April 17, 2012
As an emerging photography business it can be hard to spot the times when you'd be better off saying no to potential jobs. It’s amazing some of the offers than can come your way so how do you gauge the times when it's not in your best interests to take something on?Read more...
April 16, 2012
So Roo and I came up with a new blog series idea...she's going undercover. Many wedding blogs who review the places they visit only write about the good stuff - the glittering service, the elegant decor and the impeccable attention to detail...but you know we're not like other wedding blogs. Sure, when the service is good we'll be telling you about it, but similarly when it's shocking, we ain't holding back! And judging by Roo's experience on her first assignment it's going to be a very interesting series indeed!Read more...
April 13, 2012
Before I entered the heady world of the wedding industry I worked for nearly two decades (gulp) as a journalist. I worked as a reporter and then news editor on regional weekly and daily newspapers and also wrote health and beauty features for a glossy magazine – all of which means I have spent a frightening proportion of my life reading press releases. Press releases are a great way of sending information and news about your company, product or service to journalists and bloggers quickly and easily. While it is no substitute for face-to-face meetings, a well-written press release backed up by strong images is a godsend to busy journalists who don’t have time for countless meetings and networking events and can just cut and paste your copy into a last-minute gap on a page. On the other hand, a poorly-written or presented press release can do more damage than good, leaving the recipient tearing their hair out, reaching for the delete button or, in the very worst cases, blacklisting the sender for being rude and stalker-ish (no really…)Read more...
April 9, 2012
I’ve been thinking it over a lot this past week, and I figure that we know each other pretty well by now. There’ve been ups and downs as far as our wedding journey goes – so far – and you’ve been there through it all. I reckon I’m right in saying that you all know what makes me tick, but I realise that I’ve neglected to tell you about some of those who make me tick. In this instance, I am talking of course about my bridesmaids.Read more...
April 6, 2012
Hi, my name is Amma and I would like to confess that sometimes I have green eyes. Yes, I know that biological anomaly that I, as a child of African parents could have emerald green peepers – but I’m talking about professional jealously and how you get over it. As, some of you may or may not know – I still have a day job; as day jobs go mine is not half bad and given the state of female unemployment at present; I certainly know which side my bread is buttered; so I am more than happy to plod along – albeit sometimes sulkily as a 5-9er until I hit my professional tipping point. Now, without getting into the nitty-gritty of it all – I had some personal stuff going on that really meant that despite streaking the sky like a comet when I first began my foray into business. I got forced to slow down, in fact not just slow down – I had to hit the brakes and I experienced a mega slide into a career plateau. Although, work requests and projects were coming in thick and fast, there was no way that I could take it on, and circumstance meant that ‘my stuff’, blogging, and the day became an all encompassing festival of woe.Read more...
March 30, 2012
Our baby wasn’t really planned – it was a half assed plan if you will. I knew I wanted babies but I had just left my full time job to run my business and being the household bread winner just keeping things going for my share of the income was as much of a challenge as I wanted. Plus I wanted the success of the business to grow after a long hard year of working two jobs to get it off the ground and watching it flourish as a result. This was supposed to be a wonderful time when after all my hard work, late nights and lack of social life I could really celebrate what I had achieved… you know, with fizzy stuff. Clink clink.Read more...
March 23, 2012
In my opinion, every business lives or dies on the strength of its customer service. To most it means complaining when there are queues at the store, when a check out girl is grumpy, when we wait too long for our order in the restaurant – i.e. the term is mostly pulled out when customer service is lacking. When it works well, it’s like an invisible comfortable blanket that makes you feel good when you think about visiting your favourite bar or when you are ordering an item from an online store that’s always reliable. When Kat asked me to write about customer service, I first started writing a very matter of fact, hypothetical kind of article. But I soon realised that, actually, speaking from personal experience would make my point come across a lot better than any bullet points ever can. So, I hope you’re sitting comfortably, as I’m about to tell you the story of my tattoos…Read more...
March 16, 2012
Today I've asked my buddy Adam from a rival wedding blog (I say this in jest, we love each other really!) to write a guest post about being...well...a man. It's something I've thought about a bit recently, what will Gareth taking a lot more of an active role in our business and all - what is it really like being a man in this so heavily female dominated industry? Not only are weddings often perceived to be 'all about the bride' but most of the people that work in the industry are female too! Obviously this isn't a topic I could really discuss myself with any semblance of authority, so here's where my mate Adam comes in! Over to you fella...Read more...
March 9, 2012
So you want to be a wedding photographer but what is the best way to get started? Second shooting for an already successful photographer is one of the best ways to fast track you in the right direction. You can see how someone else does it, learn on your feet and make industry contacts. But how do you get the gig in the first place and how can you make the best of the opportunity for both you and the main photographer?Read more...
March 7, 2012
After enduring the heartache of finding (and losing) our wedding venue, I’m sure you can appreciate that we felt as though we’d fallen off the horse a bit in terms of planning our wedding; trying to accept something so stressful wasn't easy, and I’m sure that I don’t speak for myself when I say that it made me a little anxious to think about other wedding-related things for fear of tripping up again. However, as with all horses that one might fall off of, it is often said that’s important to get back on again – and we could only do that if we put faith in our planning again.Read more...
February 24, 2012
Nearly 9 months ago Julia Boggio and I had a gorgeous little daughter. I thought that it might slow Julia down a little, but no. She still runs our business at 200 miles an hour. As you may know, Julia and I own one of the fastest growing baby and bridal vintage boudoir photography studios in the UK, Julia looking after the creative side of the business and me looking after the sales. I adore running the sales side of what we do, but admit it: sales is often seen as the scary or evil part of the business or, more often than not, something to avoid because “my clients won’t like being sold to”. Now, the reality of the world is if no one sold anything to anyone, most business wouldn’t exist for very long at all. I had a bit of a head start in sales. As a child I didn’t have pocket money; I had a commission plan. It was stuck to the fridge and re-negotiated on my birthday every year. It helped me understand quite early on that you get out of life what you put in. If I needed that extra boost of pocket money that month, then I had to contribute something quite significant to the household that would entitle me to some extra dosh. So now that I have my own daughter, is this something that I will do with her? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but the combination of mine and Julia’s genes has created a very feisty little girl indeed. I suspect that if I attempted to negotiate anything with her she’ll look at me like I’m a punter on Dragon’s Den and tell me “You don’t have what it takes, I’m out.” She has me running around in circles already so I thought I’d give you a few lessons in sales according to my 9-month-old daughter.Read more...
February 21, 2012
One of the biggest fears for photographers (and I’m referring to photographers as that’s my reality, feel free to substitute a camera for whatever is your passion) when making the transition into a working professional is the doubt about whether doing something for a living takes the shine out of it. Whether in a few years you will start feeling like a new assignment is just ‘another day in the office’, and that in the end you lose that passion you have for your craft. For me this was one of the biggest psychological challenges to get over when I was thinking about starting my business. I was so protective of my craft, my creative process and my artistic outlet, and I was so afraid of potentially compromising all that I loved about photography if it was to be the provider of my main income. Eventually a switch flipped in my head though, and it seemed like madness to sit in an office doing a job that wasn’t fulfilling, while I could spend all my days with a camera in my hand doing what I love. Making that leap was at the same time scary and overwhelming, but also freeing, like stepping into my true self.Read more...
February 14, 2012
I’m going to start out by saying I'm not here to tell you that this is definitely the right way to get a good work/life balance. However this is the way that I (try to) do it so I wanted to share it with you - who knows, hopefully I can help someone! It’s what works for me at this moment in time and enables me to switch off when I need to and not being all-consumed by my work. It’s really difficult being a freelance photographer. Right I’ve said it. We all know it. We all love it, but lets face it, it can be tough as hell sometimes. I can only imagine it's exactly the same for people in other areas of the wedding industry. We love our jobs so we spend most of the time on our own sat in front of a computer...at any time of day or night. As business owners we often need to work for long hours over the weekend and still be expected to be sat at our computers at 9am on a Monday morning to answer emails.Read more...
February 6, 2012
When I got a text from Roo just before Christmas saying "erm...I think we might have to cancel our wedding...our wedding venue is being shut down" my heart skipped a beat. You know when people say "oh I know exactly how you feel..." but actually, really, they don't? Well in this case I could reply those words with utmost sincerity. Our wedding venue pulled out of our wedding just three months before our day. That's a story for another time, but I did have 100% confidence in my reply "Roo, everything with be OKAY. You won't have to cancel your wedding"...Read more...
January 27, 2012
I'm going start out by being 100% honest with you. I don't really know the answer to this question. However after a discussion with Roo last week, I feel it might be a topic some of you are struggling with. Therefore I thought I'd use today's wedding planning advice post as a forum for us to get in a discussion on the matter - I want to know your ideas and opinions on the subject please! Although I'm sure you could Google this question and come up with the 'proper etiquette' answer, I think it's much more relevant these days to figure out what's right for you and your wedding. However I do think you should consider a few things before you make your decision...Read more...
January 27, 2012
I really enjoyed my professional work in 2011 but committing to a personal project was undoubtedly the best thing I did for my photography and myself last year. It constantly surprised and helped me in so many ways, and the very first (and being truthful, the only!) successful resolution I made as 2012 arrived was to start a brand new one. Towards the end of 2010, after a crazy year of throwing myself headlong into setting up the business and taking on as much photography work as I could, I’d become increasingly worried that my photography was becoming stale and uninspired, in a weary creative rut, and I’d almost completely stopped shooting for pleasure since doing photography professionally full time, which really bothered me. If I’m being completely honest it had started to feel like photography, my long-time love, was becoming too much hard work and too few rewards. At the start of 2011 I noticed that a number of other photographers were starting 365 projects (a photo a day for a whole year) and so following their good example, I unashamedly jumped on the bandwagon and began my own personal 365 project, hoping I could rediscover the old passion and have a bit of fun along the way. It did both and a whole lot more, and was one of the best decisions I have made for a long time.Read more...
January 6, 2012
These days it seems that everyone and anyone is setting up in business and despite a recession, the wedding industry is experiencing a boom. Historically, glamorous escapist activities like going to see Hollywood movies or musical theatre peak in tough times. Perhaps weddings are our new glamour fix and chance for everyone involved to dress up and forget any money woes. For the enterprising and creative amongst us, this is exciting times. With the Digital Revolution and onslaught of Social Media, it has never been easier to promote your new or existing business. The entire planet is at your fingertips via your computer/phone/tablet, there is a potential global marketplace for your product or service. Most likely precipitated by having minimal or non-existent marketing budgets, suddenly the small businesses are leading the way in viral marketing. Big companies have noticed and are now employing the same techniques, backing up their traditional ad campaigns with social media. In 2007 Cadbury released their TV ad for Dairy Milk featuring a gorilla playing the drums. It was very quickly uploaded to YouTube and the link shared by hundreds of thousands of Facebook users who also set up fan pages for the ad. Cadbury then joined Facebook and now has pages for several of its products.Read more...
January 2, 2012
Optional (and recommended) prep work before reading this month’s post: go around your house and make a little mental (or physical, I’m easy) note of what you can see in the following hiding places: your wardrobe; your shoe collection; your fridge/pantry, and your cosmetics cupboard/dressing table. No matter how bare or brimming these areas of your nest are, I hope that you’ll begin to notice certain themes lurking in each. For example, although I’m a bird who doesn’t subscribe to wearing a lot of makeup, I do have a penchant for fabulous nail varnishes. My collection isn’t vast, but there’s an obvious trend; namely understated nudes, pastel pinks, and darker, cold hues with a hint of shimmer. There is no hint of neon to be found. Moving to my overly extensive wardrobe (which I am always ungratefully bored of) I see lots of natural tones – tans, browns, greys (the odd plum sweater, maybe) – splashes of velvet, cheeky peeks of Breton stripe, trimmings of lace and a few impractical “statement” pieces. Similarly with my shoes, I find cherry red (faux) snakeskin ankle boots nuzzling up next to my Vans Old Skools, who in turn drape a shoelace around my Melissa Lovefoxx sandals. When asked to describe my style, I say it’s “Whatever”. It’s whatever I feel like, whatever the weather, whatever I want. In turn, I try to live my life by the mantra of my wardrobe, which becomes glaringly apparent when you look in our kitchen cupboards: scotch pancake ingredients, stuffing mix, cloudy lemonade, cinema sweet popcorn, potatoes, and tomato soup (we haven’t done our weekly shop yet, can you tell?).Read more...
November 28, 2011
Something I am always keen to promote through Rock n Roll Bride is the importance of hiring a professional wedding photographer to document your wedding (the photos are the only thing - well except the marriage of course - that lasts after the wedding day etc etc) However not only that, I also think it is crucial to hire a professional wedding photographer that gets you. It may be all well and good that a photographer has won a gazillion awards or has shot some fantastic weddings that have been featured in magazines and on wedding blogs, but if you don't like them as a person or they don't understand your vision for your wedding... well they aren't the guy/gal for you.Read more...
October 31, 2011
My lovely intern Roo (oh I do love her so) had, to say the least, quite the drama with the search for the perfect wedding venue. So she's here today to share her woes and in turn reassure those of you that might be going through the same hell, that it's all going to be fine and that you will come out on the other side! I personally found the venue hunt the most stressful part of my wedding planning. Why are wedding venues such a pain in the...ahem. Over to you lady...Read more...