Style Shoots |To do or not to do, that is the questions|

Styled Shoots: Is it worth it? 

Being in the business for over 3 decades when they became popular, I wasn't a fan of any business other than a decorator doing styled shoots. When I first saw them become popular, to be really honest, I wasn't happy about it.  I felt it was misleading to clients.  After all, it isn't a real wedding, and the ones I saw coming out, were from inexperienced Day of Wedding Coordinators, and me and my logical brain would think, they don't even have anything to do with the decor so why are they advertising a styled shoot? 

I now see I unfairly judged them, because I thought they should be real authentic photos of their own work at one of their weddings.  Easy for me to say, I had hundreds of thousands of photos of my own work to use. 

Well, I have since changed my mind a bit on the subject. If you are new in the business, I think it is a great networking opportunity as well as a great way to get started in the business, if you are good at it, you can even lean a bit more into the decorator side of things and have the potential to make being the decorator as an add-on service. 

Benefits of doing a styled shoot

 When you do a styled shoot each person involved in the shoot should be able to use the photos and give credits, tag, like, and comment on each other's social medial.  This can get you a little more traction.

Styled shoots can provide you with beautiful original photos, but they also can be costly unless you work with a florist, decorator, and rental company that will provide all of the products.  It also will take a lot of work, organization, and if just one of your vendors doesn't follow through there can be major implications. Done correctly it can be a great way to get exposure. However, it has to be carefully planned for success; styled shoots done on a whim are rarely advantageous.

You also have to realize you need to do about 4- 6 of them to have a good collection of photos to spread out over social media and your website. If you plan this right and use some of each of the vendors in different ones and rotate 2-3 of each vendor you will be able to have approximately 20-40 vendors involved which is a great little networking system.

This also will allow you to get to know them a little better and see who is good about follow-through, a good collaborator, who you work well with, and possibly those you don't.

Alternatives to styled shoots

For those just starting out, with a great eye for design, and with an outgoing personality, this is a great option. 

If this doesn't fit your personality, you do have other options.  There are some great stock photo sites you can subscribe to, but even better, you can reach out to a few local photographers and ask them if you can use some of their photos if you give them photo credits. It is much simpler and gives you a wide variety of real weddings. You can still tag the vendors and venue that was involved in the wedding and get the same results but save a ton of time.

Conclusion

The quick answer is that shoots can certainly provide a big value to your business. It definitely can be a great opportunity and I recommend everyone try it at least once.  It has the potential to allow you to have exposure to massive learning opportunities, both positive and negative.

The bottom line is that if you want to create a spectacular shoot, they do require a fair amount of collaboration and teamwork, along with considerable costs. Today’s shoots' content is very content fashion-forward, featuring stunning gowns, floral creations, and other high-end rentals and other details. For all involved to pull off a styled shoot worth posting can be costly, but it can be worthwhile if you hit your mark. 

If it is something you think you want to try, keep your eye out for one of our Styled Shoot workshops.

 

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