When you’re an aspiring photographer or even an established photographer that is yet to shoot any weddings, it can be hard to increase your leads at the rate you’d like to if you are new to the niche. So here are some tips on how to book more wedding photography jobs when you are just starting out:
Get a beautiful portfolio sorted
Unfortunately, in this industry, you will need an amazing portfolio to book jobs and impress couples. So start out by shooting some weddings at a discount or following the next couple of tips to grow your portfolio as quickly as possible and get a bunch of beautiful shots up on your website and Easy Weddings storefront.
Organise a styled shoot
Find some like-minded suppliers to organise a styled shoot with. A styled shoot is essentially a shoot done with a group of wedding professionals and usually, a couple of models or volunteers, designed to help build your portfolios, bring a vision to life and inspire couples!
You all donate your talents/products to the shoot and then share the content for your portfolios. Once you’ve got this content, feel free to submit your styled shoot to our Real Weddings section and get it featured! If this seems too far out of reach or you feel you can’t invest the time in this for now, then enlist the help of a couple you know to pose for you and do a lifestyle session for them instead in exchange for supplying them with the images. Win-Win!
Make friends with other photographers and offer to be a second shooter
Join photography groups on Facebook and offer to be a second shooter for a more established photographer. Even our Facebook group has plenty of talented photographers that sometimes ask for second shooters. Feel free to take a look there for opportunities to add to your portfolio.
Approach vendors at networking events
At Easy Weddings, we encourage all suppliers to get to know their place in the buying cycle and taking note of who is before them. Befriend them at networking events and give them a bunch of cards. As a photographer, usually, couples book you after their venue, so it’s more valuable for you to befriend the venues, planners and other suppliers that tend to be booked first.
Do a link swap
Similarly to the previous tip, ask to be on different venues and planners websites as a “preferred supplier” and do the same for them. That way, their referral link will add to your sites SEO and vice versa, and hopefully, you can acquire some quality leads from them and do business with them in the future.
