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Wedding Blog Myths Debunked: Weddings Need to Look Good Enough To Blog!
When me and Jess first started out together we never had any intention of becoming a wedding blog. I know many of you will have heard the story before so I won’t bore you with it again but basically we only wanted a blog to promote my products and Jess’s photography, kind of like a personal business journal or portfolio? I’ll be completely honest with you this time two years ago I was only just getting my head around what a blog was. What is more crazy is that I was actually planning my own wedding before this time and had never looked at blog before. Crazy huh!
I knew I wanted my wedding to be different I am not always comfortable in front of lots of people, I felt uneasy about inviting people I hadn’t seen in yonks and to be honest I was stricken with the idea of a low key affair. I had family that had passed away that I wanted to feel close to and so many of the choices I made regarding location were because of that. Basically many of my choices were personal to me and I suppose the reason the blog grew to where it is now is because I had this crazy idea that it was ok to have the wedding you want, not the wedding you think you should have.
So can you imagine my surprise when Jess opened up my eyes to all these other fabulous and imaginative wedding blogs! It was like a whole magical world that I had never known existed. There was a blog for rock n roll weddings, one for boho brides and festival brides even another for the more fashion forward. These blogs all had one thing in common, they all had a niche. These blogs like ours had all grown out of the bloggers own personal love for this type of wedding, just like ours had grown from the the love of the innovative, the personal and the unique.
The reason I am writing this today is because I recently came across an old post on Mountainside Bride that was actually written a month before Bespoke Bride launched in November 2011. It was an open letter from a photographer claiming “the blogosphere is downright distressing for some couples. They’re visually overloaded by wedding blogs that showcase only the most unique and the most elaborate weddings, implying showcased weddings are the norm.”
You might be wondering why I am rehashing something that was written 2 years ago, well reason being is that I believe that this stigma is still attached to wedding blogs and to be honest I am little confused at how this has happened. First we will address the point of the photographer, lets go completely insane here and use a different example:
I have worked in and managed pubs for almost 10 years now. One of my responsibilities was the ordering of stock. It was up to me to assess our clientele, decide what products I believe would sell the best and discount or remove those that didn’t. Often breweries would have a new range or product which we would try, sometimes people liked it but to be honest a majority of your regular customers were happy to stick to the same thing – the tried and tested – because that is their own personal taste.
I am not sure if I have gone completely off track here but let me explain what I am trying to say: being a blogger is a lot like running a bar (lol, I’m sure someone will have something to say about this!). You have to choose those weddings that you know your readers will be interested in, you sometimes have to dabble and try something new but ultimately bloggers know exactly what their readers want to see. For gods sake some wedding bloggers are earning heaps so they must be doing something right. right? As for those that moan these weddings are only being promoted as they will get more hits etc. Would you moan at a bar manager to remove a product you didn’t like, even though it was selling the best?
What I am trying to say here is you wouldn’t walk into a pub and expect the same things to be sold there as in your local. Different pubs have different clientele and no pub sells every product. The same goes for weddings, different blogs showcase different weddings, those they know will do the best are the ones with the details and decor, ultimately many readers of blogs like to look at the photography, as that is what they relate to.
Any way lets get back to the matter in hand and that is those couples planning their weddings that often sigh in exclamation that their wedding is going to be nothing special or fancy.
Although now a wedding blogger I was primarily a bride that was planning a wedding, I wanted it to be a true reflection of myself and my fiance, be fun for family and friends and not once thought about featuring it on a wedding blog. Never did I think my wedding any less because of it, because that wasn’t what was important to me. I wanted my wedding to be about love, commitment and celebration.
So if you are a bride or groom worrying that your wedding isn’t special because it isn’t blog-worthy STOP IT! Ask yourself what would getting blogged mean for your marriage? My guess is absolutely nothing. It might be nice to have a little bit of recognition for all you and your hard work but in the long run being blogged isn’t what you will remember.
It isn’t always couples that worry about bloggable weddings either, the number of photographers that have told us that they worry a wedding isn’t good enough to blog is probably more than that of the actual couples and I think that makes me feel even more sad. Please stop me if I am wrong but as a wedding photographer isn’t it your job to capture the beauty of the day, the decor, the people, the moments, the story, no matter what type of wedding. The relationships your build with these people must be something amazing and shouldn’t that be satisfying enough? So I would say to all photographers out there that worry that their weddings are not good enough to blog STOP IT! Stay true to yourself and your couples keep being fascinated by you job and yours couples and your business will flourish naturally.
Much Bespoke Love
Emily ♥
Great post Emily. It worries me when you hear that some photographers go as far as knocking back potential clients whose weddings don’t fit their criteria and so wrong if a photographer is more concerned about being blogged than the clients that are paying them to capture their special day.
It’s inevitable that whatever we do we can’t please everyone as it’s ultimately about what inspires the blogger. I generally steer clear of blow the budget weddings and feature a diverse range of achievable weddings that don’t cost the earth because I, like most brides, will be on a tight budget when I get married but I also enjoy reading blogs that inspire me with lots of ideas that I can adapt for my big day x
Thanks Marcy! It seems that we are on the complete same wavelength! Blogs exist to take inspiration from not to be copied. It is up to couples to adapt their day so that it reflects their own personalities. budgets and requirements.
As you said you will never be able to please everyone, and it makes me sad that blogs get such a bad rep when the reality is blogs are about as close to real wedding inspiration as you will get.
Much Love to you
x x x
Thanks Emily, much love to you too 🙂 xxx
Well said! Loved reading this. It’s like when I read Vogue: I know I’ll never afford the high fashion or be blessed with those amazing model looks, but it doesn’t mean I should slink off the face of the earth and give up living. It’s for inspiration and ideas to translate into your own wonderful life. Vogue kicks me up the bum to wear a lippy and look out some good clothes in my own price range. The images inspire me to maybe paint a picture (I do a bit of art…). Same with wedding blogs – look at them for overall feel and be inspired by ideas, but for goodness’ sake enjoy your own beautiful day as the start of your own unique and wonderful marriage.
Aww Erin your vogue example is way better than my pub analogy, why didn’t I think of that 😀
Well said lady – lets not lose sight of what a wedding actually is, the start of a marriage!
Much Love
x x x
Well said indeed, Emily! When I started out as a wedding photographer I went through a phase of looking at a lot of wedding blogs every single day for inspiration and the more I looked, the more I got this idea in my head that I needed to shoot in a way that made my weddings blog-worthy. You know, lots of detail shots and photos of people with their heads cut off and stuff. It took me a while to get over it and remember that – exactly like you said – people book me to document their day, not to make their wedding photos look like a fashion shoot! And to be honest, not a lot of my clients are bothered by the whole blog idea…. it’s ME who had to get over this ‘blog obsession’!
I also think that this ‘my wedding needs to be blogable’ idea is pretty wide-spread in the U.S. I remember that stylemepretty.com (probably the most intimidating wedding blog ever! ;)) ran a story about blog-worthy weddings and the comment section was full of brides basically saying that they planned and styled their own wedding in a way that made it interesting for blogs. Hell, some even lamented the fact that their photographer wasn’t too bothered about blogs and just wanted to give them lovely photos.
xx
Thank you Anne and thank you for sharing your own experience. As a blogger I would be lying if I said we didn’t find unusual weddings and photography interesting however I think there is a huge difference between genuinely wanting to add personality and character to your wedding and photography style and styling a wedding with a blog in mind, although as you can probably imagine it is terribly difficult to really know?
I just really hope that we have done our part to remind couples and photographers that a wedding is a celebration of unity and love and not decor and fashion although nice to look at 🙂
Much Bespoke Love
Emily
x x x
A very insightful post. I too have managed venues, hotels and bars in my previous life and am now a freelance wedding planner so obviously I check out wedding blogs all the time, I love them!
For brides they can be a whole mixture of things, daunting, exciting, confusing but always very inspiring and thought provoking. Lets be honest we watch ‘Ru Pauls’s Drag Race’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ doesn’t mean we want to live like that every day, well that’s debatable but you get what I’m saying!
It can be lonely as a freelancer, your PC, iPad and mobile are your constant friends, so for me its great to see how successful and passion other creative minded wedding lovelies there are out there !
Surely people should be focussing on their own style of wedding day not where to place the images afterwards. Some of the most moving weddings I have been involved with are the simplest (that’s not cost related). Of course people love to see the outrageous and extremes on blogs and in print but in reality they will take a small part of what they see from those blogs and incorporate it in their own. As long as people fall in love weddings will be all around us so long live the blogs and all hale the bloggers, I say!