Let’s make sure your wedding photographer will still be around next year

Here’s an article shared with us a few years ago, that appears to have been lost during the Australian Bridal Industry Association (ABIA) website update.  It was titled, “The Professional Wedding Business”, and I’d want my friend to read it, if they were planning a wedding a year or so in advance….

Since the establishment of ABIA in 1997, out of the 35,508 wedding suppliers rated by ABIA brides, 21,628 have either gone broke, ceased servicing weddings or disappeared off ABIA‘s Radar. The simple reason for such a high attrition rate is; anyone can enter the wedding marketplace irrespective of their knowledge, experience, expertise or reputation.

In most wedding categories suppliers don’t need a degree, certification, accreditation or a licence (Marriage Celebrants excepted) to legitimise their expertise and experience in designing a dream wedding.

Considering that a wedding day is a one off event which cannot be repeated should something go wrong, selecting the most reliable, professional and trustworthy vendors to design and deliver the brides perfect day is paramount to the success of any wedding.

Opinion: Of course I’m heavily biased towards the photography and video studio that I’ve spent over a decade building from passion, hard work, perhaps a few tears even, a constant desire to learn, and a fairly decent financial investment.  Along with having a physical shop front in the Adelaide CBD (plus our Production office in the Adelaide Hills), Bliss Images has been around long enough to demonstrate we’re not fly-by-night newbies.  Yet we’re still fresh enough to be from the generation that loves to keep evolving to stay relevant.

We’re not the only studio that fits this balance of criteria either, there are plenty of wedding photographers in Adelaide with talent, experience, and are keeping up with contemporary styles, or better still, developing their own.  I can already hear the newbie photographers out there asking “how do I get a break if everyone was to only book experienced photographers?”  Do what nearly every great photographer before you has done, and serve an apprenticeship under someone who truly understands equipment, the art of capturing light, business, and most importantly, people.  Watch a 100 times or more how the process works, gain some experience, and then go it alone if you’re confident.  It’s a little crazy to think that the new norm is to buy a camera, practice taking photos of your kids, put up a website, then declare you’re a professional photographer.