Business Day Thursday: Offer Wedding Reporter Services With Your Wedding Packages

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Yesterday we had another training session with our good buddies at onOne Software.  This was our second go at the training and I think my team and I have a pretty good idea of the power of onOne's Perfect Photo Suite. I'm telling you right now, we all can't wait to dig in and run the entire suite through it's paces. 

My thanks to Bryan for taking the time to show us all the key features.  As promised, I'll be sharing a few of the wedding/portrait cools tools and image manipulation techniques we learned in our last two training sessions over the next few weeks.

Later today we head over to Indianapolis, IN to catch my buddy, David Jay, PASS program [link]. The PASS system is billed as the best way ever to photographically interact with your wedding clients without DVDs. I can't wait to see what David has in store this time around.  Watch for an update tomorrow.

OK, on with today's Business Day Thursday post.  Here we go...

Offer Wedding Reporter Services With Your Wedding Packages

I was checking my emails early yesterday morning and came across a post that was billed as 10 Wedding Tips For Brides and Grooms at LoveMyDress.net [link]. 

One of those tips was to hire a "Wedding Reporter" for your wedding [link].  I'm thinking, "OK, this is a new twist on wedding services." But then I got thinking further about it and thought what a great idea!  More specifically, what a great service a wedding photographer could offer his/her clients.  Heck, aren't we the ones telling the story visually anyway?  Why not just add words to our mix?

The article had a reference to The Wedding Reporter [link], a company that would do this for you.  My take on hiring another wedding vendor to report on a bride's wedding just seems like the couple would be adding more cost to an already expensive event.  Maybe not, when I checked the prices, they seemed reasonable.

If you wanted to offer this service, your wedding reporter need not have won the Pulitzer Prize in a past life and the wedding reporter wouldn’t have to give an "Earnest Hemingway" account of the day.  But in my humble opinion, I think a creative writer could pretty well capture the nuances, colors, emotions, and excitement of the day pretty well.

Offering The Service To Your Clients

So how could a wedding studio offer this service to a prospective bride?  First of all you need a product to show before you can sell it.  That means hitting the computer, checking out your last really cool wedding and writing about it. Once you've completed the writing, add a few images that help support the highlights of your story.  That would include romantic images of the bride and groom, the wedding ceremony, some great reception photos - you get the idea.

Now you are nearly there.  Work with a lab like our friends up at ACI Labs [link] to put together the story and images from the wedding into a very reasonably priced Memory Book [link].  You are basically wanting to create a emotionally moving, visually exciting while recounting their wonderful wedding celebration.

I thinks it's important to remember that you are not writing the next "War and Peace" novel.  The reporting should be colorful, informative, and written in the first person with writer's own perceptions and emotions included as part of the storing telling process.

It may go something like this:

“What a magnificent day for Mary and John's wedding.  The radiant sun against the deep blue sky offered a picture perfect background to the tall white spires of the beautifully decorated St. Joseph's Church. 

The polished midnight black limousine pulled up to the curb, the rear door opened and the bridesmaids looking glorious in their rich azure dresses made their way excitedly up the church steps single file.   The bride's sister, and her Maid of Honor, and last person out of the limo paused and turned for just a moment to give her sister a gentle and loving look of joyful encouragement. Mary smiled back, her soft smile saying,  "Thank you."

Mary  carefully exited the limo taking her dad's hand.  The glances they shared with each other told the whole story - this was truly a day they both have looked forward to their entire lives.  That special moment was only minutes away....” -DAZ

Anyway you get the idea.  Describing these special and memorable moments through the day puts into words what everyone is feeling in their hearts. These words help capture in great emotional detail what the photographs just begin to capture.  Sure, it's great to capture that special photograph that says it all, but if the photograph misses the mark, these words can round out the experience remembered of the wedding day.

It Could Make The Wedding Memories Ever More Special

There is just something special about the written word.  The slower pace of reading these words, words telling the love story of the day, let the couple languish even longer in the rich, loving, exciting feelings their felt and will always remember. 

I thinks it's a great idea.  I thinks it's a wonderful additional service to offer your clients.  Not a good writer, then hire one - maybe someone from one of the local colleges.  Maybe your next wedding assistant is someone who captures lasting memories in a much different, yet still compelling way for the bride and groom.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today.  We've got to hit the road in just a few hours for David Jay's program.  Have a great rest of the day and I'll see you tomorrow.

Adios Everybody,  David