Digital Photography: Becoming a wedding photographer
Dan Feildman
Weddings are great photo opportunities. It's a day that everyone wants to remember and happy couples often need a reliable, professional service to capture their wedding perfectly for them to remember for the rest of their lives. Investing in relationships with wedding planners is a great way to gain access to this profitable business. The wedding planner will refer you to couples who will be more likely to hire you based on the wedding planner's advice.
First, if you have no wedding portfolio, offer your service to a bride in return for a testimonial. Be sure you keep the copyright on your pictures so you can use them to create a portfolio. You might locate a receptive bride within your circle of friends and family or through other networking activities. With at least one wedding under your belt and with a nice testimonial and portfolio, start looking for other weddings to photograph. Word of mouth is always ideal, but you might also check the wedding announcements in your local newspaper.
If you can, contact the bride and offer your services. Send a promotional package by mail or try reaching her by telephone. Also, offer to take photographs at the bride's home prior to the wedding. You can get lovely candid shots of attendants helping the bride with her veil, flower girls primping in front of the mirror, etc. This is not a service that a studio photographer offers. Be sure to incorporate this as one of your unique selling points.
You can contact the bride by phone or mail. Offering to take pictures of the preparation for the wedding is a good way to make an impression as most studio photographers do not offer this service. Sending the bride free promotional material is another way to get business.
Here's one more suggestion for a unique digital photography package for weddings. Pair up with a scrapartist and offer a unique product - a wedding scrapbook or memory album. Scrapartists use photographs, mementoes, decorative paper, journaling and various embellishments to create gorgeous, one-of-a-kind albums that are truly works of art.
A wedding photographer should always be looking for ways to offer more value to his or her customers. One neat idea is to find a scrapartist and form a business relationship so that you can offer clients a wedding scrapbook for their memories. This can leave a great impression. One last thing- make the bride happy, and your job will be much easier.
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