How And Why I Blog Every Wedding
I blog every single wedding. I have for the last three years when I decided that it was time to change my workflow and implement a more styled sneak peek for my couples, their families and their guests.
I am obsessed with this workflow, it’s changed me as a business owner and make a huge, positive impact on my life as a normal human as well. But I do get asked why and how a lot.
The answer varies depending on who I’m talking to because this decision benefits me as a business owner and it benefits my clients. Yes, it can be challenging but the rewards have always outweighed the risks.
HOW?
A lot of educational resources will teach us to curate our work and begin to suppress the over-sharing of images that don’t fit our desired brand and style while simultaneously going out of our way to elevate the details on a wedding day that have the potential to elevate our brand.
But not every couple who comes along will have a wedding that fits our brand style. And that’s where I have chosen, by way of Katelyn James’ education, to blog every wedding regardless.
For example: A couple has chosen to save money by having their wedding reception in a local community center’s social hall. You may be hoping to secure more weddings at manor homes, estate properties or plantations so that social hall may not be something you want to share. I’m not going to NOT shoot this reception space. Instead, I’ll choose to capture the reception details in a way that avoids the drop-ceiling with fluorescent lighting and the metal chairs. I’ll go out of my way to highlight the more high end qualities of the decor like the calligraphy signs and the glassware. I’m constantly finding ways through angles, lighting and styling to focus on the more high-end details of the day while still capturing even the budget ones.
I still shoot everything and I deliver all of it to the client but I may curate what I share on the blog not only through my image selection but in how I capture the details of the day. I know that my clients have come to expect a blog post and they look forward to it. So knowing that I will need to feature some reception details on the blog motivates me to shoot even plastic tablecloths to make them look like a million bucks.
This is a practice in the Instagram vs. Reality method of curating. I want my clients to feel like their wedding looks even better on the blog than it did in person.
I am careful in my image selection for the blog. Items that I capture throughout the day that I know will clash or bring down the tone of the blog post that I’m planning, won’t get featured. However, they will still get delivered to the couple. This allows me to blog every single wedding and maintain a very strict workflow that gives me my life back. It’s not easy culling an entire wedding, selecting blog favorites, editing those images for the blog, making blog collages and writing the blog copy all in about 48 hours. But it makes such a huge impact on my business and my life. #WORTHIT
WHY?
Since I started implementing this workflow of a blog post before the final gallery is delivered, my couples have become excited about their blog post. They enjoy being featured and are always excited for it to be their turn.
Sharing the blog post also allows my couple to feel some sort of relief beyond the excitement. It helps keep guests from constantly asking them when they’ll get to see photos and also buys me some time to make their final gallery perfect.
Honestly, it also just makes me look good! If I had positive interactions with the guests and family members on the wedding day and then just a few days later there is a blog post with beautifully edited and curated images for them to share on social media, it keeps me positively in the forefront of their minds! It means that I’m more likely to get recommended to their friends, coworkers and family (… free marketing!!!).
And finally, it’s great for SEO and brand awareness. I’m tagging other vendors that I’ve worked with on social media and direct linking within the blog post along with including key words pertaining to that particular wedding day (like the venue name and location). Again, all good things for me.
I’m choosing not to share just the best of my weddings but all of them because I never want a client to feel lesser or unworthy of being featured. Regardless if their wedding isn’t necessarily my brand style, it’s very important to me that all of my clients feel loved, valued and appreciated.
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