Thrill your clients by giving them wedding photography that tells a story.

With all the  competition in wedding photography these days, what can you do as a wedding photographer to make sure your clients hire you? What do clients always love? Their unique story. Story Telling with their wedding photography makes their photography uniquely their own.

There are many ingredients to successfully telling the story with wedding photography. Over the next few weeks this blog will list and categorize what for us are the most critical. Today we are going to concentrate on telling the story in wedding photography with communication.

Telling the story in wedding photography is for us the single most critical component of successfully shooting a wedding day.

All successful documentary wedding photography begins with communication.

Meetings and communication with the client are critical. Face to face meetings, phone calls, even brief exchanges over social media help to  create a relationship  for both client and photographer to know one another.

Out of the familiarity grows knowledge.

Out of the knowledge grows awareness.

Out of the awareness grows empathy.

To better relay this I am going to tell you a story about clients we had and how communication created and paved the way for a successful shoot.

This particular couple were a bit older on the scale of average age of our wedding clients. Repeated meetings uncovered the fact the bride to be was coming from a place where marriage was thought to be something that would never, ever happen.  It was obvious this was a highly emotional place they were coming from with that belief. Speaking to them frequently uncovered there great love for family and the wish for a ceremony and reception that all could enjoy , but that did not cause anyone any difficulty to participate in.

This meant we had to be aware of allowing the clients to enjoy a laid back reception but to not lose photographic opportunities that may be thought of us “too much trouble”

While the client desired their church wedding , it quickly became obvious the church was a critical part of their wedding day. This meant an approach to church shooting that was respectful of their rules but allowed us to show the spiritual nature of a religious ceremony.

Clients tastes will vary. If they, or you are not sure of styles and where and how you are shooting, there does exits resources to show them a variety of styles.

You can check out one such resource with the Professional Photographers of America. You can see it HERE.

Telling the story with wedding photography requires communication, a connection and empathy. This particular image almost did not happen. The bride was kind of not wanting to go to the trouble of an official exist. Family, and us, intervened and we ended up with a shot that was a favorite for both us and the client.

In closing I’ll remind everyone that the heart is an important piece of your wedding photography equipment. Carry it with you always and keep it open….you and your clients will be glad you did!