Speeding up Workflow by Outsourcing Editing

May 11, 2012 in Green Room, Guest Posts | Written by

Photography Credit: Devlin Photos (full wedding on the blog soon)

So you have worked your ass off and your business is blooming, great! Good for you, give yourself a big pat on the back. Well if you can find the time that is. Working for yourself has many benefits, who hasn’t started their working day in their pyjamas or just not gone back to your desk after getting distracted by the shops when you only popped out for lunch? If like me, you are doing a job that you love then it can be a pretty fulfilling lifestyle and you never have to worry about being told off by the boss.

I hope you have some kind of marketing strategy that it is paying off and the bookings are coming in. However the wedding industry is very seasonal, especially here in the UK so between May and September it’s all too easy to kiss goodbye to any kind of social life. There have been times that if it wasn’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t have a clue what anyone I know is up to. The first year that I switched to shooting weddings on digital, I worked for 7 days a week for the best part of eight months straight. I had been shooting weddings most weekends on film that would be collected on a Tuesday by the lab and then delivered back on Thursday as finished prints. I had time for daytime coffees with friends and evening yoga classes. When I switched over to shooting weddings on my Canon 5D MK II, I became the lab and suddenly was spending more time with my iMac than my family.

I worked hard on my brand and website and started to feel the benefits in terms of how quickly I was getting booked up and the rates I could charge. But what was the point if I never got the chance to enjoy the benefits? So I made a few changes that have helped enormously.

♥ I streamlined my post production.
♥ I became very disciplined about my workflow.
♥ Then I trained one of my second shooters, to process and edit images in the way I want them.
♥ I invested in a second iMac so we can work at the same time or I can run different high powered applications simultaneously.

Photography Credit: Devlin Photos

Top – Unedited RAW file
Middle – Basic edit (done by assistant)
Bottom – Personalised action edit

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The Inspirations: Bran Cook of Motherbrown PR

May 9, 2012 in Green Room | Written by

This week I chat to Bran Cook of Motherbrown PR, all about her fabulous life and career (and she is fabulous!) She also was kind enough to share some invaluable PR tips with us too, I know you’re gonna love this..

Hey Bran and welcome to the Green Room! For those of you unfamiliar with who you are, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hey! My name is Bran (or Branwen if you want the full Monty, or Brannage or Branny. I’ve even been called Brian before now). I’m a 40 year-old, red-haired, working mum of two beautiful boys. I’m married to Chris, a self-employed creative designer (he does the pictures, I do the words) and I live in the heart of Worcestershire. I’ve worked in PR for about 17 years, rising through the ranks from general office dogsbody to running a small but successful business from the comfort of my home office.

After the birth of my first son, I soon realised that there was very little point in having a baby that you kept in child-minder storage for 12 hours a day, so with the help of a friend who owned a one-woman marketing company, I plucked up the courage to leave my job working as the PR for a large radio station (one of the best jobs of my life) and join her on a temporary contract to help her inject some PR into her business offering.

After a year, we parted company as planned and she was kind enough to hand over one of her clients that she was growing out of; a lively restaurant in Birmingham that was part of a big, national chain but whose owners preferred the personal touch of a local PR person rather than a large, faceless agency.

With years of experience in the consumer market, this was the perfect start for me. I loved the idea of working for companies that meant something to me.  If I was the target audience for their business, then surely I could give a much more honest, sincere and most importantly believable service.  This became my goal and so I made sure (when possible) I could work with brands I love – restaurants, bars, theatres, clothing, etc.

I met my first ‘wedding’ client a few years ago at a networking event and after a light-hearted, no-strings chat over coffee; Rachel Simpson Shoes started me on a journey into the wonderful world of weddings.  And that’s what I love about where I am now. The wedding industry is still growing rapidly but it’s been remarkably easy to forge incredible friendships through the events I’ve been to and through social media.  The rest, as they say is history.

So, why PR? What is it about it that you love about it?

Hmmm good question…It was never my dream to go into PR. I fell in love with it slowly and continue to do so even now. I tried my hand at all sorts of jobs growing up, purely to make enough money to be independent. I was bullied at school so decided against sixth form and opted instead for two years at Secretarial College, where I learned some basic PA skills and had the best time of my life! I then went on to have a smattering of jobs including years behind my local pub’s bar, which taught me so much about how to interact with people, how to read people and how to get the best from them.

My first bite of PR was when I worked for a company that makes shower enclosures. I was the marketing assistant in a busy office and the PR girl was this incredible, larger-than-life, energy-overdosed woman with manic hair and who spent most of the time I was there, rushing in and then rushing off again.  I knew then that this was what I wanted to do, it looked exciting!

I think I love PR because it has grown with me.  I’m conscious at how much it has changed and evolved over the years and that definitely helps keep the love alive. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I want to hang up my hat and go and work behind a bar again, but I also know that whilst I never set out to be in PR, I think I was always meant to.

What inspires you as a businesswoman and as a person?

As a businesswoman (that sounds really funny to say about me) I’m massively inspired by small, independent businesses, who work their arses off to give the very best of themselves to their customers. Those that are so incredibly clever and talented that they inspire me to be even better at what I do.  My offering is definitely more about building a relationship with my client and if I can’t do that I can’t be myself and ultimately I can’t provide a service I’m happy with. It’s not always about the money.

Personally, I love all things creative. An memorable meal, a classic G&T, a beautiful image, a well-written story, a random selection of music genres, the innocence of my boys and watching them turning slowly into men (which scares the crap out of me). I’m tactile and flirty and fill my life with beautiful, creative, happy people who regularly inspire me. Life is way too short to spend time with people you have nothing in common with.

If you could go back to the beginning of your PR career would you offer yourself any advice or change anything?

I’d tell myself to stop worrying about what other people think! I’m the world’s worst over-analyser and in my desperate need to be liked by everyone, I’ve probably been walked over one too many times and that’s not a great quality for a business owner.  I’m always amazed when people/companies/clients don’t pay for services they have asked for, yet the thought of getting all ‘solicitor’ on someone fills me with dread.

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How to Advertise with Wedding Blogs Successfully

May 8, 2012 in Green Room | Written by

I’m often asked by advertisers what they can do to improve the results for their sponsorship and often its the same mistakes people make over and over. These are not hard and fast rules by any stretch, but here are a few tips and ideas I’ve picked up over the past few years…

Find the right fit

It’s vital that you pick the right wedding blog(s) to advertise on. You need to pick ones that promote the style of wedding that you want to work with as well as ones that reflects your own business ethos. Whether you choose to focus your advertising on one single blog or spread yourself over a few is of course up to you, however it is always vital to make sure the blogs you select can offer you the kind of potential clients you want. If you’re out of sync with what the readers of that blog are looking for you’ll be wasting everyone’s time! It goes both ways too as wedding bloggers want to make sure they are offering their readers relevant links and content for finding their wedding suppliers. For example, if your work was very traditional and your website reflected that, it would be pretty pointless advertising on Rock n Roll Bride because my readers would be instantly put off when they landed on your site. Luckily there are so many wedding blogs around these days that you’d be hard pushed to not find one you identify with.

It does seems to me that some businesses expect that they can whack an advert on a highly trafficked blog and that enquiries will just start rolling in. Sorry but it’s a little bit more complicated than that! Be targeted with your advertising and you’ll reap the rewards. After all you only need to book a certain number of clients a year, you don’t have to be all things to all people.

Tailor your site

One of the most common reasons people give me for not renewing an advert is that they received traffic but no enquiries or bookings. As well as picking the right blog to advertise on, you need to ensure that your site and work fits in with the kind of thing the blog readers would be looking for. Some of my advertisers even have their ad link to a specific page set up saying things like ‘Welcome Rock n Roll Brides’which I think this is a nice touch. They can then add things to that welcome page that my readers are most likely to enjoy.

Make sure the price is right

There is no standard pricing structure across all wedding blogs, we all determine our own prices by what we judge our blog real estate to be worth. Generally the more traffic a blog receives the more expensive the adverts. However it’s not all about being the biggest. As we’ve already determined, a small targeted audience can be much more beneficial than a huge one that doesn’t necessarily identify with what you do. A newer blog might attract a very specific niche of readers, and one that you’d like to be booking. Don’t be afraid to get media packs from a selection of wedding bloggers and compare prices/stats/readership to make sure you can determine which is the right choice for you.

Set your own goals

Before you start to advertise you should set yourself targets or goals in order to determine what you would like to get out of your investment. It sounds simple and obvious but only then will you be able to look at the results objectively and decide if the advertising is working for you.

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Pinterest for Photographers

May 4, 2012 in Green Room, Guest Posts | Written by

Are you pinning? I hope so, but if you are thinking, “what is she on about now?” then you need to check out Pinterest. Simply put, it’s an online pinboard for images found around the internet. You can start a board for just about anything but Pinterest has some suggested themes to get you started like Home Decor and DIY & Crafts. Lots of people and businesses are getting on board with Pinterest and it’s not surprising. It may be one of the newest social networking kids on the block but it was the fastest site ever to reach 10 million unique views in one week.

Some of the reasons why it has become so popular are it is incredibly easy to use and a great way to organise inspirational images into a visual feast. You can follow others and they can follow you and comment on or repin your images. To get started, you need an invite from an existing member or you can join a waiting list at the site and you will need an existing Facebook or Twitter account to log in. You can then happily skip around the internet lifting images that have pins on them, by installing a pin-it button as a tab in your browser, or by simply copying an images URL directly into pinterest.com.

Companies such as Gap and Boden have realised that Pinterest can be a great place to promote their products and more importantly to us, brides are using it to collate all their wedding planning ideas. It seems like a natural progression from wedding bloggers posting inspirational weddings to brides now being able to put together their own collections of the images they see on there. In return the bloggers are embracing Pinterest and most run their own boards, you can see Rock n Roll Bride’s here. Some wedding blogs including Once Wed, The Wedding Chicks, and Ruffled now have a pin graphic that appears when you scroll over the images so images can be pinned even easier, and Style Me Pretty has this week hit 250,000 followers for its boards.

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The Inspirations: Miranda Eason, Editor of You & Your Wedding Magazine

May 2, 2012 in Green Room | Written by

This week I’m honoured to be speaking to Miranda Eason, editor at You & Your Wedding. Despite being a wedding blogger, I’m still (and probably always will be!) a huge fan of magazines and so it was really exciting for me that Miranda was able to fit our chat into her extremely busy schedule! If you’ve been wanting to get into writing or working for a magazine, or thinking about getting your wedding business featured in a wedding magazine then read on…

Photography Credit: Polly Alexandre Photography

Hi Miranda! Can you tell us who you are and what you do and a little bit about your journey from starting your career to becoming the editor of one of the biggest wedding magazines in the UK?

Hello! I’m Miranda Eason, and I head up the talented team that puts together You & Your Wedding, in print and online.

I was a total magazine junkie growing up, and it was kind of obvious to everyone who knew me that this was the area I would eventually work in. I did a degree in Media Studies and during my three years at university I did three stints of work experience: a month each at more!, Cosmopolitan and 19 magazines. I got on well with one of the other students doing work experience at more!, and when she got a job as a writer at a new launch she recommended me for the editorial assistant job.

I spent my early career working my way up the ranks on a variety of teen magazines, including Top of the Pops and CosmoGIRL! When the opportunity came up to do the maternity cover for the editor at Cosmopolitan Bride I went for it. A year after that the job came up for real. I basically didn’t sleep for a week to get the project work done for the interview. Luckily it paid off and I got the job. I had the support of a great publisher, who encouraged me to turn Cosmopolitan Bride into a magazine for brides who wanted to do things a little differently.

In January 2010 the decision was made to join the Cosmopolitan Bride and You & Your Wedding teams together, so my responsibilities grew to include the You & Your Wedding brand too. Sadly last year Cosmopolitan Bride closed, but the You & Your Wedding brand is going from strength to strength and we have exciting plans for the rest of the year.

If you could go back in time would you change anything you did on your career path?

No, I try not to look back and regret things I’ve done or decisions I made, but learn from them and move on.

What does your average day look like?

If I’m in the office, my day will be taken up with reading copy, approving layouts and meeting with the team or the publisher to plan future features, fashion stories and big projects. I spend a lot of time out of the office, meeting designers and suppliers and attending bridal shows and launches to see what’s new in the world of bridal and beyond. The balance suits my personality, I think.

What’s your favourite part of the job?

It’s impossible to pick just one. I love working with the passionate and talented You & Your Wedding team. It’s always exciting to see the results of a shoot that’s been months in the planning (fashion director Sally knows I’m always impatient to see the results of her shoots and emails me a contact sheet at the end of a day’s shoot, wherever she is in the world!)

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Zero

May 1, 2012 in Green Room, Guest Posts | Written by

Rock n Roll Bride, a little haven of kick ass weddingness in a cookie-cutter, pastel and often puke-worthy wedding world. You’ve likely all seen this mantra, it sits proudly on the front page of this website and quickly sums up what this place is about, with articles ranging from rainbow petticoats to New York steampunk.

Being anti-cookie-cutter has proven to be a very successful strategy for Kat and this little blog but you might not realise how picking up some of these ideologies can help keep your business fresh and competitive ahead of the competition.

Here’s the lesson, the moral if you will. In fact, you don’t need to read the rest of this article if you properly comprehend this sentence: Don’t just think differently about weddings, think differently about everything.

Still here? Great! Strap in tight, we’re off to ancient Rome. The Romans were an interesting bunch of people. Famous for their military, politics, legal system, language, technology and of course those natty robes. Their legacy reaches all the way to modern Hollywood thanks to Roman numerals which are still in use to indicate copyright dates. It is these peculiar letter-numbers which I want to draw your attention to. Have you ever noticed anything unusual about them? I mean, aside from the fact that they’re using letters to represent numbers. I think the most striking thing about Roman numerals is that there is no way to write zero. They just never thought of it. Naturally, they had words for ‘nothing’ and ‘empty’ and such like but in mathematical terms zero had simply not been invented. Invention of the number zero is generally credited to India sometime in the 9th century and it revolutionised the field of mathematics.

The point to this outlandish detour is to demonstrate that anybody, even those mighty ancient Romans, can be so indoctrinated into a school of thought that they overlook opportunities for innovation. And when you turn the microscope on the tiny world of weddings it can be positively difficult to find people thinking differently.

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