an administrative tool. It moves the timing of the cash, not the amount.

05…if your supplier doesn't offer one

Ask. Most suppliers will say yes if you ask, and most will say nothing if you don't. The worst answer is "no, but we can do half-now-half-on-the-day", which sometimes works and sometimes leaves a four-figure payment to find the week of the wedding, which is the worst possible week to find it.

If you'd like to talk through the timing for your specific date, or what a plan would look like across our packages, the contact form takes a minute. If you're at an earlier stage and trying to work out the total in the first place, our budget piece is the place to start.