Second Shooter Shortage Enters Fourth Consecutive Season; Analysts Cite ‘Attrition, Mostly’
Unfilled secondary positions reached 31.7% of Saturday assignments in June, up from 28.9% a year earlier, as rate increases fail to draw supply back into the market.
The second-shooter labor market entered its fourth consecutive season of contraction in June, with regional booking desks reporting unfilled secondary positions on 31.7% of Saturday assignments, according to figures compiled by the Mid-Atlantic Wedding Documentation Association.
The June rate is up from 28.9% a year earlier and from 19.4% in June 2023, the first season the association tracked secondary staffing separately from total crew. The association surveyed 412 member studios across six states and the District of Columbia. Response rate was 68.2%.
Shortfalls were not evenly distributed. Studios booking fewer than twenty events annually reported an unfilled rate of 44.1%, while operations above eighty events reported 12.6%. The association attributed the gap to standing rosters and retainer arrangements available to higher-volume firms.
“We are not losing people to competitors,” said Delia Marchetti, staffing director at Hollowbrook Studio Group in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “We are losing them to Tuesdays. They get a job with a Tuesday in it and they do not come back.”
Analysts have characterized the trend as structural rather than cyclical. Kenneth Ruiz, who covers the documentation services sector for the advisory firm Braddock and Line, said the shortage has resisted the usual corrective pressures.
“Rates went up. Rates went up meaningfully, twice,” Ruiz said. “Supply did not respond. When you rule out compensation, you are left with attrition, mostly.”
Average second-shooter day rates in the survey region reached $412 in the first half of 2026, an increase of 9.8% year over year and the fourth consecutive annual increase. Adjusted for the median assignment length of 9.4 hours, effective hourly compensation rose 4.1%.
Several respondents reported adapting coverage plans rather than continuing to recruit. Of studios surveyed, 22.3% said they had reduced two-camera coverage during the ceremony block, and 17.9% said they had shifted secondary coverage to reception hours only. A further 6.2% said they no longer offer a second shooter as a line item and now quote it on request.
The association’s staffing committee has scheduled a review for the fourth quarter. A preliminary memo circulated to members in May recommended standardized onboarding documentation and a regional availability registry, both of which were recommended in prior years.
“We put out the registry in 2024,” Marchetti said. “Eleven people signed up. Four of them were me testing the form.”
The association declined to release state-level breakouts, citing member confidentiality. Its next staffing survey opens in October and covers the fall season, historically the tighter of the two.