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Here’s the thing:
When I second shot my first wedding as a junior in high school, I had nooo idea what I was getting myself into. 😉 I went to bed that night after I got home late and set down all my bags in my room at my parents’ house, and I remember how I felt so well… I was exhausted, I was positive I hadn’t taken a single decent picture all day, I had NO IDEA how I could ever lead a wedding day by myself (because hello, scary!), and I also didn’t know how much my back, neck and feet could hurt so much all at once. 🙂 But I knew one thing, and that was that somehow, some way, I had to do this thing for the rest of my life.
That’s how I know now that this was a calling from God, because y’all, if there was ever an ill-equipped, incapable, untrained, not to mention ridiculously shy and unconfident 16 year old wanna-be wedding photographer, that was me. (Side note: God’s in the business of taking the most incapable and calling them to something amazing, isn’t He? It’s so cool to me.) Yet, I didn’t even book my first wedding until the next summer, and I shot that sweet day a few weeks after I graduated high school. That June night, I still went to bed and knew this was what I wanted to do for my career, even though I absolutely had no idea what I was doing in many, many ways. That was back in 2013, and ever since then, I’ve been on this journey of running a business that has grown into what it is now. (Read the rest of our business’ story and how we rebranded as a husband and wife team a few years ago HERE!)
We Hear Your Fears
As a part of this crazy thing called the wedding industry, we’ve heard every horror story in the books. We’ve heard of brides panicking because they haven’t heard from a vendor since the day they paid their retainer and signed their contract, and the poor girls are terrified their vendor won’t show up for their day. We’ve heard of vendors being a massive distraction and causing couple to run incredibly late on their wedding days. We’ve heard of vendors who try their hardest to make the day about them instead of the couple, families who let drama rule the day, and couples who are mean to their vendors and horrible to their bridal party and families. It’s crazy.
The thing is that the people we hear these stories from are often our brides themselves, as they recount past wedding experiences they’ve heard about or watched unfold themselves. And these horror stories have started to define wedding vendors and the wedding industry as a whole, even if this fact is not entirely accurate or fair.
Photographers Get a Bad Rap!
In many cases, photographers especially get a bad rap for how they handle wedding days. I can’t tell you how often we’ll be at a wedding day and have multiple people come up to us and say, “At the last wedding I was at, the photographer did XYZ, and you didn’t! Thank you!” or something similar. Honestly, most of the ridiculous stories we hear completely boggle our minds, and after the guest or family member walks away, Luke and I just have to look at each other and shake our heads.
Have we had our fair share of tough experiences with the wedding industry as a whole? Of course. But the wedding industry is just like any other workplace… there are good days, hard seasons, learning opportunities and times to celebrate. But it breaks our hearts whenever we hear horror stories about wedding vendors and the wedding industry as a whole. And lately, it seems like we’ve started to notice even more and more people beginning to define the wedding industry by those negative stories and experiences.
Because the truth about the wedding industry is that 1. it isn’t always that way and 2. it doesn’t have to be that way.
We Do Our Best to Be the Best For You
Now, don’t get us wrong… we make out living in the wedding industry, I just might be the biggest hopeless romantic you’ll meet, I browse Style Me Pretty for fun and still watch Say Yes To The Dress even though I’m already married. 😉 We love this stuff, and we live and breathe it… especially this time of year.
In our experience, the wedding industry has been an amazing place to work, it’s been really good to us, and the industry is begging for people to take hold of the opportunity they have as people who work in it. The vendors we work with care more about their couples than their art, their service or their craft. The people we work with ultimately care more about the marriage than whether the wedding will be featured someday. And for us, most of the negativity we hear about the wedding industry just doesn’t resonate, because we haven’t experienced it firsthand… and we’re grateful for that.
Friends, we as wedding vendors have the ability to reach out and touch couples, their friends and their families at one of the most emotional and unique points in their entire lives. Through the wedding industry, we’ve met countless vendors who we now call dear friends, we’ve formed lifelong relationships with our couples, we’ve seen a lot of amazing places, and our deepest hope is that somewhere along the way, we’ve touched a few lives in bigger ways than providing them with pretty photos.
Remember the truth
So, just remember the truth about the wedding industry as you finish off your busy summer and prepare for a fall that I’m guessing is going to be as full as ours. Remember you’re your contribution to the wedding industry should refute all the negativity we so often hear about the industry as a whole. We’re sure you have never been an won’t ever be one of those wedding horror stories that some guest comes up to tell us about. 😉 But at this point in the year, I know we can all use a little reminder to take advantage of the incredible opportunity we have as wedding vendors and as a part of the wedding industry as a whole.
Remember that how you conduct yourself as a wedding vendor and the way in which you serve your couples MATTERS. Love you clients well- and I don’t just mean sending them a welcome note and a Christmas card. 😉 Show up in their lives, engage them in conversations about things that don’t relate to their wedding days, offer real advice specific to their needs. Love other vendors well- be nice to the new businesses who are hustling hard, help the florist carry in the bouquets, and remember that vendors are real PEOPLE and not just vendors to network with and get something from. Love your clients’ people well- be so patient during family formals, answer all the questions about all the things (;)), tell the maid of honor she’s doing an amazing job, and smile at the mom in the back of the church who’s embarrassed and trying to quiet her new baby. People are watching you, always, and you’re representing the wedding industry on every wedding day you show up to.
Our hope is that less and less people will come up to Luke and I on wedding days and share horror stories. 😉 We desperately want to see the industry CONTINUE to grow, change, and improve. Because for us, the truth about the wedding industry has always been that it’s pretty darn awesome. It’s full of amazing people who just really want to serve their couples well on their best day ever through working together to create something absolutely breathtaking. And that’s the kind of industry we’re proud to be a part of.
