Wedding Photography Marketing Tips: How to Use Your Portfolio to Reach Your Wedding Clients

Your wedding photography portfolio is an important marketing asset in your photography business, especially for photographers that get tongue tied or have a hard time selling themselves. You can simply let your work speak for you. Here are a few tips to maximize your online photography portfolios sales effect:

• Keep them industry specific. If you’re targeting a wedding client, don’t include senior photos, 16^th birthday parties, or corporate events in your wedding portfolio.

• Reflect your target audience. Your portfolio should be reflective of exactly what type of weddings you would like to execute. Are they DIY brides? Or are they extravagant ballroom brides? Brides with unlimited budgets are looking for designer wedding gowns, elaborate table settings, perfect lighting, and top shelf cocktails. While brides on a budget look for unique ways to maximize their resources. Create your portfolio to reflect the mid and top tier pricing structure so your potential clients can see themselves in your preferred option. 

• Keep on trend and in season. Your marketing pieces need to be on trend. The wedding business is at the mercy of fashion, color, and style. Resist the temptation to include images that date you or your business, even if it’s the best image you have ever taken. If a bride sees images of a wedding where the bride has a dress with puffy sleeves, she is going to think you haven’t been in the wedding industry since the 1980’s. Don’t give them the wrong impression. Sure styles eventually return – but try to update all of your marketing materials each season. Brides looking for a winter wedding are going to love all of your images of fur coats and pine trees. While a summer bride will want to see peonies. If you are just starting out, create a styled shoot with some other wedding professionals and create the image brides are looking for. Even seasoned wedding professionals can take advantage of styled shoots to update a portfolio, showcase diversity or refocus a target audience to include bigger budget events.

• Include all the types of shots that brides want to see. Help her envision her wedding day. Add in detail shots of jewelry, shoes, flowers, the invitations, and even the trays of hor d'oeuvres. Then bring in the bride, groom, and wedding party staged images. Include location images, table settings, the walk down the aisle, and the cake cutting. Don’t forget the images that tell the story and convey the emotion of the day. These are the images that really let the bride get excited about the entire experience. First glance images, putting on the dress, and the guys tying bow ties and shoe laces are all images that create connections between the bride and the vendors. Again, don’t forget to ask yourself – are the brides/locations/venues/vendor partners in my marketing pieces the type of bride that I want to pursue?