THE 2026 WEDDING INDUSTRY (from a photographer's perspective)

♪ So much clearer now ♪ ♪ Go, go ♪ ♪ Gettin' a little bit higher ♪ ♪ With the pistol body from getting good ♪ ♪ Go, go ♪ ♪ Gettin' a little bit better ♪ ♪ I'm coming to the top ♪ ♪ Never gonna stop findin' good old shoes ♪ - Hello, New York. I'm just messin'. Hello, podcast listeners. Welcome back. I'm your host, Cassidy Lynn. You're listening to another episode of Oh Shoot. And this episode is not brought to you by Elani. It's not sponsored by Elani, but it is powered by Elani. Let's be real. So I'm currently drinking the Elani Minis. The 100 milligram ones, because the normal ones send me into a spiral. So this is the Sherbert swirl. They actually sent this to me. I'm on their PR list, which is amazing. Probably my favorite PR list I'm on. So thank you Elani for that. How are you guys doing this Monday? Are we doing okay? You guys okay? I have a feeling that a lot of us are holding on by a singular thread, as am I, because tell me why I have so much editing to do, so much content to make, so much, so many shoots to still do, so much travel, so much house things. Like literally, when does it end? I have a feeling that throughout life, it literally never ends. That the list is always ongoing. But yeah, if you're holding on by a thread today, I am right there with you. Yeah, we're in it together, okay? So last week we recapped my Italy trip. We talked about my workshop today. This lovely fine Monday. We are talking about my mind is literally blanking. What are we talking about? We're talking about the wedding industry. That's what we're talking about. Oh gosh. So yeah, we're talking about the wedding industry, the 2025 industry, and obviously 2026 and beyond. That's what we're talking about today. We're gonna be talking about breaking through in a very changing industry right now. Before we get into it, a couple of random things I wanna talk about. Number one, if you're watching on YouTube, I am wearing a shirt. This is new merch that I'm gonna launch soon. It's a design that I have already launched, but I launched it in white. And I feel like white is so, like I love the color white. I'm always painting things white. I'm always wearing white. Like I just love things being light and bright, but I do realize for practical reasons, black and gray makes more sense, especially if you're a photographer. You don't really wanna be wearing white while you're shooting. It's usually like black, so I get it. And so this is like a new design. Well, same design, different shirt. It is like a faded gray. It's a really cute like crop cut with drop shoulders. I realize sitting down, it makes me look like I'm wearing a freaking like snuggie. But yeah, I promise it's cute. Yeah, so that's gonna be dropping soon. The other thing I wanted to say, this is so random, you guys. But I got, I fell for an Instagram ad. I did, sue me, sue me. I fell for an Instagram ad, but I feel like it's for research purposes, educational purposes. So I got this ad. What is the brand name? I literally don't remember. That's how much I fell for this ad. Basically, it is a video camera. I guess you could say like a camcorder type thing that on the outside looks exactly like a super eight, except it takes an SD card and like obviously charges with battery, all those things. I bought it. It was like a hundred something dollars. And I was like, you know what? Don't you think the people of the pod and the people of the internet could use an honest review on this thing? I'm gonna buy it. So I pre-ordered it. I have no idea when it ships. All I know is it looked interesting. And I was like, you know what? I could potentially maybe at some point in the future use this, so let's buy it, right? So review coming soon. I haven't received it yet. Haven't received a shipping date. Obviously, I didn't do much research on this thing. I don't even know the name of the brand, but we'll see how that goes. Obviously, I will be posting a review because that's why I bought it, right? So you guys can know, is it worth the money? Hopefully it is, 'cause it got me pretty good with that. So, okay, let's talk about the wedding industry, shall we? So I wanna start with a little story for you guys. And it's not really a long story. It's more so just like something I've been seeing lately. Over this past, I wanna say year, maybe like six months, I've gotten multiple inquiries in my inbox that have asked me if I shoot film. And I will be honest with them, I'll be like, I don't shoot it well enough to like only shoot it. I don't even feel comfortable adding it onto a package, but if you want, I'll be like, I can bring my little like point and shoot camera with me and I'll take some photos for you that way. I also say, oh, I can also shoot like film if you want like some reception photos to look like film, whatever. And then this has happened to me, I'm not even joking you, at least three times, where the couple will be like, that's okay, we actually found someone that shoots primarily film, so we're gonna go with them. This has been a very common thing in the wedding industry, where I'm being turned away by people because I don't shoot film. And you know what, at the end of the day, it sounds like I'm not a good fit for them anyway, because they want something that I can't offer. However, if it's something that continually gets brought up to me and I start to notice, you know, I'm losing clients because of this. I'm losing potentially really cool weddings because of this. Maybe it's something we need to change, right? So that's just a little opening story for you guys. Something I've noticed is sometimes you need to adapt. And I think this might be something that we're gonna talk about later in the episode, is the idea of the wedding industry changing. Certain photographers literally no longer being as desirable because they don't offer what people want, okay? So that's just my little story for you guys that kind of opens up this topic of what is the wedding industry now? What is it gonna look like in the future? How can you adapt your business and you know, stay relevant, stay booking? How can you get into booking? How can you book more? All the things. So my hope is that you're gonna leave this episode. And I know you are because I'm gonna quite literally give you a bunch of like actionable strategies to help you book more weddings and just stay ahead of all these trends. And to stay timeless. It's a challenge for sure. And I actually had one of my friends this week send me a text and she was like, hey, I really wanna get into more luxury weddings, but I feel like I'm kind of stuck where the weddings I shoot, they're nice. My wedding packages are around like $6,000. They're nice good weddings, but they're not luxury. And she was like, I wanna break into that space. And that's something else that I feel like some of these strategies can help you guys with is how can you break into different markets that you wanna get into? Okay, so another thing that I just wanna know real quick. The couples that are getting married today, okay, they're not looking for the same thing that they wanted even three years ago. So what was relevant three years ago, two years ago, last year, it's different. It changes year to year. It changes based on the generation that's getting married, what they prioritize, the state of the world, the state of social media. All those things, the state of trends. Like, yeah, there are people that want more timeless things, more things that have been around year to year, but then there are also small things that could be a deciding factor into whether or not someone chooses to be, to go with you as their photographer. So let's talk quickly about the industry, the wedding industry and where it's been. Okay, so let's take a trip down memory lane. Let's think about weddings past, okay? We went through a serious phase. This is like, probably, this is way before I even started shooting weddings, but this phase of Mason Jars and Chevron and a lot of DIY, kind of like the peak of Pinterest weddings is what it felt like. There were these weddings where, you know, it was like you're hiring a friend to take the photos, you're hiring this photographer that also did your senior photos, like the photographer that everyone uses, okay? And then we kind of got into this period of weddings, which is when I feel like I got into weddings, where there was lots of terracotta, very boho. Weddings were a lot more, like the editing itself for photos, a lot more bold and contrasted, transitioning out of like vignette and sepia into these bold edits where, you know, it's very golden. There's like lots of golden hues and like lots of oranges. And then I feel like editing and photography started to transition into still bold and contrasted, but less gold and yellows and more so true to color-ish. We're still talking about a little bit of moody greens, like maybe the oranges are a little more orange than normal, but like a very contrasted, punchy edit. And, you know, weddings started to take a shift into, I don't even know, like a mix of boho and timeless is kind of like this weird in between where a lot of people are fixated on neutrals, like everyone's wearing black at the wedding, you know, like things like that, where there's just like a lot of, everyone's like switching and like, because everything was so terracotta and so like boho, there was a complete shift where it's like, now we want the complete opposite of like only whites and florals. Everyone's wearing black, it's a black tie, black suit event, that's it. And now I feel like we're kind of transitioning where, and I feel like film started to get introduced then in this era where it went from boho to a more plain basic wedding where then I feel like direct flash got introduced and movement photos became more popular where we've got slow shutter. And then now I feel like what's really popular is taking over a little bit the cinematic look, definitely more film inspired stuff. Still a lot of the slow shutter. Weddings are, dare I say right now, a trend is like the garden party, very popular with like a bunch of pastel dresses, different patterns, tool in the dresses. Obviously we have like the basket waist for wedding dresses right now, which is like that low drop waist for dresses. The neck scarves are super popular. I feel like people are just trying to be different and unique and do things their own way. Literally that is the vibe right now. So where do I think the wedding industry is going? That's what we're gonna be talking about. As far as photography styles go, and some of these things we're seeing currently, they've been popular. And so this is kind of like they're gonna stay popular. Editorial slash magazine inspired posing. I definitely think we're gonna see more of this even within like family photos for example. I know this sounds so random, but like I saw a video the other day of family of five, like they've got the parents and then a couple small kids. They're posing as if they are on the cover of Vogue, like one person sitting in a chair. This week's episode is brought to you by Aftershoe and I have an exciting announcement that Aftershoe is launching AI retouching, which is now in public beta and it's free to use now until September 2025. So this adds a powerful finishing layer to the Aftershoe workflow. Now photographers can co-edit and retouch all in one tool without extra costs or the need for additional software. So a few key features with their AI retouching. It has skin smoothing for the face and body, which preserves natural texture, blemish and acne removal, flyaway hair cleanup, glasses, glare removal, and it's built right into Aftershoe's existing workflow. So I'm super excited to partner with Aftershoe for this podcast. Specifically, the retouching tool is really awesome. Basically what it does is you're able to import your edited JPEGs into Aftershoe and there's like these little sliders for flyaways and face brightening and eye brightening and all the things. And it does such a good job. It's very, very fast and something that would take me like a really, really long time in Lightroom. It does in seconds in Aftershoe. So their retouching tool is now available. And like I said, it is free until September. So go give it a try. The link to sign up for Aftershoe is in the description of this episode and use Cassidy for a percentage off. All right, back to the show. - One baby's like playing in the field. Like someone else is like holding the bait. Another child, you know what I mean? Like it's very like vogue posing. And I think we're gonna start seeing that even more within the wedding industry. Poses that are different, more editorial. You know, it's just very unique and interesting. For photography styles, I think we're headed in still the true to color, true to color way, like things are staying true toned. But I think we're gonna start to see and we have started to see a lot more like cinematic tones as well. I think the trend is swinging away from like the desaturated and muted editing. Basically everyone I know that used to shoot Super Moody is now transitioning out of that. I think we're gonna start to see a comeback of like flash direct light for like party shots, for receptions, I don't even know if I'd say a comeback 'cause I feel like shooting with direct flash at a reception is a tale as old as time. But I think we're gonna see a comeback of like a little bit more of like the party shots with like even like direct light throughout like wedding party photos. Like having more direct sun on things. And then just like more film photography integration as well. So like shooting on real film, not just, you know, presets that look like film or whatever. I mean, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the desire for film is so high right now. So a couple of client expectations. So this is where I think the industry is going as far as like client expectation goes. I think a lot of clients are gonna start expecting if they don't already same day sneak peeks. So within 24 hours, they get a look at those final edited photos. I think that this is, should be industry standard if you wanna keep your clients happy. Although it feels like it rushes the creative process. It feels a little unnatural and rushed and doesn't even give us any time to sit with the images. Those things are all true, but I don't think it matters. I don't think clients care. They're like, just give me photos. Like my friend is able to plug in a little SD card reader on their phone and I can get photos for my G7X within 30 minutes. Why can't you get me sneak peeks within 24 hours? So client expectations, I think we're gonna start to see a shift in same day sneak peeks. Many like social media ready highlight reels along side of stills. This is something that I delivered back for my cobble wedding that I shot in March. I delivered like my Ray Ban meta footage from the day and I delivered it to them. I think these like little highlight reels or stills is something that honestly, like I feel like it's just an extra bonus that a lot of people could find value in and benefit from. And it's just like a little highlight reel from the wedding day, whether that be videos or stills put into video form. And I think something else that clients might start expecting are albums again. I think there's gonna be a resurgence of wedding albums in 2026 and 2027. I think that wedding albums and prints have definitely died off in a way, but the way that film is making a comeback so heavily, what is so closely tied to film is prints. And I think prints specifically albums are gonna make a comeback, but we need a company out there that can do something more modern and unique. We need something that is cool, like a cool album. Truly, we need like cool design and just something that's like different. Maybe it's like the type of paper that it's printed on. Maybe it's the actual design. Maybe it's like the cover. Like I think wedding albums that like have a blank outside cover, that's gonna be something that's gonna be much more popular. Like a coffee table book almost, like something that you would pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for like a coffee table book that is just so luxury and expensive. I could see that being something that becomes popular again. If you compare shooting on film with offering like a really high end album, I feel like that is going to be the next luxury photo package that we're gonna see. Okay, so moving on. Where do I think the industry is shifting? So I definitely think the photography industry is shifting in the direction of AI editing and editing services just as the new normal. I think it's gonna become a rarity to hear someone that's like, oh, I edit every single thing by hand. I think we're gonna start to see the AI editing becoming a normal thing and it not being so looked down on as much and it just being like a part of the workflow. And you know, AI is one of those things that's either like you jump on the train or you get left behind. Unfortunately, like we don't really have a say in the matter. Like AI has improved the photography process so much and given us a lot of our time back that it's like if you're not hopping on that train, the train is leaving without you. Like AI is here, it's staying. There's really nothing you can do about it. You can either be a part of it or you can be left behind. I know that's a pretty controversial little snippet that I just said, but it is what it is. Other industry shifts. I think having pricing transparency on your website is also becoming a new norm. I feel like couples are gonna stop reaching out if they don't see real ballpark numbers on your website. At this point, couples are not messing around. It's like we wanna know what your pricing is. Like there are so many videos out there, like TikToks of people being like, here's my pricing, here's my pricing transparency. And you think that a random couple that finds you on Instagram is just gonna be like, oh, let me send this big long email and do this homework of filling out their contact form without even knowing how much they charge. The pricing transparency on a website, I feel like is pretty much gonna be a client expectation the next couple of years. Let's see, what else? I think potentially we're gonna start to see like requests for sustainability within our photography practices. So like couples asking about like eco-friendly options. I don't know how much of photography really isn't eco-friendly. I don't know much about like, I don't know if there's anything that involves, that is like a bad eco-practice that involves photography. Maybe potentially lithium batteries, I'm not sure. That's something I need to do more research on before I can like speak on it. But potentially in the future, I could see that being a request or something that makes or breaks it with a client. Something that I wrote on here that I think is interesting is like a wedding album that fuses together audio and visual. How this is done exactly, I'm not sure. 'Cause you guys have seen, have you ever seen those like, like books that you can make for like a family member or something where like you go through it and it like plays a song while you go through the book. Like there's literally like a little like audio pack on it with like a little speaker and it plays like music. You know, similar to like kids books, how they like can play music and like make noises and stuff. I don't know if that's necessarily where wedding albums are going because that feels a little bit cheap. Maybe it's just like a QR code included within a wedding album. And then you scan the QR code and then suddenly you can like watch the speeches or something. That could be something that could be cool. I don't know, but I think wedding albums definitely are being upleveled in the next two years. I don't necessarily know how, but I think they are. Even like how cute would it be to like get the couple to like write letters to each other or whatever and include like that handwriting like in an album? Like stuff like that, like almost scrapbook-y. Could that be the thing? Like they're albums, but they're like scrapbook albums a little bit. I don't know, that's kind of a good idea, not gonna lie. But then that poses the question is that the photographer's job to scrapbook the wedding. I mean, maybe the photographer has like access to a lot of things to florals, to invitations, Polaroids, like, I mean, maybe that's something that photographer can do. Like grab the napkin from like the cocktail table and put it in the scrapbook or grab like a piece of grass. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Okay, so something else that is definitely where the industry is going is like the luxury documentary style. This is not new news to anyone, I would say. But just to kind of like explain it to you guys a little bit. So basically like natural in the moment shots, but with a very meticulous like composition and lighting. So basically documentary meets editorial. And I think some of my favorite photos that I have seen lately are of like a candlelit reception but the lighting is so like, like the lighting is just incredible with like the candlelit, it's like a natural lit photo. And the composition is very intentional. Maybe it's a little bit of a slow shutter and like you get the shutter, like just the movement of someone like walking in front of the camera or like a guest, like moving in the frame. Those are some of my favorite photos or like the photos that kind of captured the essence of a wedding day. And not so much like, here you're getting ready photos, here are your detail shots, here are your first look photos, here are your family photos. It's like there are these photos in the album mixed in that capture the essence and give you the feeling of the wedding day. I think that's kind of like what I'm taking out of this. And then within the luxury documentary style, poses are gonna happen more subtly and like they don't break like the organic flow of like just existing, you know what I mean? And as far as like photography styles go, I also feel like the industry is headed towards more like minimalist or like quiet frames. So very wide compositions, maybe compositions that are a little bit airy and like empty with lots of negative space. They give fine art, it gives like an editorial feel and kind of piggybacking off of this. Something I have been loving for wedding days is capturing like the actual venue, like going outside of a venue and just going across the street or going super far away and capturing like the building with the sky and the surroundings because what that does is it sets the scene. If you're a storyteller, how do you set the scene without taking pictures of where the story takes place? Like the outside of a mansion or the outside of a resort or like on the beach, like getting a wide shot of the beach. Like how are you able to tell that story without literally capturing the essence of it all? So that's kind of where I take that one, like the minimalist quiet frames. What else do I think is industry where the industry is headed? I think a big thing is gonna be the day after sessions and or full weekend packages for weddings. I just find that what people want now for weddings is not, oh, I just want four hours. I just want ceremony, a couple portraits and then like beginning of the reception, that's it. What people want now is the full experience. They want everything captured and they want it all to feel documentary. They want to feel like the main character in their own movie, which they are. And the only way to really get that is by capturing the whole weekend. A lot of people are doing these like wedding weekends where it's like welcome drinks and then the rehearsal and like the rehearsal dinner and then there's the actual wedding and then there's like the brunch after the wedding. Like all of those things are becoming very important and I think full weekend packages are gonna be a huge thing. The day after session as well. Like just whether that's more bridal portraits, but whether that's just like photos or videos of like the couple hanging out, whatever it is. Like I feel like that type of package is gonna become really popular. So basically this trend is more towards like booking a relaxed shoot the next day, kind of like no pressure, a fresh location. That's kind of the vibe that this is giving. It's this specific offering of a full weekend package or like a day after session is gonna be perfect for like a couple who's more adventurous if they want certain pictures without the stress of a wedding day. So like cliff side photos or like if they wanna go hiking or whatever it is. So I wanna transition into talking about some mistakes that you might be making as a wedding photographer that are keeping you from booking, okay? And I wanna start with mistakes and then we're gonna get into some other like fun strategies and stuff for you guys. So what mistakes are you currently making as a wedding photographer? Number one, you might be sticking to one marketing channel. This is a big mistake I see a lot of people doing. Put your eggs in multiple baskets. I know a lot of people say, find what you're good at and stick to it. And yes, I agree with that, but at least put 10% energy into other marketing channels, please. Over relying on heavily filtered photos in your portfolio that don't currently reflect your taste. There is nothing that's gonna hurt you more than inaccurate photos in your portfolio. So making sure your website, your portfolio is updated. That's a very common mistake that people make. Ignoring AI tools, you're gonna risk falling behind in speed and consistency and all those things. I do feel like that's a pretty big mistake if you're a current wedding photographer that hasn't at least tried AI tools. I'm not here to say AI tools are for everyone, but if you haven't at least tried them, just give them a try before you judge them. And another mistake a lot of wedding photographers make are underestimating the power of a weekday or an off-season wedding. These are great, great bookings. A weekday wedding is so ideal. Number one, you get your weekend back. Number two, it's probably gonna be a little cheaper, maybe even a little chiller for them. If it's a weekday wedding, it's probably not gonna be 300 people 'cause you probably can't get that many people to take work off. It's probably gonna be more chill, so maybe like 30, 40 people. And if you wanted to, you could also book a wedding on that weekend. So it's not really taking up any weekend space. I love a weekday wedding, I do. They're quite nice. And then off-season weddings too, why not? Why not take an off-season wedding? It will help keep you refreshed. It's great money in the off-season. I don't know. Okay, so I wanna talk about current state of wedding photography right now. So I think we're seeing a lot of shorter booking windows right now. We're seeing six to nine months that people are booking instead of like the typical 12 to 18 months for booking weddings. I think we see lately a lot more intimate elopement, intimate weddings, but a higher willingness to splurge on photography. So while yes, elopement and smaller weddings are more popular right now, that does not mean that the budget is going down for wedding photography. I think people are much more willing to hire someone that they love and they know that they're gonna love the photos. They're more willing to splurge on something like film or on an album because photos are so valued right now. Photos are very, very valuable to the average couple, to the average person. I'm not saying that they haven't always been valuable, but when my mom got married, she didn't have a million bajillion photos. She got like 50 or like 20, you know? So photography's just different. I think currently we're gonna see a rise of weekday weddings because I think a lot of people are gonna try to save some costs of like venue or whatever. So thus I think people currently, I mean, this is something we currently see, are just like more weekday weddings, people wanting to cut down those costs a little bit. Currently we are finding that a lot of couples find their photographers through TikTok and Instagram reels and Pinterest more so than the traditional Google search or like website. So a lot of couples, number one, want to book their own unique photographer that not everyone else in their friend group has used. Now there are a couple people that, you know, they're like, oh, my friend got married, their photographer was great, I wanna book that person. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but I think photography right now is so unique and it's so valued that people want to find a photographer on their own. They wanna be like, I saw this niche TikTok, it had like 500 likes of this amazing small photographer and that's who I booked. You know, it's like when people discover a small bakery business that no one knows about, a little hole in the wall place, it's like theirs, right? I think it's kind of that same feeling. I think that currently too, we are seeing a lot of hybrid wedding packages. So photo and short form video being paired together. And I think soon in the future, it might become expected that within photo packages, you at least give some video. And you know, I'm not gonna lie, it's not like that hard either to just like take a couple of videos while you're shooting. You know, people do it all the time to get their own content. So like, why not just include those videos, give them to your couple? Just something that we're currently seeing. So let's talk about how to book weddings in 2025 and 2026. So my number one tip for you guys is having a presence on multiple platforms, multiple social media channels. So not just Instagram. Think about storytelling on TikTok. Think about YouTube shorts. Think about honestly like Pinterest too. Like think about multi-use of multiple platforms, Facebook. Being present in many places to allow you to have the biggest reach. How else can you book in 2025 and 2026 using TikTok? I think TikTok is gonna help build trust between you and a client. I have a lot of my clients that actively follow me on TikTok and have found me on TikTok or maybe they found me through Pinterest or whatever but they wanted my TikTok and TikTok kind of converted them into trusting me more. They, TikTok helped create that trust between me and my customer. So a few just ideas for using TikTok as a photographer. Short form videos showing before and after of your editing, posing tips for couples behind the scenes of a wedding day, stuff like that. You can lean into trending audios, wedding specific twists to current trends. The algorithm loves relatable humor. So that's something that could be great for you to adapt. Couples are gonna trust the person that they see talking to them more than a static gallery. So right now in this day and age, the talking head videos of a photographer talking to the camera and showing that you know how to communicate to a camera, AKA a person, that communication, it feels like they know how you communicate, they know how you talk. So they're gonna feel like they already know you before they even reach out and book you, which I think is a very, very important thing for conversion. Otherwise you can book in 2025 and 2026 relationship-based marketing. So collaborations with planners, florists, content creators who can then refer clients to you. This strategy is the oldest in the book. It is good old word of mouth. Don't sleep on word of mouth marketing, but don't let it be the only way that you market. Don't be like, oh, I'm just gonna rely on people seeing me shoot weddings and then hoping that their wedding guests get engaged and book me. Instead, do that, yes, like that can happen, but also make sure you're posting on Instagram, also make sure you're posting on Pinterest and TikTok and all the things. Show, don't tell. This is a great strategy. This is one of my favorites. Showing behind the scenes clips of how you do things. Clients are going to love this type of content. As much as it's great to speak about your work, it's better to show it. And I know that kind of goes against what I just said. So let me explain a little bit. You need a combination of talking videos and behind the scenes videos on your Instagram as a photographer. You need a combination of both. The talking videos are gonna help establish the trust, but if you're only doing talking videos and you're not showcasing your work, no, no, no, not good. Don't love it. It's not gonna work as well. You need these different content pillars of behind the scenes videos and before and after videos and talking videos. You need a mix of everything because you need to show someone you are multi-talented. You can talk and be relational but you can also shoot and you're really good at that and you're also good at posing and you can show your behind the scenes 'cause you're good at that. You need to be able to showcase all the different things. So one of my strategies is don't just tell us, also show us. Micro audiences, this is a great booking strategy. Building authority within a specific niche. So for example, luxury boho allotments or fashion weddings, city hall weddings, farm barn weddings, build a little niche, whatever it is that you get booked a lot for and create this little micro community and micro audience. It's very niche, but it works. It works for keyword searching, all those things. Maybe there's a specific location that you shoot out all the time. For example, I feel like Cabo was one of the things where like I have shot like four weddings, four or five weddings in Cabo at this point. And it's just because I've created this little micro audience of Cabo clients, truly. Another amazing strategy that feels like common knowledge at this point but I'm gonna say it anyway. Having a fast response time. If you want to book weddings, look at me in the eyes guys. If you're watching on YouTube, look at me. If you want to book weddings, you need to respond fast. The faster the response, the more likely they are to book. Now, I think there are a lot of different strategies that can help you. So you aren't constantly glued to your CRM platform. You can use like workflows and chatbots and all sorts of stuff to help you. But at the end of the day, if you are taking more than 48 hours to respond to an inquiry, they're basically gone. Unless it's the weekend. I think clients that put in an inquiry on Friday, they don't expect a response on Saturday. I think they expect a response on Monday. Think from your client's perspective. How long realistically would you be willing to wait to hear back from a photographer on their pricing, their experience, all those things? How long would you wait? For me, I'd say two days max. That's how long I'm willing to wait for a response. And then I'm searching elsewhere. Other ways that you can book weddings, you can partner with venues and kind of become their preferred photographer or get on their vendor list. There's different ways to do this. And I can't tell you super updated ways because I haven't intentionally gone on in my way recently to seek this out, but ways to do it is offering styled content for the venue in exchange to be on their list, providing them with up-to-date photos of their property, other things like that. You can create a wedding content experience package. So basically, this is something we talked about briefly earlier, but I do think that this package might be able to help you book more clients. So combining photography with like candid iPhone vertical video content and then sharing those videos like the same day. So combining content creators with photographers, you create this package. I would honestly market it as like a social media concierge package. Couples love having instant content for their friends and family. They just love having videos of the day. Like as much as photos are great, it's not a video. There's no audio, right? So I think if you're able to offer that, 'cause you are present at basically all the big moments throughout a wedding day. So maybe add that in as a package and just see if people buy. Creating like a bingeable online portfolio. This is definitely gonna help you guys book more. Gone are the days of putting all of your favorite photos from all the weddings you've shot ever, putting them into one portfolio and being like, here's my work. What that does is it eliminates the storytelling aspect. What I wanna see as a potential client, I wanna see your weddings in bingeable short little blog posts. I wanna see Alice and Sarah getting married. I wanna see the Malibu cliffside venue. I wanna see all the getting ready portraits. I wanna see the family photos. I wanna see all of that. I wanna see your ability to story tell for one couple. And then I wanna see a separate blog post, your ability to story tell for another couple. I want to be able to binge your content as if it's like a TV show. I wanna be able to scroll through these endless blog posts of, oh and then she went and shot at Glacier National Park and did a couple session there. I wanna see that couple session. It doesn't have to be like, if you deliver 1600 photos on a wedding day, you don't have to put 1600 photos into a blog post. Actually, please don't. But what you can do is you can pick a hundred of your favorite photos. Maybe it's just the previews. That's a pretty easy way to do it. And you put those into a blog post. So you're showcasing your work and your ability to story tell and that literally becomes your portfolio. So on your website, if someone clicks portfolio, it takes them to essentially your blog of all of your recent work. And it's super easy. Like once a month, go in, take all the work that you've done that month, blog it all, use some keywords. It's gonna help you show up with SEO too. Great strategy, one of my absolute favorites. Okay. And then lastly, we're gonna talk about what can make you more appealing. So as a wedding photographer, what can make you appeal, what can make you more appealing to potential clients that are looking to book 2026 or 2027 or whatever. My first thing that I wrote down is destination flexibility. So I think with a lot of remote work being a thing, I think that couples are blending weddings and vacations and doing these like destination weddings where family's coming and staying on vacation for a week. And like it's becoming more of a big vacation, okay? And I think something that makes you more appealing is your ability to travel. Your ability to have a travel section in your pricing guide with travel packages, with all of your travel pricing, your travel expenses, all that included in one package. I think that is something that can make you a lot more appealing. Something that I think is interesting that I wrote down is having a subscription style photography service. So hear me out on this. What if we did like a year long subscription service for a couple, let's say, or for like a family? So how this would look. Basically you would shoot a couple's wedding, you would shoot their engagement before that and then you would shoot their anniversary and like a year from then. So let's say it's like a two year subscription, they pay you, I don't know. Let's say in total you break down the engagement, the wedding and the anniversary shoot to be like, oh, I don't know, let's say it's $5,000 total is what you would charge for all those things. And then you just break it up into 24 months. So let's say it's a two year subscription. So 5,000 divided by 24, of course I have to get my calculator out for that one. Like I just feel like this would be very appealing. So basically they're paying $200 a month to have you as their photographer for two years. And maybe you add in a couple like random, like, oh, they can do a random like 15 minute mini session with you at any point. It could be LinkedIn headshots, it could just be updated couples photos, whatever it is. This I feel like is something because photography is very valuable right now. And even like think about a family, like imagine being able to have your family documented every single month for a year. How incredible would it be to see your kid slowly grow up in those photos? What price would you pay for that, right? Like, are you willing to pay a hundred bucks a month to get one photo shoot a month or whatever it is, you know what I mean? So just an idea, think about it. The content creator add-on, this definitely can make you more appealing in your wedding packages like we've talked about. Doing like community building, so creating like client groups, like where you're sharing like tips and other stuff like that, where you literally are putting potential clients into groups and being like, this is my photography group where I'm gonna share tips for like when you should do certain sessions and what you should wear and whatever. Just an idea, something that can make you more appealing. Even just like educating your clients too, I think that in and of itself is appealing because it just shows that you're more of a resource. So doing like little guides or Instagram posts about how to plan a wedding, what vendors you love, basically positioning yourself kind of as like the go-to expert. So I hope that you guys got some really good strategies from this episode. I feel super inspired, even just by speaking these things into existence. I feel inspired to go and make some of these things a reality in my own business. So I hope you guys feel the same. And I'm feeling like next week should be a submission episode. So keep your eyes peeled on my Instagram stories for the ability to write in. It's either feeling like an advice column week or some other fun submission episode. So stay tuned. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you're having an amazing busy season and I will see you next week for another episode. Have an amazing rest of your day. ♪ Exposure ♪ ♪ With all of the highlights in the shadows is my composure ♪ ♪ All the layers above all the edits and tweaks I know her ♪ ♪ I am so done needing more time developing in my bedroom ♪ ♪ It doesn't matter whatever I am on the top of the mountain ♪ ♪ Down in quicksand whatever the moment wherever we stand ♪ ♪ I'm taking it ♪ ♪ It doesn't matter whatever I am on the top of the mountain ♪ ♪ Down in quicksand whatever the moment wherever we stand ♪ ♪ I'm taking it, taking it, taking it ♪ ♪ Exposure ♪ ♪ Gets in a little bit for you ♪ ♪ With the first step I take I'm getting good ♪ ♪ Gets in a little bit better I'm climbing to the top ♪ ♪ Never gonna stop I'm getting good ♪ ♪ Gets in a little bit higher ♪ ♪ With the first step I take I'm getting good ♪ ♪ Gets in a little bit better I'm climbing to the top ♪ ♪ Never gonna stop I'm getting good ♪ ♪ Gets in a little bit better I'm climbing to the top ♪ ♪ Gets in a little bit better I'm climbing to the top ♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]