Search the web: hundreds of videos teach you how to get more bookings and perfect your marketing efforts. But how do we get the first booking? I asked a few professional photographers to tell me their stories.
Before we get into the feature, I want to share my reasoning for this question. In July, I met a young photographer at an event in England, a Yorkshireman named Steve. We chatted and he shared his desire to become a professional wedding photographer. Now, my first thought is to allow him to go to a few weddings with me, so he can build his portfolio and get a feel for what a wedding is like. He has now acted as my shadow in a few weddings, and just a few days ago he came to me with the million dollar question: how do I get my first wedding job his first?
My first wedding
Judging by my face, anyone would think he just asked what the meaning of life is. It’s been a while since I packed up my first booking, and I don’t know if the same sequence of events will repeat for him. I’ve lived my life in commercial photography, shooting whatever I can. Hotel furniture? You then. Headshot? All day. Restaurant menu? Count me. However, the wedding is not for me. Weddings are for those who can’t make it. This is a sentiment that I later completely regret.
I am friends with a wedding photographer who often asks me if I want to take wedding photos with him. The answer is always “no”.
Then I gave in.
I went with him to a wedding to see how it was. Our styles are very different. I am one candid wedding photographerand his content is much more structured and traditional. Regardless, I had a great day. I decided that the wedding was for me, and I went to a few more weddings with him.
For personal reasons, he decided to hang up his camera and quit his job. This left some clients without a photographer, so he passed on some of the cheaper clients to me. That’s the short version of the story. I suddenly had a diary with some paying clients and a blank canvas for building the business I run today.
How other photographers got their first paid wedding
This question got me thinking. Every wedding photographer working today has a different story about how they got their first gig. I started listening to a few people, hoping to give Steve the best advice I could.
What I discovered was more than just good advice. That also makes me very humble. There are photographers that I consider role models or mentors, and I would love to hear about their beginnings in this line of work.
Kevin Mullins
Kevin is an iconic British documentary wedding photographer. Now a good friend, his teachings have significantly influenced my career over the years. His first paid wedding shows how helpful a mother-in-law can be sometimes, even if we don’t want to admit it. He showed a friend of his mother-in-law some pictures of some pigeons (which he took). She asked if he would photograph her daughter’s wedding. He only made three totals.
Paul Tansley
Paul used to be a much-respected fashion photographer but found his business to be faltering due to magazine closures and changes in his client and employee base. He told me that it was necessary to change paths, and it was either wedding or children. Wedding won!
He added a badge on his wife’s website, which functions as a wedding invitation, promoting his photography. He told me he ended up getting an inquiry for a London hotel where he had shot for fashion work. He knows that well! Great results. Paul’s wife, Carol, used to work at a wedding magazine as an art director. They all know that reportage style is paramount in the way they shoot. They have been photographing weddings together and have done it this way for every wedding since 2008.
This shows me that even established photographers need a starting point at weddings. Paul is a very experienced fashion photographer, and his wife works in the industry. However, this first job was won without a portfolio shot and earned Paul a fraction of what he charges today.
Kieran Bellis
Kieran and I started this wedding photography journey around the same time and have shared many experiences, but I don’t know how he got his first paid wedding. Turns out, Facebook is his friend. He was at a local wedding group, and a bride was let down by her photographer. He had previously filmed a wedding (for free) and put his name on this list.
He got the job done, and the rest is history!
Taylor Jackson
Taylor Jackson is an educator and wedding photographer (I might even say influencer) based in Canada. His first wedding came when he was still a busy music photographer, shooting around 100-200 concerts a year during the big MySpace days (2004-ish).
He said: “A couple I met in the photo studio at the Dashboard Confessional concert were getting married. They wanted a wedding photographer to take pictures that resembled a band advertisement or a live concert. rather than a traditional wedding photographer. I have been trying to get into wedding photography for about a year at that time without success. They don’t know this. Completely random and completely relevant question. with where I wanted to put my career at the time.”
Taylor added that his story is about going out into the world with a camera, in places where your ideal couples hang out. You will form connections through shared interests if you document what they care about.
Marie Lloyd
Good luck and the people we know often play a big part in our first wedding search. Not so with Marie, a wedding photographer from Wales. She was smart and lucky enough to steer the SEO ship to success in her early days. She told me, “Back in 2009, I paid a professional designer to set up my website. In those days, if you had a good H1 tag, you would rise to the top of Google. . I got 16 points in my first year. They all found me through Google”.
Frances Foster
Another simple case is being in the right place at the right time. Frances let me know she put some family wedding photos on her personal Facebook page. A friend saw them and asked Frances to film her wedding. She added: “I don’t even know when I will become a wedding photographer. The universe knows what I want before I do.”
Gavin Alexander
Gavin told me this story a long time ago, showing that sometimes, things definitely shouldn’t be possible! He took some photos on residential cameras and kit lenses. Wedding photos, you ask? No, pictures of his dogs at the beach. He then took these photos to a local wedding fair and managed to land some wedding orders. I feel that Gavin’s personality will relate to this. He’s a bubbly character, and if clients want a fun guy at their wedding, Gavin has the job, even with pictures of dogs!
Some other short stories
I have received many stories from some great photographers about how they got started with their first paid wedding. However, I can’t tell them all! Maybe one day I will write the second part of this article.
British wedding photographer Andy Gaines responded to an ad by Gumtree looking for a cheap photographer and getting a gig.
Guy Collier attended a neighbor’s wedding as a guest with his camera. The bride loves his photos for hired professionals and shows them around her workplace. Her co-workers then hired Guy to film her wedding.
Rahul Khona have a family friend who needs a photographer. After six months of his second shoot, he met them with a sample album and took the job.
Chris Giles created a website purely based on being a cheap wedding photographer in her area. The website literally explains that he has nice equipment but no experience. This was 13 years ago, and he said “not much has changed.” I would disagree kindly!
Dave Scholes told me, “I work at a family portrait studio, and some old classmates came to take pictures and liked these pictures. Then they asked if I would shoot their wedding. I spent the money. bought a speedlight and a lens cap to replace it. the sock I’ve been using until then!”
Chelsea Cannar is working as a stationery designer for the wedding and has done some second shoots. She invited an existing client to see some of her photography, and they became her first paying photography client.
What can we learn from these photographers?
And so we come to the things to do. Starting humble is the most important pattern I’ve learned. Almost all of these photographers are willing to pay the minimum amount to start building a career. At the time, many were doing alternative work or had never made any money from taking pictures. They all, however, pushed themselves from that first wedding and continued to grow to become full-time professional wedding photographers.
Most people reading this will have their own opinion on how we should make money taking pictures, opinions on what routes we should take, and opinions on how we should charge. how much.
But I want to stress, as these stories show, there is no one correct way to get your first booking. Many stories seem like the photographer is just lucky, but looking deeper, I can see that they created that luck. They put themselves in the right place to meet the right people. They told people what they wanted to achieve, and the prospect ended up believing in them.
And so, after hearing these examples, I can come back to Steve with a more confident answer. If you’re trying to book your first paid wedding, people need to know your goals. You need to show yourself to people who can book you a room. It could be online in a Facebook group to plan a budget wedding or telling everyone at the gym about your aspirations. People will talk, they will know other people. In the end, a customer will trust you and give you a limit to move on. Good luck!
