Yesterday I photographed my 100th wedding.

Fourteen years ago I photographed a friend’s wedding and my cousin saw the photos. He asked me to take his wedding pictures and with two wedding under my belt, I had an album to show around. I never advertised, and got all my referrals from weddings I photographed and by word of mouth. My first paid wedding probably resulted in about one-third of all my weddings… a hint of what a network can do for you! In 2005 I had to say ‘No’ to six weddings as a result of going to Oregon and working on my Masters Paper… and things really fell off after that. Now I basically photograph friends and their friends so this was my second of two weddings this year.

This has always been a hobby, so I give my clients their negatives, and my prices have always been reasonable. I don’t know if I could have done this any other way and felt good about it, and I don’t think this could ever have been a career for me. I still enjoy photographing weddings, but I’m happy that I’m down to just a couple every year now.

So what have I learned after 100 weddings?

• Be prepared: Rain? I bring two umbrellas (one black and one white). Camera fails? I have a back-up. Above and beyond extra batteries & film, phone on vibrate (or off), extra lenses, camera manual, and business cards, I also had a clearly explained plan for the photos…

• Be Explicit: I always meet my customers before the wedding and make sure that they knew exactly what their time with me will look like, how long it will take, and what they can do to help me. I also make sure that the plan met their needs as well as mine…

• Listen: It is their wedding and their memories, not mine. I once took the family photos and all my ‘money’ shots of the bride and groom in 30 minutes. They told me the timeline needed to stay tight. I told them what they needed to do to help me make it happen. I would have loved at least 20 more minutes, but I listened and realized the strict timeline was important to them. 

• Deliver: Better yet, under-promise and over-deliver. One thing I have always done is give the bride and groom a few 5×7’s as my gift to them. By doing this, our last interaction would be a generous offering from me, and I got to highlight what I thought was my best work.

• Be assertive: This is different than ‘bossy’ and requires confidence. With a plan in place, I could take 50+ different combinations of family member photos in less than 20 minutes… and have the family feel like I ran a ‘tight ship’ rather than a ‘dictatorship’. 

• Be brief: I didn’t go to all of the receptions for my 100 weddings, but I went to enough to learn the value of this lesson! If you are going to speak for longer than 3 minutes, either be entertaining, heartfelt or captivating. I’ve heard some amazing speeches and I’ve heard some that have made fingernails on a chalkboard seem like a symphony by comparison.  

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So there are my lessons learned: Be Prepared, Be Specific, Listen, Deliver, Be Assertive, and Be Brief.

I could rewrite this post and apply these lessons to the classroom, or better yet I’ll just plant that seed with you and see what blossoms.