How 2020 Has Changed My Wedding Photography Business

Ahhhh 2020.
How naive we all were rolling into this year.

I distinctly remember having a conversation with a sweet couple last summer (so, summer of 2019), and we were talking about what an amazing year 2020 was going to be. I mean, just the year itself: “2020” – sounded so cool to have at the end of a date! It was definitely going to be a year full to the brim with amazing weddings.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t exactly been the case.
Yes, I’ve still photographed some incredible wedding days in 2020, but every single one of them has been fraught with extra stress & anxiety on my brides & grooms. Most of my couples have had to duck thru new hoops & hop over new obstacles that no one ever saw coming. I’ve watched the news, holding my breath right along with my brides & grooms, hoping, praying, and crossing all of my fingers that their weddings would still be able to take place. It’s been challenging to host a wedding in 2020, to say the least.

Along with all the changes my couples have had to endure, my business has changed too. I’ve had to adapt & evolve some of my business practices, just as everyone else who is running a business has had to do. It’s been a process of working thru – okay, Iif can’t do that anymore, what can I do differently & better? For example: I used to send a little “thanks for booking me as your wedding photographer” gift when a couple booked me – and in that gift was a personalized trivet with the couples’ monogram & their wedding date. However, with so many wedding dates changing (sometimes multiple times), I’ve had to adjust my welcome gift.

Here are some of the other things that have changed within my business in 2020:

MASKS

Yep – they’re everywhere. And yet, as long as we’ve been “masking up” (about 9 months now), we still get out of our cars & begin to walk into the store before realizing we forgot our mask (or maybe that’s just me).
At the beginning of all of this – I didn’t want to wear a mask while shooting a wedding. For starters, it fogs up my camera (talk about a huge pain in the butt). It also muffles my words & is a barrier to people seeing me & knowing that I’m talking to them.
However, as the year has gone on, I’ve come to look at masks in a little bit of a different light. No matter what your personal feelings are on masks vs. no-masks, I’ve come to see them as simply another way I can present myself as a professional at weddings. I’m already wearing professional attire, and the mask is simply an extension of that professional appearance I always am trying to convey. Is it bothersome? You bet. Have I learned to work with it? Yes.
My personal “rule” with masks has become: I will wear a mask while indoors & in close proximity to other people. However, if we are outside & socially distanced – I will take my mask off so that my voice isn’t muffled. This means, I am wearing a mask during the getting ready portion of the wedding day, thru the ceremony, and during the reception. The only time I’m taking my mask off is when we are outside during portraits. And so far, it’s been a good compromise.

COHESIVE TIMELINES

I have always created timelines with my brides & grooms leading up to their wedding day detailing exactly what is happening when & where. I typically would put these timelines together, with my brides & grooms, about 8 weeks before their weddings.
However, 2020 has meant that anything can change at any moment – even MAJOR portions of a wedding day (like, where a wedding reception was going to take place). I’ve always told my brides & grooms that “things can change” in the wedding planning process – but nothing has proved that statement like 2020 has. I’ve had literally every single aspect of a wedding day change – sometimes with just days leading up to a wedding day.
That being said: having a super cohesive timeline with each of my couples has been amazing at keeping us all organized, on the same page, and updated. My couples love their timelines (they print them out & hand them out to everyone), so you better believe that every aspect of that timeline needs to be correct – and that has helped everyone in the long run.

FACETIME MEETINGS

Once upon a time, I would invite inquiring brides & grooms to meet me for coffee. We would sit & chat, I could hear all about them & their story & their wedding day plans, and then they could ask me questions & see wedding albums – all while sipping on delicious caffeinated beverages.
Well, those days are long gone & who knows when they’ll be back?
Now? I meet all of my inquiring couples via FaceTime or over a simple phone call. Is it my favorite? No. Has it saved me time & effort (I can chat with people in my sweatpants!) and let’s be honest, money? Yes.
I used to dread chatting with inquiring couples over the phone or on FaceTime – there’s always a lag, what if the quality dips & the video freezes, what if we simply cannot get the video to work? But, 2020 has been the year of Zoom & Marco Polo, and I’ve pretty much gotten over all of those fears. Everyone just gets it now – we all video chat with friends & family – more than ever before, and if the quality drops or there’s a lag – that’s just normal. So, as much as I miss meeting people in person (and I miss those fancy coffees too), I don’t really mind the FaceTime meetings.

YOUTUBE VIDEOS

I began filming YouTube videos mid-summer as a way to connect with my couples. So many of their weddings had been postponed (or were on the brink of getting postponed) and I wanted a way to connect with them personally – more than just a long-winded email (and we all know I love writing long emails!) Setting up a “studio” in my living room & talking directly to the camera gave me another avenue of connection that I’d never had time to explore before. And I actually, shockingly, loved it.
I actually wrote a whole slew of scripts & had a ton of topics that I wanted to make videos about, but then that window of “free time” I had vanished & I’ve had to put those videos on a back-burner. It’s okay though – because after this coming weekend, I’m done shooting for this year & won’t really shoot much of anything thru the first (freezing cold) months of 2021. That will once again give me time to create more videos & I absolutely cannot wait!

Those are just a few of the things that have changed within my business in 2020.
If I’ve learned anything from having my own business for the last 11 years, it’s that things will constantly grow & evolve. And that’s not a bad thing! I’m always looking for ways to improve myself, my workflows, & my processes. In fact, just this week I’ve realized another area of my business that I could streamline things & make things run smoother.

2020 has been a crazy year, and as much as everyone is begging for the year to end & for us to get “back to normal” in 2021 – I don’t think that is going to be the case. The clock isn’t going to magically strike midnight on December 31st and wondrously everything is going to go back to “normal” on January 1st. It just isn’t going to happen.
But that doesn’t mean that the lessons we learned & the good, positive changes we made have to go away. Yes, 2020 has been a year of monumental change, but some of those changes have been good (and other changes I can’t wait until they fade away).
Overall, I’m just not one of those people who are willing to toss the whole year in the dumpster & walk away from it. As crazy as 2020 has been, it’s still been a good year.