How did you get your first wedding clients?

JDS · Nov 14, 2007

I got my first (and only) wedding job by word of mouth - the bride brought it up to her friend, and her friend knew me. Made for doggone sure she knew I was no pro. I charged $100 for my time - 6 hours at the wedding and reception, and also covered the rehearsal. Now I'm just charging for the prints she wants.

Maybe I'll get some more jobs from this one, and I can get better and get into it more..

eddiesimages · Nov 19, 2007

Seems everyone started about the same. I just did my first real wedding two weeks ago. My wife's friend who had a very small wedding asked me to do it. I said I would take the photos, put them on a disc and give it to them as a wedding gift. I ended up spending 20-25 hrs on photoshop trying to get the pictures like I wanted. I didn't think they were that great, but the bride was very pleased with them, so that's all that matters. Don't know if I will do another wedding because it is so stressful.

ksmattfish · Nov 20, 2007

Friends liked my amateur photos better than the local pros' portfolios. At least that's what they told me, my cheap amateur price ($400 + film and processing costs) was probably also an incentive.

After I did theirs the snowball kept rolling, and I did several weddings for friends and family every year for about 6 years. Eventually I was getting enough requests it was interfering with the day job, and I realized something that had never occurred to me: maybe I could do this full time? Four years and 100+ weddings later it seems to be working out.

butterflygirl · Nov 20, 2007

Me too! I did a friend's wedding three years ago back when I had my film camera. Then I got serious about it about a year later and I've worked for two local wedding photographers since then. Now I've done two more, a friend and a friend a friend, and I'm doing my husband's father's second wedding in December. I'm hoping to get more as time goes on!

Good luck!

schuylercat · Nov 23, 2007

My stepson begged and pleaded and harassed and cajoled and...well, you know. He and his fiancee are flat broke and he said "hey, didn't you USED to be a photographer?" After I sputtered and harrumphed, that was that. Next June 15, I'll let you know how it went!

mortallis288 · Nov 28, 2007

My friend and I are working on getting our first, we are currently building a website and getting prices together. We have no idea how to advertise. We thought about 100 fliers but we figured that would piss people off if you put them on there cars, maybe craigslist

Bthornton · Nov 28, 2007

If you can afford to get a booth at a wedding show that's a great place to get customers but it is $$$. A cheaper way that works for some is to get your local paper, see who is in the engagement section and send them a dvd slideshow of your best work along with info on how to contact you. Before doing any marketing be sure your website and all your marketing items look perfect.

PrincessB · Nov 28, 2007

I took pictures at my friends weddings simply because I'm a photo-aholic and afterwards I'd share those pictures with them. They ended up loving them, even better than many taken by their paid photographer.
Later I was contacted by a local author who asked me to do pictures of him for his authors photo for his books he was publishing.
With everyone exclaiming about how I had such a wonderful eye for taking great pictures and how they'd love to have x picture framed on their wall I decided I might as well do what I love anyway and started looking to take pictures of more than just friends activities.
I keep my cost extreamly low because I work for those on a budget like I was for my wedding so I don't have a ton of extra money for advertisment and make use of every online source I find. Craigslist, bridalhood.com, etc.

D-50 · Nov 30, 2007

One thing Ive notice in a lot of responses is how people say "there is so much editing 10,20,30 hours" Yeah thats enough time in front of a computer screen to make your eyes bleed but if your charging $1500 or more a wedding your making a lot of money for not a whole lot of work considering what you would make in a week of "regular work" (depending on profession) Lets say you charge $2000, very fair price for an 8 hour wedding add on 2 hours travel time and then 20 hours editing, thats 30 hours altogether so for 30 hours of work you made $2000 or what ever you charge for a wedding. Many people work 40-50 hours a week and bring home $1000-$2000 for that time, also many of these people really dont like their work but do it to make a living. Getting paid $2000+ for doing something you love to do is a dream.

Back to the original topic I got my first wedding through an ad I posted online. I did it for $250 but it was more for experience than money. It was a small ceremony outside and only lasted about 2.5 hours total. it was tough a lot of running around and a lot to capture. Makes me think a full blown wedding would be a daunting task. If you do book a full blown wedding make sure to find a second shooter, no way one person can capture an entire ceremony themselves.