greg_dunbar1

Dan, my guess would be that it's because the bride and groom are consumers, not a business.

<p>So basically it's not even worth it then to hire on a helper. I mean I'm talking maybe 5 or 6 weddings for the remainder of this year they would be assisting on. But then to have to have them as an employee and have to pay for insurance, payroll, etc etc I would lose a lot more money than I'm making by having the extra help at weddings.<br> <br />I have a feeling a lot of fellow photographers do it all under the table and just have friends or family do it. I was hoping of taking on someone that has an eye for photography and help them out by giving them experience in the process. I don't have any friends or family that like that.</p> <p> </p>

<p>So we are starting to take on more weddings than we can handle, which is great but we need an assistant to start helping us out, which will also allow us to expand our creativity at the weddings, not having to worry about bags and equipment, etc. Have no family or friends that are interested.<br /> So what's the best way for a wedding photographer to do this? We can't really take on an official "employee" and pay for workers comp, insurance, payroll etc, I mean really what wedding photographers can afford that, except for the huge studios that have 20 photographers? And this wouldn't be full-time work obviously, just one day a week or every other week so employeeship doesn't make sense.<br /> How do you do it? We were thinking hiring them as a subcontractor, but were told by a friend who is also in the wedding business that the subcontractor would need a DBA and also to have liability insurance, else it would be illegal to hire them. Is this true? I can't find any information about this ANYWHERE on the internet. So what do you guys recommend? The problem is we cannot find anyone who wants the job that is willing to go out and get a DBA and pay the $400 a year for liability insurance - most of the people responding to our ad on Craigslist are photography students who want to learn while getting paid, but are scared about getting a DBA and insurance for something they aren't even sure they want to do.<br /> Surely we must not be the only wedding photographers in the country that [want to] utilize assistants, but a google search for "how to hire a wedding photography assistant" does not reveal any helpful information, just people who are asking what fair pay is for the position. <br />Any ideas?<br> ETA: We are in New York, USA</p>