As a wedding photographer, you will specialise in capturing all the important and special moments of a wedding day as well as being responsible for the post-production side of the event. For example, editing and enhancing images, creating collections, albums and offering prints, downloads, and products to clients.
Most wedding photography falls into three categories - traditional wedding photography, photojournalistic photography, and dramatic wedding photography.
A traditional wedding photographer specialises in a timeless photographic style that can stand the test of time and is similar to the images found in your grandparents' or parents' wedding albums, but with a modern twist. Usually, a classic wedding photographer would work to a "short list" to ensure you cover all the shots the bride and groom request.
In contrast, photojournalistic wedding photography is an informal, reality-based approach. Rather than posing the images, you tend to follow the couple and their guests and capture the wedding day as it unfolds. Part of being a photojournalistic wedding photographer is the ability to fade into the background and become "invisible" in the crowd to get those beautiful candid shots. This is now one of the most popular photographic styles for weddings.
Finally, dramatic wedding photography is a very theatrical, glamorous, and posed style. There is often a lot of backlighting involved so that silhouettes and shadows can be created. Dramatic wedding images are also heavily edited and enhanced to produce interesting and not-so-traditional portraits.
Your website is your business's virtual shop window and therefore, should reflect your personal style and be designed to attract your target customer base. The majority of wedding photographers aim to create a timeless, elegant, and soft website design that will appeal to their target clientele. Most wedding photographers are booked by the bride so consider a soft colour palette, elegant typeface, and light, bright portfolios showcasing beautiful timeless images that will be treasured for many years to come and become cherished family heirlooms.
Many wedding photographers also wish to give their website visitors a bit of "wow factor" to display why they should invest in professional wedding photography. The banner links page is just one way in which this can be achieved. By displaying a beautiful, full-width image at the top of any web page, you can create an immediate impression on clients.
Another way to impress clients would be with a blurb page. A blurb page allows you to display a full-width image behind a box of text, with the option to include an access code box. This makes a particularly beautiful client area page.
You can also make things even easier for potential brides and grooms by answering your most commonly asked questions on an FAQ page. This is not only incredibly helpful for those looking at you as their potential wedding photographer, but also saves you time too.
On a practical note, it is important for wedding photographers to implement the appropriate privacy settings. There are two options that we would recommend for wedding photographers - primarily to make all your collections "private" and secondly, to set all collections to "preview only". When a collection is set to "private" only an access code box will appear and therefore all images within the collection will only be viewable by those with the correct access code. On the other hand, when a collection is set to "preview only", an access code will display but with one collection image alongside it. This image is selected by you, the photographer.
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Social media is a great tool for business and we would highly recommend linking any business social profiles that you have to your website. Not only does this make it easier for clients to find your social media profiles and therefore follow your business but also is great for your search engine optimisation. You can link to your social media profiles anywhere on your website but generally this is done in either your website footer, website header or on your contact page.
Cover Photos
Cover photos are a beautiful way of introducing a client gallery to your visitors. A cover photo displays a single chosen image, full-screen, with the name of the collection in the centre. You can choose from different display settings as well as what happens when a collection is entered, i.e. whether the cover photo displays just on the first visit to the collection or every time.
Pop-Up Boxes
A pop-up box displays on your website periodically, according to your chosen programmed schedule. For example, it can display on every page on your website or just a selected one, such as your home page. A pop-up box is usually designed to initiate a particular action from the visitor as well as isolate a visitor's attention to what you consider the most important message. For example, to encourage a visitor to purchase a product, book a session, spend over a certain amount, follow your business on social media or sign up to your mailing list.
Notification Bars
Notification bars have become increasingly popular and commonplace, namely as either an announcement bar or a cookie policy.
An announcement bar is generally used to display currently important information to your visitors and should be updated fairly regularly. Announcement bars could be used to display information such as flash sales, Christmas announcements, holiday breaks, scheduled maintenance, holiday opening times, other important announcements (i.e. Covid-19 pandemic, GDPR etc).
Alternatively, a cookie bar is used to link to your cookie and privacy policy so that visitors can read, should they want to, how you handle their information and data. A cookie policy is required on any website using persistent cookies i.e. if you are offering gift vouchers to customers.
If in doubt, we would recommend that you always display a cookie policy, just to be on the safe side!
Date Fields
Adding a date field to your advanced contact page allows customers to select their preferred date for their booking. This makes the booking process easier than ever.
By having this information about the impending wedding day from the beginning of the client relationship you can manage your calendar and workflow better than ever before.
Once you have completed a wedding day, the bride and groom will want to view their images and purchase prints and products. In previous years, this would have been done through an in-person sale by the photographer. However, in recent years and due to recent events, it has become apparent that all businesses must have an online sales method. The easiest and most beautiful way to do this is through an online storefront.
You can sell anything in an online shop with theimagefile including physical products such as traditional prints and other photo products, stand-alone products, digital downloads, and services.