I often get asked by other wedding photographers disheartened by difficult couples – ‘how do you get such great clients to photograph all the time’. The simple answer to this is I design my marketing, website and style of photography to attract the clients/couples that I want to photograph. So in some way I pick them as much as they pick me.
It’s not just luck that I attract fun laid back couples but something that I have worked on for quite a few years. When I design my website and advertisements I firstly think about who I am trying to appeal to and base my concepts and imagery around this.
I have a great job as it is but it is made that much more enjoyable when I get to work with couples that not only love what I do but are great fun to photograph and appreciate what I do.
My photography doesn’t appeal to everyone and nor do I want it to, if you try to it dilutes the message your photographs convey you can make your work look bland and you just become another photographer.
Some of you may have noticed that the new website has more content on me personally which was a deliberate step as when your choosing a wedding photographer it is almost as important to know the person behind the images as the quality of the photos. The reason for this is the bride & groom spend all day with the photographer, the only other people in this privileged situation is the bridal party, their closest friends. If you don’t get along and like the photographer then it’s seriously going to dampen the mood of the day for you.
Where you can start to get problems with brides is when they don’t value your work or don’t trust you. We try to combat this by not discounting our work and not being the cheapest out there. The trust issue we deal with by earning their trust through the process, chatting to them, answering questions, doing the pre wedding shoot etc. Trust also comes from reading this blog as they can see in the lead up to their wedding the standard of work I do and it puts them at ease.
So now by the time a potential couple has looked through my images learnt a little bit about me and my style they are either going to enquire further or say no thanks it’s not really my style. My enquiries have gone down since designing my website and advertising this way but the bookings have gone up. This is because the enquiries are more qualified and more likely to love what I do, so it is a win/win less consultations but a higher percentage of bookings!
So next time I am asked this question maybe I should say that in a way I picked them as much as they picked me!
I couldn’t do a post without a few images so here is a couple from Lisa & Andrew’s wedding at Potters a few weekends ago.
