This week was another good week! I feel like good weeks generally keep good weeks coming. My life here is by no means all pretty flowers, gorgeous wedding venues and beautiful rings ALL day every day! Most of it is just sitting behind the computer with a top knot and an unfinished mug of coffee next to me, typing out this blog post or emailing a client, or putting together something useful for 2018 brides, or even mundane things like marking expenses as business or personal. It’s a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes that doesn’t always get showcased! So, I want these posts to be a little bit more transparent with everything that goes behind doing wedding photography 🙂

So that being said, here’s prominent parts of the week (aka generally a lot of food highlights hahaha):

– I went out to the Wharf in D.C. on a super windy day with Naveen and LOVED IT!!! Also, they get a million bonus points for having a brand new Dolcezza gelato and coffee store which also features BREAKFAST FOOD!! I mean check out this menu & this super cute penguin 😀

  

– I got to virtually hang out with all of my girls from college who are now all over the US via Google 😀 It was definitely the highlight of my week getting to catch up with everyone & hear about all the awesome things that people have been up to. And it was also comforting to realize that yea sure, we’re “real adults” now, but we’re still ourselves and having fun! I also think everyone appreciates the fact that they get wayyy more sleep now post that E-school life!!!

– It feels so much quieter around here now that everyone who was back from UVA for break has gone back to school again but I’m excited to get back to practice, practice, practice!! I’m performing with DCBC at an upcoming bhangra competition called East Coast Bhangra (ECS) at UVA and I am SO excited to be going 😀 At first I didn’t think I was going to be able to perform but now that I am able to I CAN’T WAIT to be able to be in Charlottesville for a weekend, compete with my DCBC crew and get to hang out with all of my UVA homies!!! It’ll be like YAR PART TWO! and I’m so, so exciteddd.

– Anyone see the Vikings victory over the Saints? I was totally rooting for the Saints but damn, that was a CLUTCH ending!! If you didn’t se it, go check out the highlights, it was a crazy game!

– For any of you craving Bodo’s, try out Bethesda Bagels in Dupont Circle! I promise this will help you get your fix of the water bagels & bagel sandwiches we all love Bodos for <3

– I spent a lot of time configuring HoneyBook which is my new customer management system that tracks all of my project/wedding details in one place! So far I’m loving it (except for that one time I accidentally sent someone a slew of template emails…). I added the Wedding Questionnaire that I send to couples 2 months before their wedding day into HoneyBook to provide a seamless experience and added a portion to my website regarding what the wedding experience with me looks like from start to end! I also updated my engagement questionnaire to reflect these changes. Along with that I fixed up a section of Frequently Asked Questions to include in my Wedding Collections & Pricing guide! You see what I mean about the top knots & coffee and hours at a computer rather than just taking pretty pictures? But I really love it!! Because from all the hard work comes news like that below:

 – I BOOKED ANOTHER WEDDING!!!! I legitimately love this couple already 🙂 We FaceTimed since they currently live in San Francisco and they are just the most easygoing and laugh loving (that’s a thing…) people I’ve met! The groom to be designed one stellar engagement ring that I can’t wait to photograph soon as their official wedding photographer!!!

– I AM GOING TO BE WORKING WITH ONE OF THE TOP PHOTOGRAPHY INDUSTRY LEADERS THIS YEAR!!!!!!!! I know, all caps, this is excessive but this is someone that I’ve looked up to for probably over five years now. You know when you meet a movie star in real life? I’ve never been a fan of actors/actresses but I FANGIRL over some of these well-known photographers and she is one of them! Despite being around the same age, she has worked really hard and been so incredibly successful, she hosts her own photography workshops and even teaches at conferences! I will be photographing a handful of weddings alongside her this year and I can’t wait to get to meet her in person (I was NOT cool over FaceTime when I talked to her hahaha let’s be real) and get to know her personally over this upcoming year 🙂 Plus a little bird told me that I’m sharing this whole experience with another photographer friend which makes this all the sweeter. I’m so excited to get to go out to this photographer’s workshop which is right after ECS! I had been planning on trying to make it out to a conference this year as one of my 2018 goals and it’s cool to see this coming to life!!!

If you read to the end of this, you’re a champ and I thank you for being a small part of my journey here with my little business 🙂 It couldn’t be possible without you!

PAST FRIDAY FUN POSTS!

The One with Biscuits & Warm January Days

The First of 2018!

Wind, Hats, Cake & The Crown

 

 

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, whenever I mentioned to my friends and family that I was preparing for a fall themed styled shoot with Jontell I got a bunch of funny looks. Such happens when you start throwing out wedding industry jargon and then realize that it’s not a common term. I found myself trying to explain what a styled shoot was in a couple of sentences and then realizing how specific of a thing it was to the wedding industry. When you explain a styled shoot, it almost seems a little weird. A whole mock wedding set up only to take pictures? How does that work and why do you do it in the first place? I tried to break down the answer to these questions below for anyone that’s curious!

A styled shoot is essentially a gathering of wedding vendors’ resources & talents to create a staged wedding or event with a certain vision in mind that would appeal to an ideal client.  They range from simple to more elaborate affairs. Ours involved a wedding venue, a florist, a cake and sweets, models to act as a bride and groom,  a calligrapher and sign designer, a videographer which was pretty cool, a bridal boutique, and a hair and makeup artist to help bring our fall themed & sweet obsessed vision to life. We set up a sweetheart table where the couple would sit as well as a dessert table with the cake as the main focus along with a few other fall themed desserts. So WHY do people go to such lengths, volunteer their time, efforts and skills to put together a mock event if you’re already in the wedding industry space and have REAL clients?

Getting a styled shoot that you have put together published in a creditable online magazine is a great way to earn credibility! Not only are you able to show off beautiful images from the day, but a publication is able to recognize the quality of your work and wants to showcase it to their viewers and brides. It not only provides a sense of inspiration on the blog where it is published, but it also attracts your ideal clients. For photographers and other wedding vendors, it’s important to showcase the kind of work that you would LIKE and your ideal style in your portfolio. For example, if I’m looking to attract more brides interested in having a vineyard wedding, they are more likely to identify me as someone they’d like to work with if they have seen that I have photographed vineyard weddings before rather than if I showcased a lot of weddings photographed in an urban city. Also, photographers always have high quality images of their work to post online, but this isn’t necessarily true for all other wedding vendors. When they receive images from the shoot, it gives them a chance to showcase their hard work and dedication beautifully online.

When you are working with paid clients you are providing them a service to help bring together their vision for their wedding day come to life. Although every professional is given some sort of artistic control to make this happen, as someone putting together a styled shoot, you have full control over the starting vision or theme for the day AND more control over the details as well! As a photographer this is huge since you scarcely have the opportunity to choose exactly which venue or general aesthetic you’ll be working with until you’re established enough to only take weddings that are “on brand” or align with your aesthetic preferences. As someone who has second shot a lot of weddings, not each wedding aligns to the kind of wedding I would want to showcase in my portfolio simply due to the fact that I have a different personal style than that of the bride. It’s not to say that these weddings weren’t gorgeous (they totally were!), but not all of their details were necessarily ones that I would have had at my dream wedding and that’s ok! Being able to photograph every detail and have it be something that I would want to showcase in my portfolio to attract ideal clients with similar details on their wedding day is a huge advantage of photographing a styled shoot! This is not to say that Jontell and I nitpicked and gave our vendors no control, we just communicated a very specific vision to our vendors to bring about details that would match this vision.

3. I think one of the most under-looked, but most important aspects of putting together a styled shoot is developing relationships with the vendors you are working with. A styled shoot gives you the chance to work with wedding vendors across the industry that you may have admired and to appreciate the hard work that each and every one brings to a wedding. You get a chance to get a feel for what it’s like to work alongside them and to connect with them in person! It’s important to have these relationships with vendors so that if you have a bride or client looking for a specific vendor, you can refer someone amazing with confidence to them that you would absolutely love to work with again! It helps strengthen your relationships and is a great way to network within the industry when you’re getting started! I knew that I worked well with Jontell, which is why we decided to put this shoot on together, but it was so cool to meet some vendors that I had followed online in person finally!

4. And the last reason is the most important of all: TO HAVE FUN!! A styled shoot is arguably less stressful than a wedding day and gives you more of a chance to be creative and practice your passion! It also was my excuse to drive down early to YAR and buy some fall decorations and sweets! 😉 I think the fact that styled shoots are so common in the wedding industry and people who may not have even met each other will so kindly offer up a whole day as well as their work for a collective vision is really, really cool!

I can’t share TOO many pictures from Jontell and my styled shoot since we’re trying to get it published, but here’s a little teaser for anyone that read through this entire post!!

 

 

 

 

I mean, could they BE more adorable?!! That is Marla, she’s also an incredible photographer & a pretty cool human being so you should go check her out as well as the rest of our vendors featured below!

Venue:  Delfosse Vineyards & Winery
Photography: Jontell Vanessa Photography & Manali Photography
Videography: Mckenzie, Travel House Collective
Cake & Desserts: Tiffany of Commonwealth Cake
Florals: The Faded Poppy
Hair & Makeup: Nicole Laughlin
Bridal Boutique: Sealed With a Kiss, Charlottesville
Signs: Desiree, Reciprocated Designs
Invitation Suite: Becky J, Becky J Invitations

 

READY TO START PUTTING SYSTEMS IN PLACE IN YOUR BUSINESS?

If you’re wondering what the inside of a successful & streamlined photography business that focuses heavily on creating an incredible client experience, then the Behind the Business Course & Toolkit is for you!

It includes everything from email templates, client questionnaires, workflows for portraits & questionnaires, a breakdown of a profitable marketing strategy & how to streamline and organize each and every part of your business to grow it quickly through happy clients.

More of a visual learner? Be sure to watch the totally-free masterclass to uplevel your client experience and triple your prices!

 

This post is gonna be a little bit longer because that is my best friend down there!!!!

I’ve known Sachi since before we could even walk really, there’s pictures of us in those cute little party hats at our second birthday party. She’s been my best friend growing up and we’ve gone through almost everything together. I’m talking elementary school, those awkward middle school years, hundreds of dance performances together, choreographing and dancing for our high school dance company, surviving the IB program at South Lakes and then four years (well five for her because she did a co-op at Altec!) of the engineering life at VT and UVA. She’s been there for me through literally everything. We’ve watched each other grow and always been the ones to keep each other in check and be honest with each other.

I remember four years ago when she called me up when we were both starting out in college and she told me that she had met a boy. Our friend had dragged her to go get icecream and they had tagged along with two guys. Well one of those guys was Kunal and I could tell from the first few minutes of talking to me about him, that this was someone that was a keeper. He was sweet, funny, calm, and down to earth. A basketball fanatic and “mathlete.” They started dating within the first few weeks of college and Drillfield dates eventually turned into a strong four year relationship. They’ve been through semesters together at VT to semesters being apart handling grueling co-op schedules and only strengthened their relationship through their experiences. They are two people that you can simply count on to make it work and have been my role models for what a great relationship in college looks like. They are so supportive of each other but also very honest with each other always, always work through their differences.

I’ve been meaning to take their pictures together for ages but there were so many summers that we were in different places. But this summer, they were both in Northern Virginia and I needed a couple to dress up all fancy for a shoot. I asked Sachi and she said they could make it work within the next couple of days. We metroed in to D.C. and right before they went to a J. Cole concert in D.C we went over to the Kennedy Center to take pictures. I have been dying to take pictures at the Kennedy Center for years, so this in of itself made my heart so happy. But this shoot ended up being one of my favorite shoots to date!!! I mean you can’t go wrong taking pictures of your best friend and her boyfriend when they looked like models straight out of a magazine! And for people that don’t exactly enjoy “posing” in front of the camera, they were AMAZING!! We got through everything so quickly and effortlessly, you guys seemed like naturals 🙂 Thank you guys sooo much for helping me out and letting me take your pictures!!! Here’s some of my favorites from the shoot!

Favorite! ^^^ They have the dance dip down to a T! Thank you for modeling for me for this shoot and I can’t wait for all the pictures of you guys I hope to take in the future 🙂

I actually made a very similar post a while ago about my favorite locations to take portraits at the University of Virginia and so I figured since often one of the first questions I get asked is which locations I recommend when people start to book with me. I decided to compile a list of locations that make for great backdrops and share it on the blog today! I will say as a mini disclaimer that more so than any location, the lighting determines the quality of how your pictures will turn out. This is why I always aim to take portraits about 2 hours before sunset in order to get soft, beautiful, flattering light. This makes it easy to take pictures in any spot at the chosen location whereas harsh light at a location makes it difficult to get even light on you and the background simultaneously. However, when the light is softer, it is easier to incorporate elements of the location in the background of your pictures adding to the variety of shots that you can. Here are my top five places to take pictures at around Northern Virginia.

1. Georgetown Canals & Waterfront
   I absolutely LOVE shooting at Georgetown because of the variety of locations that are just perfect there! Out of all of these places, Georgetown goes on the top of my list because of the variety of locations all in one place as well as my familiarity and the number of portrait sessions I’ve shot there. And I somehow seem to find a hidden gem of a location every time I’m back there. I could seriously wander around the streets without a plan of specific locations there beforehand and find the most amazing spots to take pictures in! There are cute cobblestone streets that add a bit of an old-time European flair to pictures which I love and have overarching trees that make for perfect lighting in the evening. The canals have the prettiest light that filters through and there are pedestrian bridges that provide some variety of your shots on the way down to the canals. Georgetown University itself has the most gorgeous gothic architecture. And you can end at the Waterfront Park which has gives you the amazing backdrop of the Key Bridge or the Kennedy Center at sunset! Plus, there’s boats parked along the side if you want a slight nautical twist to your photos!
2. Old Town Alexandria Waterfront
   Although, I’ve only been to Old Town Alexandria a couple of times I’ve shot portraits here almost every time I’ve been! Old Town is similar to Georgetown in that it has smaller cobblestone streets that make the perfect backdrop. Market Square has a huge outdoor fountain that works great and nearby alleys are perfect for more private locations with gorgeous light filtering through! However, the reason I love Old Town Alexandria most is for their waterfront and docks. They have ships parked in the harbor, all the wooden docks and boats to make any nautical heart happy, and even a gazebo at the end of the dock that makes for perfect pictures! If you’re the kind of person that loves having salty wind in their hair and being by the water and want that captured in your pictures, this is the place for you!
3. Kennedy Center Rooftop
   Classic, simple, elegant, and with the most breathtaking view of everything DC has to offer. If you’re a Northern Virginia local and have never been up to the rooftop at the Kennedy Center, I highly recommend you check it out! Come for a show, spend some time at their rooftop bar, or just go right on up to the top to enjoy some beautiful panoramic views of DC at sunset. The rooftop terrace gives you 360 degree access to the DC skyline. This place is a DREAM to take pictures at because they have a gorgeous river terrace as well with pools and beautiful trees.
4. Jefferson Memorial & Reflecting Pool
   As an alumna of the University of Virginia (still getting used to saying that!!), I absolutely love the classic white pillars and architecture of the UVA Rotunda. And nothing reminds me more of it than DC’s own Jefferson Memorial! This gorgeous memorial is right off of the Tidal Basin offering some of the best views, has white looming pillars all around, and marble stairs for days that lead right to the Reflecting Pool and a view of the Monument. It’s the perfect backdrop for pictures if you’re willing to get up bright and early to beat crowds or are ok maneuvering a bit around while having your pictures taken to avoid too many people in the back of your shots.
5. Union Station & United States Capitol Building
   Although I have never been here for a photoshoot, I think both places provide the classic DC architecture with lots of light beaming off of the pillars that is great!! It’s definitely a look that isn’t done too often, and if DC is of importance to you then this is the place to have your pictures taken! Same as the Jefferson Memorial, as with anywhere else in DC, you may need to be a little bit more patient here than at other less bustling location, however I think it’s well worth any waiting!

I hope this list of locations is useful if you’re picking out the perfect location for your photoshoot. I have a couple of other locations on my list as well, so if none of these appeal very strongly to you, then feel free to reach out to me to ask about other locations I think would better suit your style!

READY TO START PUTTING SYSTEMS IN PLACE IN YOUR BUSINESS?

If you’re wondering what the inside of a successful & streamlined photography business that focuses heavily on creating an incredible client experience, then the Behind the Business Course & Toolkit is for you!

It includes everything from email templates, client questionnaires, workflows for portraits & questionnaires, a breakdown of a profitable marketing strategy & how to streamline and organize each and every part of your business to grow it quickly through happy clients.

More of a visual learner? Be sure to watch the totally-free masterclass to uplevel your client experience and triple your prices!

Two Friday Fun posts in a row? Oh my…well I actually decided to take a break for this week, partially because of Fourth of July! My aunt, uncle and their one year old baby boy came for a couple of days and I spent so much time playing with him!! It was such a nice break from the past couple of crazy weeks. And just before I knew it Tuesday turned into Thursday night and this week just flew by!! So no, I didn’t hit my goal of blogging three times this week, but I’m ok with it! Here’s still a recap of some parts over the past week and a quick look at what’s to come!

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-My aunt’s baby was sooo stinking cute!!! I spent about five days playing with him and getting to know him, it was amazing 🙂 He was so full of energy, crawled all over the place faster than I could really keep up with sometimes! His favorite things to do included climbing our stairs (his house doesn’t have any so he was fascinated with ours), making things spin (the fidget spinner was a great hit), making noises with objects (I made a game of throwing a seashell in a bowl), and playing roll catch (I’m totally making that up) with a ball! He definitely could recognize who I was a couple of days in and we became great friends 🙂

-On the flip side, I didn’t really leave the house except for getting dinner on Friday and Saturday night. A lot of Gilmore Girls was watched which was great but when I don’t leave my house in like a day or two, I get SUPER antsy. I don’t know what it is but I get restless if I don’t, which often leads to trips to Harris Teeter, Target or the mall which can be dangerous

-Such a dangerous trip to the mall was made on Wednesday. I went to buy a new candle and came back with an additional lipstick, two dresses, and a top……so there goes my shopping for July! But I regret nothing, they were all great finds and things I will definitely be making use of

-I miss my brother who’s in Austin, TX for a school club project test run this week. I keep almost asking my parents where he is. It’s safe to say it’s been a little quieter around here after the baby left and without him around

-The Fourth of July got super rained out and I didn’t end up celebrating at all!! And I really love the holiday because it’s during the summer, it’s the perfect excuse to get together with friends and family, eat all the food and I absolutely LOVE fireworks. I’m like a little kid that stares up in awe and gets really excited over them. So I made the next day my own little personal July Fourth. I celebrated with breakfast for lunch, iced coffee that turned out being better warm, making brownies and decorating them with strawberries & whip cream to make a flag, and watching the fireworks in Ashburn. I also sat for half an hour picking out blue sprinkles from a multicolored batch for the “stars” on my flag hahaha 🙂

-Thursday was a day for bookkeeping, backing up my hard drives, cleaning out my SD cards, recharging my camera battery, packing and planning for Charlottesville. I’ll be there this weekend celebrating being back with friends that I haven’t seen in so long and I am SO excited!! We’re planning on going to Pippin Hill (favorite winery) and Bold Rock (favorite brewery), eating at ALL the essential places on the Corner, celebrating a friend’s 22nd birthday and the soon-to-be moving out of another friend! It’s going to be such a fun weekend filled with sooo much food and a little booze 😉 If someone can muster up some sparklers, it’ll make it a week of celebrating the fourth! Here’s a couple of pictures of some of the girls I can’t wait to meet up with for dinner tonight!