I've not posted in ages on here, three months to be precise. Mainly due to the fact that I've been so busy. Serves me right I suppose for taking a two week holiday in July of all months!
Editing is caught up now, and although I have some weddings to edit I've managed on the whole to maintain the delivery of final galleries to the longest of 9 weeks, I'm now back to 5-6 weeks and it's enabled me to have a bit of a life.
It's been a great summer with some lovely weddings, wonderful couples and great locations, the weather hasn;!'t even been too bad either! It all seems like a blur sometimes, time marches on so quickly these days you barely get a chance to stop and take it all in. During this peak Wedding season I rarely have much time to myself, most days I'm free and nearly every evening is spent editing, there is little time to indulge in any other hobbies or just to read a book.
There are a lot of elements to keeping a business going: advertising & marketing, accounts, cashflow, equipment, subscriptions, admin & travel. All these factors come into play and have to be managed.
I've struggled a little with advertising and marketing and knowing where to concentrate my efforts. I use a few sources and rely a lot on referrals from couples who have used me previously. My bookings for next year are reasonable with 21 weddings currently booked in but the seasonality of weddings is an issue for me next year. I have a good spread for the remainder of this year. However, the start of next year is difficult, with only one wedding booked in the first four months of the year. Typically January to March is quiet but April has recently been cold and the delay in growth of trees and greenery has put most couples off until May. My May is the busiest month I've ever had but it's dealing with 4 months of effectively no income that creates issues when self employed.
I can try and plan for this, there are other photography jobs I can do during this time. Bookings usually increase during winter so hopefully you can rely on there being a few deposits received for future wedding dates but on the whole you struggle and it's not easy putting money by during the year for these eventualities. It sometimes makes you reconsider the path you've taken as life in full time employment is a lot simpler with financial security that you don't always get being self employed. I have plenty to do during this time and I know pre weds will begin in earnest in March so things are back to normal in no time, it's just being able to ride out these slow periods. I'm so thankful I have some work outside of the photography to help me through these periods. I love what I do though and I'm determined to persevere and ensure I can continue to do this and not go back to full time employment.
Advertising and marketing are definitely the keys to success and it's something I need to improve on. My instagram is mostly managed by my daughter, she knows better than me what appeals to people these days and is far better at creating Reels in particular. I need to create some more behind the scenes stuff because that is really popular with clients of Wedding Photographers as it gives people a real insight into how we work and a bit of our personality is on display. I really need to show myself more on social media but it's a difficult thing to do when you aren't comfortable with it. My website draws in some more bookings and facebook. I've advertised on both facebook and instagram and although traffic is increased I can't say it has a big impact on bookings. The same with google ads and it becomes very expensive, very quickly. I am on wedding websites like Hitched, Bridebook, Add to Event and Bark these are good and Hitched has been good but enquires are down to one a month at best and I have to pay to be ranked on these sites. Add to Event and Bark have given me bookings before but all photographers have to bid on wedding leads by purchasing credits. Most times your bid is ignored and you receive no feedback from the person requesting services. It's demoralising and expensive. It can cost £10-20 on Bark to bid for a wedding and a lot of times you'll never hear back from clients, and while there are loads of leads you do wonder how many are genuine.
The magic information is knowing where couples initially look for their wedding suppliers, then you could concentrate your efforts. I'll focus on improving my socials and my website ranking and see what happens. There is no better advertising than referrals though and there is no better endorsement of how you work than someone booking yu because they've seen you in action.
I'm not even sure how many weddings I've done since my last blog in June but I've had a couple of long journeys south of Birmingham recently with lovely weather for both of those. Some lovely local ones as well recently, Longridge Golf Club was an unexpected delight for Justine & Andy, such lovely views. I'm so lucky that I get a lot of very local weddings. I'll leave you with some of the lovely wedding of Grace & Jack and Justine & Andy. Grace and Jack had their wedding celebrations in a lovely village hall near the gorgeous village of Waddington. Grace was amazing, just as I was leaving I saw her heading to the zipline in the park in her wedding dress, you don't want to miss moments like that so I stayed and it was so worth it.
Until next time.....
Comments