It has been far too long since we’ve posted a little tip for photographers, hasn’t it?! We’ve just had so many gorgeous engagement sessions and weddings to share with you guys recently, but now that things are slowing down, we want to share more tips with the sweet photographers who follow us! We are so passionate about teaching and educating other photographers because we know we wouldn’t be ANYWHERE without the people who have poured into us. We still are constantly learning and growing as a little company, and we believe that’s how it should be for all business owners!
Today, we want to chat about something we started using only in the past year or so. We now wonder what on earth we ever did without them… are you ready for it? Questionnaires.
What on earth do we use questionnaires for as wedding photographers? We actually send all of our brides TWO questionnaires throughout our Wedding Experience… one right after they inquire with us (I’ll write about this another day!) and one three weeks before their wedding day arrives. That’s the questionnaire I want to explain today! We believe so much in the power of these questionnaires, and there are a few main reasons for that.
First, what kind of questions does this questionnaire ask our brides three weeks before their wedding? Our questionnaire includes questions such as what time we’ve confirmed we will be starting and ending, it asks our brides to provide us ALL the addresses for locations we’ll be at over the course of the wedding day, and it even asks our brides for the contact info for the Maid of Honor and Best Man in case we need to reach someone on the wedding day. It also has an important section which asks our brides to fill us in on where they purchased their wedding dress, groom and groomsmen attire, wedding bands, and more, and asks them to list each vendor they hired for their wedding day. We also ask for the vendors’ email addresses so that we can deliver a vendor gallery of images to them the week after the wedding day!
Our questionnaires include every question whose answers we need to know in order to best serve our couples on their wedding day. When we show up, there are no surprises for small things like whether our bride wanted to do a first look with her dad, we have actual addresses to type into Google Maps, and we know what vendors we get the honor of partnering with that day. I have no clue how we ever shot a wedding without having all of these answers and details about what matters most to our brides, all in one place!
We’ve talked about HoneyBook before… it’s our incredible business management program, and I fondly refer to it as my brain! ???? HoneyBook allows us to create these pre-wedding questionnaires, and it even automatically sends them to our brides three weeks before their wedding. It’s the BEST, and we’d wholeheartedly recommend utilizing HoneyBook for YOU and YOUR business! (I also love the fact that if we ever think of another question we want to ask our brides before their wedding day, I can easily edit our questionnaire template and add that new question!)
Do you utilize questionnaires for your business? Have you seen the benefits of using them like we have? We’d love to hear about your experience, OR answer any questions about HoneyBook , in the comments below!
