It’s hard to believe that another wedding season has come and gone. From first kisses and wild dance floors every weekend to frigid temperatures and runny noses… it’s easy to look back at the year and praise yourself for a job well done. My challenge to you is to look a little DEEPER and write down everything that DIDN’T WORK for you. Put your fails on paper. Then figure out the solutions and implement them!
Today, I’m sharing the things I did differently this year that WORKED
How they made a HUGELY positive impact on my business and workflow
Why YOU should try them out in 2019!
Retouching
Start paying attention to the TINY details of a photograph – razor burn, Spanx lines, blemishes, distracting background elements, etc. These photos are a couple’s LEGACY – we may have 20 weddings a year, but they have one in their entire life. They should be able to look at their photos and see their best selves. Arms look twice the size when they’re squished up against the body versus hanging normally – so edit them to be back to normal size, get rid of double chins when people laugh, spot remove pimples, and erase distracting background elements like exit signs and electric outlets. It makes a HUGE difference in elevating your images and you’re doing your clients a huge favor by helping them look like their best selves.
Wedding Prep Systems
GAME CHANGER ALERT: prep wedding info for the internet BEFORE the big day! Keep a document for each couple, and in the week leading up to the wedding, do these things:
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Draft the blog post. Hyperlink all vendors and insert relevant SEO tags.
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Write out hashtags with the venue, all vendor names, and other relevant tags.
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Create the vendor credits for Instagram. Write out their labels and handles so you can copy and paste all vendors in the caption instead of manually tagging them in the actual photo every single time you post.
Now when you’re done editing sneak peeks, you can get them out the door hassle free without searching for vendors, forgetting to credit people, and wasting time!
Card Handling
Many voices in the photography industry say to shoot on multiple memory cards so if one gets lost or corrupts, you still have other parts of the wedding day safely documented. If you shoot with dual card slots, I call BS! There’s nothing more stressful than having to watch your card limits while shooting, and there’s a much higher risk of loss when you’re loading and unloading multiple cards a night in a high-pressure, fast-paced situation. I bought 128GB cards and wished I did this YEARS ago. I shoot an entire wedding in RAW on the CF card, and write JPG backups onto an SD card. Even if one card did corrupt, there is a backup. JPGs rarely corrupt at the rate RAW files can, so they’re a perfect safeguard for the card failing or camera writing bad files to the card. Then, don’t format the CF card until you have delivered the wedding (and backed it up to 3 places). Basically, DO YOU and have faith in the workflow that serves you best!
Truthful Branding
2018 was the year of putting on the big girl pants and OWNING who I am. Whatever your “thing” is, whatever your personality is like, OWN IT. Make it your signature brand. Be absolutely true to who you are and you will attract the PERFECT clients for the experience you provide.
I’m loud, excitable, outgoing, a foodie, a hugger, a sailor mouth, obsessed with bubble tea, and love being BFFs with my couples before and after their weddings. This year I didn’t try being anyone else but my whole, true self, and it attracted the most incredible couples. Every person who wrote me a review this year said they felt like they spent their wedding day with a long time friend. IT WORKS! I said “FUCK IT” and put my personality on blast, and that made marketing effortless because I didn’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. When you’re unapologetically yourself, the right people gravitate towards you, and if they don’t, they aren’t your ideal client or friend anyway.
BONUS:
The seemingly silly things that deserve shoutouts
Remote controlled everything
My twinkly lights, electric candles, even my space heater are all remote controlled so I don’t have to get my butt out of bed to make the magic happen.
Not waiting in line at the post office ever again
Because why bother going to the post office when you can just do it at home? Just use USPS.com. Weigh your package with a little scale, print out the label, and stick it on your porch with a note for USPS to grab when they come. I love this!
Being safe and hands free in the car
Best gift I got all year.It clips onto your heating vent in the car and holds your phone. Simple, I know, but for someone who uses Google Maps constantly, it’s safer than holding it and now my fingers don’t hurt from gripping the wheel and the phone at the same time!
Take a moment each night to put your phone and computer away, let your mind wander, and dream up some big goals for 2019. Let’s make it happen!
