Business of Wedding Photography

We welcome you to add your own valuable insight and opinions on the topic of web sites for the professional wedding photographer.

Thanks for reading!

I booked a year's worth of weddings (2007) based on *one* strong image on the starting page of my simple but clean HTML website. The website had a grand total of 4 images on it. No music, no slideshow, no pricing, no about-me and little explanatory text. It still amazes me...

Because I always chime in when I see other folks put up mostly pathetic looking websites and ask for opinions I'll do it again. I'm a new photographer, but I'm not new to marketing or business. That is the one part of my company I'm excelling at in my opinion. Can you put together a site on your own and succeed....yes you can. Can your competition buy a site for $200 that blows away your homemade site....almost every time. That is the issue. While you are struggling with web design they are out shooting. On top of that they end up with a MUCH better looking site. Templates are not static anymore...anyone that says that is just plain ignorant to what is available. Bludomain, Bigfolio, and Livebooks are probably the 3 best in our industry. You can succeed with a lesser site, but you can make more money with a template. The more brides rely on the internet to find us the more sexy your storefront better be. It IS NOT AN OPTION if you are wanting to make good money doing this. I constantly have brides walk in the door, rarely on referral, and they are telling me how they cried as they watched a slideshow or viewed a girls gallery of pics. Trust me...it isn't just my images. They are sucked in by the movement and music. Almost every time I listen to them talk about their selection process they kind of laugh as they say they immediately ditched the folks with no music or a corny site. At some point you folks with lesser sites are going to have to pick up your game. The time is coming when companies like Bella Pictures are going to eat you alive. I'm already dealing with brides that have them as an option when they come to me...which means that you folks with the html sites have pretty much already been kicked out of the running. I ask every bride who I'm competing against...and EVERY client thus far has listed photogs. that have great flash sites. You can put your head in the sand and keep your homemade HTML site, or you can get your head in the game and be a player. It is no secret what happened when large studios started getting into studio photography. Many small dogs were pushed aside. At least that is what I'm told by alot of my old school buddies. The ability to pick up a camera and learn without school is creating a movement of "Bella" photographers that you are going to have to compete against. I would just encourage many of you to market and brand yourself now in a way that you are distinguished from Bella and the rest of the newcomers that are picking up a digital and learning. I'm a prime example. I have no formal training and picked up my first SLR 1.5 year ago. I TOOK 45 weddings from the market last year and have 31 for next year so far...and I'm not the cheap dog on the block. There are more people out there just like me....heck I'm training some of them. My point...don't take shortcuts on your website....it is vital to your success. Ignorance is only a valid excuse if you don't know or haven't been told...if you read this you have no excuse. Research what is out there and see it for yourself. There are forums like Open Source Photo with amazing wedding photogs. You can even go on bludomain and look at the number of clients they launch every month and then view their new sites. Your eyes should open wide with fear....and then you should buy a site, take names, and kick butt.

Well Said Mike !

I have found .photoreflect to be a valuable website host. They offer free basic websites and also those that you can pay for and make more advance. You also can use their services in letting clients purchase their photos through your website. In my opinion, it looks professional and makes life easier. Since I am just starting out, this is a resource that works for me. When I get established and can afford to make my own and host it, I will do that. I would suggest this site for any photographer. I am still working on it and have more updated photos to put on it, but it can give you an idea. Also it gives you the option to secure each of your clients photos with a password that they can chose. .

When I search for "wedding photographer san francisco" I get over 8 million hits. The people who show up first are the people who pay to show up first- quite a bit of money I expect. I have a Google adwords account and get no hits from it.

With so much competition on the web it is unlikely that your website will bring you much business by itself.

Yes, you need a site so people can see a sample of your work. But spending a lot of money on someone's notion of a cool design will just make you look like a lot of other "cool" sites.

Beyond that, you will need to find your first clients the hard way- by establishing personal contact. Once you've found them and done a good job you will probably get referrals that will appear to come through your web site.

I also don't think that buying lists of brides is worth much because those the brides are getting many phone calls and they aren't going to respond to more than a few.

I talked to one of the big wedding sites awhile back and they could not provide statistics on hits, so I dropped them.

I talked to some wedding fair people and they didn't have any numbers about attendees, so I dropped them too.

The average marriage age for females in the US is 27. You can buy information from sources like infousa.com to target this demographic.