No more weddings...

[Christie Photo]

...I feel like the luckiest person having had the chance to work, and learn from you while helping with your weddings, and would just about give anything to help you with more.

Thanks, my friend, for the kind words.

I wouldn't be completely surprised if we go at again. Let's chat about it some.

-Pete

 

[shufti]

If your USP is old-school quality and refinement, you could gradually price yourself out of the market.

Edit: I mean do this intentionally.

 

[Paul D. Van Hoy II]

it is certainly easy to lose your creative edge after shooting a few seasons of weddings (I've shot over 500 in my 16 year career), but there's a lot of brilliant strategies and techniques out there to help restore your frayed and fizzled passions, as well as your artistic vision, and your business's bottom line.

I actually just wrote and published a book that speaks to this issue/topic - Wedding Photojournalism | The Business of Aesthetics

I'm sincere in sharing this link and would encourage any of you who are serious about starting your own professional wedding photography studio or for those of you who are already working professionals - check out some of the book's excerpts on amazon.com and consider getting a copy of your own. I've been workshopping with fellow wedding photogs for the last six years and have helped hundreds of photogs build and rebuild their businesses.

If any members of this forum ever want to chat privately about pricing, packaging, workflow, or client management, please feel free to send me a private message anytime!

Paul

 

[c.cloudwalker]

The world changes and we need to re-invent ourselves and our business also, at times. But I wouldn't say, No More Weddings quite yet if I were you and you enjoy shooting them.

I said the same thing after my second "traditional style" wedding. It just wasn't for me. But the money could be great so I just sat down with myself and said: If I wanted my wedding to be photographed, how would I want it done? And I came up with my own version of the ultimate wedding album. The rest was just a question of marketing it to the right people. And it worked.

Not that it matters much as you want to find your own way but mine was a mix of traditional and my experience as a PJ. I didn't sell a package of "24 8x10s mounted in a custom album." I sold a story of the day. Some of my albums were close to 10 inches thick. Some albums were custom made in leather with every page mat hand cut... And I charged a hell of a lot of money. Then again, there was/is still a lot of money in the DC area, LOL.

The idea came from a friend's wedding I had shot years before. That one was free (Iwasn't a wedding photog then,) a present to the couple. It involved a few photographers and some other visual artists because the bride, my friend, was an artist herself. Her family was blue blood and the wedding was taking place in the family's castle with the ceremony in the private church. Plus she was setting it up to be like a fairy tale for all the guests with trunks full of clothes and make up tables all over the place in the woods for everyone to go crazy and have fun.

We shot the entire thing in B&W and it took close to 8 months to get her album printed. Her album was actually several albums because of the number of great shots. Great in terms of the story. Not all of them were great technically. LOL.

Anyway, as head of the project, I got a lot of letters from people who had seen the albums going on and on about how great they were and that came back to me when I sat down to figure out how I wanted to shoot weddings. Mind you, I never did another one like that but it did inspire me.

And hopefully this little story will inspire you to find your very own way that you can market as a sideline to whatever commercial and portrait work you do. Just don't hesitate to charge mucho money for that special vision.

True, you may not find the customers in Kankakee but if you have to drive up to Chi-town once a week for an $8 or $10,000 package, hell, why not?

Luxury has been selling very well in the last few years. Yes, the years of depression. The big auction houses in NY have had record years. You just need to find the right product and do the right marketing. Why not sell luxury and make a big profit? And leave all the idiots on CL in your money dust, lol.

Hope that gets your brain going. But if it does not, do no hesitate to contact me through
a PM and we'll see what we can do.

 

[behanana]

Pete, I can honestly say I'm a child of business and I'm always sad when I hear that a long time small business is closing, I have to say that I agree with c.cloudwalker that after time your business model requires "tweaking" it's the only way to survive. Now I'm only 29, it sounds like you've been shooting weddings for most of my life, and that is AWSOME! I personally will never get into weddings if I ever would decide to take photography as more than a hobby, I find the market to be overly saturated (it seems like everyone with a SLR wants to be a wedding photographer). I don't think I have any good advice for you because I understand how daunting the post production can be, I'm trying to grasp this aspect myself. All I can say is that I think with your expieriance you have a unique advantage, I doubt at this time in your career you turn out "bad" weddings. That is worth something when you can show a bride your expieriance, and almost guarentee great memories from thier day. Good luck with where you are in your career, I hope you are able to find a good place with it. Ben.

 

[Christie Photo]

Pete, I can honestly say I'm a child of business and I'm always sad when I hear that a long time small business is closing.

Thanks, Ben. But...... I'm not closing. I'm just putting weddings on hold for a while.

That's part of my reasoning too. I haven't been shooting many weddings lately. There's still work to do; mostly commercial stuff (products, architecture, etc) with some high school seniors and family portraits thrown into the mix.

Don't bury me yet!

-Pete

 

[bennielou]

It's not really burn-out.

Yes... weddings can be grueling, especially the ones that require constant adaption due to weather, volatile personalities, changing schedules, lack of cooperation, etc. For me, the toughest part is the anxiety that builds leading up to the wedding day. The anticipation is usually much tougher than the reality. The vast majority of the weddings I've worked have been very gratifying. I've learned to thoroughly plan and communicate the plan with my clients, minimizing the likelihood of any surprises and the resulting tension.

My struggle is more about me and what I produce. I'm just not as confident as I once was about what I'll deliver. Derrel touched on this when he suggested, "...you probably cannot pull off the new, chic, hipster stuff without feeling like a fraud---..." I've tried to develop a new perspective, but find myself defaulting to what I know to be tried and true... the stuff that I know I have to do. My "style" has been to bring some level of professional portraiture to the candid wedding, incorporating my experience and knowledge of lighting and posing. So it's a real struggle for me to venture off without an absolute plan of attack. Un-learning is hard.

Then there's the final presentation. I come from the era of "24 8x10s mounted in a custom album." It was clear to me what the goal was. With all the options we have available to us now, I haven't addressed just what it is I want to deliver. And, of course, production is completely different. It's no longer "get it on the negative." I can no longer envision the process from start to finish. Where are the parameters?

One decision I have made is I won't deliver files for printing.

I feel I need to develop a whole new product... one that I want to put my name on. I'm not up for showing a single image six different ways (color, black and white, diffused, sepia, partially desaturated, high contrast, etc.). Album layout is a bit daunting too. When do I know I done? Am I printing EVERY image? Color scheme? Which images large? Background images or not? Do I add copy? Aughhhhh!!!

Then there's pricing. I would tell couples four hours (plan for six), 120 previews (show 160). They saw paper proofs in an album and made their selections in three weeks. All for $2150. So when I think of shooting 8–10 hours, 800–1000 images, multiple photographers, days in front of a monitor laying out albums... I want something more like $8–10K.

I need some time to think all this through. So, for now, I'll just step out.

-Pete

Pete,
Ok, I totally get what you are saying. That's the dumbing down of the market that I've been biatching about. It's like Ebay in reverse. Everyone will do it cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper still. They don't follow the rules and laws that we do, so they can afford that, or at least they THINK they can. They bid jobs lower and lower, and when they find out that they aren't making money, but losing it, they quietly go away. back to whatever job they still have or used to have.
You have been doing this for decades dealing with these "pros" so you can go decades more.

Here is the deal. A person with talent, like you, can SELL a job. Others may give a job away. How hard is it to sell a givaway? (Have heart that it always comes back to bite them where it hurts).

And yes, times have changed. Because of all of the above you now have to get into the dirt and make less money for all the hard work you are doing. It sucks, but it's better than being a greeter at WalMart.

 

[bennielou]

The world changes and we need to re-invent ourselves and our business also, at times. But I wouldn't say, No More Weddings quite yet if I were you and you enjoy shooting them.

I said the same thing after my second "traditional style" wedding. It just wasn't for me. But the money could be great so I just sat down with myself and said: If I wanted my wedding to be photographed, how would I want it done? And I came up with my own version of the ultimate wedding album. The rest was just a question of marketing it to the right people. And it worked.

Not that it matters much as you want to find your own way but mine was a mix of traditional and my experience as a PJ. I didn't sell a package of "24 8x10s mounted in a custom album." I sold a story of the day. Some of my albums were close to 10 inches thick. Some albums were custom made in leather with every page mat hand cut... And I charged a hell of a lot of money. Then again, there was/is still a lot of money in the DC area, LOL.

The idea came from a friend's wedding I had shot years before. That one was free (Iwasn't a wedding photog then,) a present to the couple. It involved a few photographers and some other visual artists because the bride, my friend, was an artist herself. Her family was blue blood and the wedding was taking place in the family's castle with the ceremony in the private church. Plus she was setting it up to be like a fairy tale for all the guests with trunks full of clothes and make up tables all over the place in the woods for everyone to go crazy and have fun.

We shot the entire thing in B&W and it took close to 8 months to get her album printed. Her album was actually several albums because of the number of great shots. Great in terms of the story. Not all of them were great technically. LOL.

Anyway, as head of the project, I got a lot of letters from people who had seen the albums going on and on about how great they were and that came back to me when I sat down to figure out how I wanted to shoot weddings. Mind you, I never did another one like that but it did inspire me.

And hopefully this little story will inspire you to find your very own way that you can market as a sideline to whatever commercial and portrait work you do. Just don't hesitate to charge mucho money for that special vision.

True, you may not find the customers in Kankakee but if you have to drive up to Chi-town once a week for an $8 or $10,000 package, hell, why not?

Luxury has been selling very well in the last few years. Yes, the years of depression. The big auction houses in NY have had record years. You just need to find the right product and do the right marketing. Why not sell luxury and make a big profit? And leave all the idiots on CL in your money dust, lol.

Hope that gets your brain going. But if it does not, do no hesitate to contact me through
a PM and we'll see what we can do.

This is actually some good advice. Go for the high end bride. I work the mid to high end bride and they DON'T WANT pictures in fields with random things. They want classic tradtionial work just like their parents (who are paying) had. The high end, mid end bride is a professional person, who wants professional results, and they are fine paying for that. They don't hang out on bride websites because they don't have time. But they will refer you to everyone they know. They don't want balloons in their photos, or random items, because even though they are cool and all, they aren't the lasting kind of photos that after time, will seem legit. I mean honestly, all they will remember is, "put your hand here, do this, look this way" for an hour or so, and how boring is that?

 

[bennielou]

Your clients, the high end bride, wants something perfect to put over the fireplace. They want something classic and timeless. And that is what you provide.