Okay, so you knew you wanted to be a North East Wedding Photographer and what’s more, you decided to be a photographer for a wedding. You might have come to this conclusion after years of photography practice and finally settling on a niche. Which way you’ve come to your decision, I’m going to try to run through things you can do to make your career a success.
There are many different levels of wedding photography and everybody has a valid place; just remember to sell yourself in the right bracket and then people won’t have higher expectations for your job. Get a portfolio of your wedding photographs together.
It has to be wedding photography, your snaps of your pretty children’s landscapes or vacation pictures won’t cut it. If you don’t have any pictures to show for your wedding, hire a model and take some of yourself. Please do not go to a course and use the images from that day to support your work.
That’s because somebody’s going to pose the model and show you what to do and you ‘re going to inadvertently copy other people’s techniques from the day; the work isn’t really yours and if you can’t reproduce it on the big day, then people will be very disappointed. As you progress and improve your photographic quality, you can then start charging more and moving the ladder of the wedding photographer upwards.
Now we’ve got those bits out of the way and we’re going to talk about the plan. I hear you say, “Plan?” Hey! You need a plan; an action plan to photograph the wedding you are about to be taking. So somebody has seen your work and they want you to take pictures of their big day, perfect! What is happening now? Okay, you ‘re going to have a pre-wedding meeting with the couple to go over how they want the day stuff done.
Yes, that’s right, you don’t want things done, ‘HOW THEY!’ Listen to what they have to say and then you can make your recommendation and fit in with what they are after as you work with. And, if you don’t think you can, then just walk away from the job as they’d probably be disappointed and one bad customer will mean that you’ll need twenty good customers to cover up any bad feedback that might result.
At the meeting, you need to advise the couple on their prices and the different packages you have at your disposal, as well as the wedding album prices and extras you have. Also, make sure you take a wedding contract with you and get both of them to sign it (sure you leave a copy to them too) and then get a deposit from them for the wedding package they’ve chosen.
Go through the day’s run-through allowing you to get an image of all the stages in your head so that it’s not a daytime surprise. Preparation will make your life so easy that you will enjoy the day on your own, as it will all happen with a natural flow.
