Im a really organised person, love to create different todo lists, put together items in logical order and create a workflow. Today I decided to share with you my wedding photography workflow. Im as a lifestyle wedding photographer travel a lot around Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga areas, sometimes even up North or down South and its important to keep on track with all events and clients | vendors.
A lot of people who are really far from photography business can think that our work as photographers just arrive on location, shoot event and right away deliver the images (believe me I thought that too before joined amazing world of photography), but its so much more!
Shooting a wedding day can take usually between 5 and 12 hours depends on quantity of events and locations, but pre-wedding process and post wedding production can take weeks and even months! Usually I spend on each wedding at least 80 hours work and even more.
Let see my usual workflow (Im not going to put down quantity of hours | time spend on each item, its easy to guess :)
1. answer for enquiry, follow up
2. organise meeting for discuss wedding details an see if we on the same page
3. create and send quote, contract, questionnaire, invoice. Sometimes send a reminder {in 17 hats - management software}
4. answer for all following questions,
5. contact clients few months before the wedding day, organise an engagement | pre-wedding session (do all session workflow including choose and scout location, shooting, post-processing, deliver the gallery, blogging etc.)
6. contact clients one month before the wedding, send an invoice reminder for final payment, questionnaire
7. organise pre-wedding consultation | meeting, go over all details again {online or via the phone}
8. scout wedding location
9. check last minute changes one week before the wedding
10. prepare equipment, all addresses, directions to location, contact creative team | all vendors
11. shooting wedding according the timeline and any unexpected changes / delays with first dance, cake cutting etc.
12. copy all files, back-up files at the end of the day {Im using two external drives and online Amazine Drive storage to be absolutely secure}
13. culling (choosing best images) - sometimes I move through images twice, as second time allow me to look at images with fresh eye
14. post-processing | retouching images
15. post sneak peek on Facebook or email
16. download images in online gallery and USB stick
17. organise prints | products
18. send to a client letter with link on online gallery (3-4 weeks after wedding day)
19. post USB stick with high resolution files + web quality images and prints | products
20. back up final galleries
21. write and publish a blog post with best images from the wedding day
22. choose best images for portfolio and publications
23. send a gallery link to all creative team
24. submit the gallery for publications, keep on track with publishers (i love to share my images, because Im really happy with results)
25. submit best images for various awards | contests (thats motivate me to do more, progress and move forward :).
26. post wedding results on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media etc.
Im sure its not a full list, probably I forgot some other little details :) But hope you get an idea about how much work involve into the weddings and I love this work :)
Please contact me with any questions!
