During my first year as a professional portrait photographer, I got engaged to this wonderful photography expert, who proposed extremely memorably. With our wedding date less than a year away, I started planning the big day – and not only did I book a wedding photographer, I decided to move into wedding photography myself.
Naturally, no brides or grooms would hire me without an impressive portfolio of wedding photos – so I decided (in this area) to work for free to get experience.
With wedding photographers costing upwards of £2,000 (about $2,700) on average in London, England, I was ready for engaged couples to bite my arm off for the chance to get a free day of work out of me. It's not that I usually work for free; I promised them 1,000+ edited photos delivered within a week of the event.
I only had four quite reasonable requests in return: that they pay my travel expenses (and accommodation if I couldn't get back to London the same night); that they leave a positive review for my photography business if happy (I'd really rather they didn't if unhappy); that they credit me for the photos when posting them on social media; and that they allow me to use their photos for my portfolio.
The last two requests are often standard for wedding photographers; the photographer for our wedding had a clause in her contract stating that she would be allowed to use any photos she took of us in her promotional materials.
I posted an ad offering free wedding photography services in six places online here in the UK: two journalists' groups on Facebook, Reddit, Hot UK Deals, Mumsnet (the leading parenting website) and Freecycle (where people give away free things – though admittedly these tend to be physical things they've bought, not services).
Hot UK Deals said I wasn't allowed to post that kind of 'self-promotional' offer; worse, Mumsnet and Freecycle instantly deactivated my account! Sometimes you can't do right for doing wrong. But that still left the two Facebook groups and Reddit, where my post was viewed an estimated 5,000 times in total.
Were brides and grooms enthusiastic at the prospect of being snapped by me for free? No. No, they weren't. Despite viewing an array of beautiful headshots I'd taken, the betrothed didn't want to take a chance on a wedding newbie. Perhaps they thought they'd rather pay top dollar for a seasoned pro than have me make errors due to inexperience; after all, why take a gamble with the biggest day of their lives?
Or maybe they felt that there was some other catch, such as the photos being used in my portfolio? Maybe they didn't realize that wedding photographers hold the copyright to their own work and routinely use clients' pictures as examples of their talent? Frankly, it was baffling.
The only offers I got were to photograph a legal wedding for a beautiful couple – they had already got married abroad, so had probably splashed out on a photographer overseas – and also an offer of snapping an elopement wedding reception.
I happily accepted both, but am hoping to photograph a minimum of ten events before I set myself up as a wedding photographer (and yes, engaged readers, my contact details are in my bio at the end of this story!)
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If you're entering the world of weddings, take a look at the best cameras for wedding photography along with the best lenses for wedding photography. If you also find that starting out in photography with a limited portfolio is challenging, here’s how to jump-start your career as a photographer.
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