Being a wedding photographer is a singular experience. People may think that the service you provide as a wedding photographer begins and ends with taking photographs, but the reality is far more involved. Here are 7 ways being a wedding photographer mimics a customer success bootcamp:
1.) Presentation and Marketing
In the photography world, there is a saying: “There are three absolutes in life: Death, taxes, and weddings.”
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Prior to the pandemic (and also during it, but to a lesser degree) weddings were seen in the photography world as a way to guarantee that your rent gets paid, and food is put on your table. A lot of photographers squeeze time in between their other projects and jobs to photograph a wedding or two per year.
This means that at any given time, the wedding photography market is flooded with talent. And I mean bloated. More filled than a Halloween sack of candy. This also means that no matter where you go, chances are that a lot of photographers are vying for the same corner of the wedding photography market at the same time, and you have to come ready to stand out from the pack.
That’s where presentation comes in.
Showing your best photographs in a strong portfolio is essential to convincing clients they want to hire you over a competitor. You also want a website that mirrors the qualities you hope to demonstrate to the client: polished, beautiful, clear and easy to navigate, communicative, and resourceful. If a client associates your website with professionalism and ease-of-use, they will most likely assume that that’s what you’re like to work with, and be more inclined to reach out.
But first you have to find the clients. Or help the clients find you.
Enter: Marketing.
What kind of methods do you use to find potential clients? Do you advertise on Facebook, or Instagram? Rely on testimonials from previous clients on your website? Collaborate with wedding businesses to ensure that they recommend you to their clients? Do you hand out fliers, or rely on word-of-mouth?
Each photographer has a different marketing method. I once met a wedding photographer who had such success through word-of-mouth that he hadn’t had to advertise his business in years. The dream!
Whatever your marketing method, chances are it’s not the same one you used three years ago, or five years ago. As technology and social media grow and change and feed off of one another, it becomes more and more important to adapt to the changing times. As a result, you get ever-expanding opportunities to market yourself better and more effectively...kind of like a giant lego set with instructions that morph into something different every 6 months.
2.) Packaging
What goods are you offering for money? Do your clients purchase your skills by the hour, or by the finished product? Do you have a slider scale, depending on the level of services being offered? Do you offer complimentary additions to a preset purchase (for example: offering a free engagement photoshoot if they purchase a deluxe package)? How do you present your packages in a way that peaks your clients’ interest, while making them feel confident that they would prefer to buy the product you are selling as opposed to someone else’s?
And of course: how do you ensure that the client feels good about spending money on the product you’re offering?
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to packaging; everyone has their own idea of what they can offer for a reasonable price, and what they believe their product is worth. And of course, once you have a plethora of clients singing your praises, that’s when you start offering the same packages for more money. (Call it the “peace of mind” bonus. The “satisfaction guaranteed” clause? How about the “will emotionally recreate the experience of eating a jelly bean for the very first time” promise?)
3.) Customer Interaction and Customer Service
Being a wedding photographer means being affable, dependable, and confident: someone clients want to work with and spend one of the happiest (and most stressful) days of their lives interacting with at length.
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Clients often want to hire someone who they have faith can wrangle their guests if need be, take control of any wild situations that might come up, and can be adaptable and creative in emergencies.
When clients hire you, chances are extremely high that they are hoping to only get married once. They want someone to document a once-in-a-lifetime event in a way that they and their loved ones can look back on and celebrate together. They are entrusting you not only with a large portion of their experience, but also with their future memories: with the images they will use to tell stories to their children and their children’s children, with the visual reminder of their love whenever they need reassurance, and with how they will celebrate their special day with their loved ones who couldn’t join them in person to celebrate. They don’t get do-overs, and they don’t want you to need any.
Having the ability to get the job done right on the first try is important, and is what they pay you for. But, for those of us who aren’t Superman, have bad days, or encounter problems we didn’t plan for, customer interaction and customer service fill in those gaps.
One of my favorite “Oh-shit-no-wait-I-can-work-with-this,” wedding photography stories comes from a friend of mine who found himself in the peculiar position of photographing a wedding in a building that had the fire alarm go off mid-way through the reception. The bride and groom were devastated as they and their wedding party were forced to wait out in the street while the building was deemed safe to re-enter.
Thinking on his feet, my friend managed to save the day by convincing everyone to do an impromptu photoshoot next to the (unused, there was no fire) firetruck, telling them that they wanted to remember this part of their wedding, not lament it. Everyone agreed, and the mood was fixed as they posed next to the giant, red engine. My friend’s priority at that moment wasn’t to get good photographs, it was to improve his clients’ experience. And it worked!
4.) Problem-Solving
Most wedding photographers carry a battle kit with them on jobs.
This kit includes not only everything a photographer will need to immediately fix photographic complications and problems (a weather bag for their camera, extra batteries, lens covers in case one breaks, back-up memory cards, etc.), but also things to address the needs of the people around them.
Having such intimate access to the bride and groom and their wedding parties throughout the day often means that a photographer is present when something goes wrong: a button pops off, a shirt gets stained by an errant pen, bobby pins start vanishing into the ether (as bobby pins often do), a groomsman forgets deodorant, the bride needs a quick pick-me-up energy bar, someone forgot their phone charger, etc.
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Weddings are stressful times, and tiny details often slip through frazzled minds—like the importance of having floss on-hand when taking photos that you plan to look at for the rest of your life. When you have to make it to the altar in 20 minutes, a quick trip to the store probably isn’t feasible.
Most weddings have at least one tale of the wedding photographer pulling out the exact item needed in a mini-crisis and saving the day.
If the apocalypse ever hits right in the middle of a wedding, the photographer probably has what amounts to a mini-survival bag stashed somewhere on their person.
Thinking on your feet, rapid adaptability and problem solving are all essential parts of a wedding photographer’s repertoire. The light changes in an instant? Adapt. The perfect backdrop means the bride will be squinting against the sun, and will hate the photographs? Adapt. A rowdy guest gives an enthusiastic toast and splashes beer all over you and your camera? Adapt (and panic).
Being a wedding photographer means spending the day making rapid, quick-fire decisions every few minutes. It’s exhausting, but so fun.
5.) Leadership and Decision-Making
A lot of wedding photography involves telling people what to do.
Bringing people together to create a gorgeous photograph often requires effort, people managing, organization, communication, and direction. It’s a lot like herding sheep: drunken, friendly, handsy sheep.
You want people to have a good time and enjoy themselves, while following your instructions so you have the best chance of creating breathtaking images for your clients. This often involves telling people where to go, what to do, and how to do it.
You want to be firm but gentle, accommodating but direct, and friendly and pleasant while authoritative. A smile tends to go a long way. If people enjoy following your instructions, you’ve done your job.
6.) Prioritizing and Time-Management
Weddings are chaos.
Potential photographs are happening all around you. If you face table four, you might miss Uncle Steve busting out his famous dance moves near table eight; if you take a breather to eat or use the bathroom, you might miss the newlyweds embracing or having a good cry with their parents; if you don’t photograph the venue and setup before people start to sit down in chairs, eat off of plates, and fill the room with discarded purses and jackets, you’ll never have another chance to show what everything looked like (and what the clients paid a lot of money for) before excited humans entered the space and made it their collective own.
…Kind of like photographing a gorgeous old house before frat pledges take it over. You can photograph it afterwards, but boy will the space remember who’s been there, and what they’ve been doing to leave their mark.
7.) Post-Production and Communication
The post-production of wedding photography is its own beast. At its heart, it’s all about communication and customer service.
Clients tend to want to see the product in its finished form right away. This means hundreds of photographs edited and polished and made print-ready: zero blemishes on faces, no armpit sweat stains, no overwhelming green light from the disco setup on the dance floor that made everyone look ill, and definitely no visible boogers or food stuck in someone’s teeth.
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Making these changes takes time, and isn’t an immediate process. But people coming off of the high of their wedding often want to relive the experience as soon as they can. In order to do that, they want you to work quickly. Often much faster than is possible.
The solution is: open communication and exceptional customer service. Explain the process and what you are doing, and how you are utilizing your expertise to make their final product the images of their dreams.
And give them some goodies: a few select photographs you work on and finish in order to hand them off right away. A teaser of sorts. Or, more accurately, a promise.
Then, it’s a process of fulfilling all of your promises and following through with a quality product and quality-of-service.
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…And there you have it! Wedding photography is an intense job, but a rewarding one. And fun, if you take the time to enjoy yourself.
May all of your future wedding photography jobs be fire alarm-free, and with nary a loose bobby-pin!