Grant and I have realized that having an efficient workflow when it comes to weddings is huge! It’s something that our couples appreciate, even if they don’t realize it at the time!
So, what exactly am I talking about?
Grant and I have different “workflows” for each of the many phases of photographing a wedding. Today I’m going to focus on our post-wedding workflow, which encompasses the entire week after the wedding and is the key to our ability to send our couples their entire, completed wedding gallery in under 10 days. We absolutely love being able to provide our couples with their wedding photos so soon after they return from their honeymoon!
Our post-wedding workflow actually starts before we even leave the wedding. While I’m photographing the last hour of party dancing, Grant backs up all of our cards onto an external hard drive so the photos are saved in multiple locations, while also getting everything ready for me to cull (eliminating any test shots, photos that are out of focus, where eyes are closed, etc.). While Grant drives us home, I cull through the entire day and import all of the photos into Lightroom. Once we’re home, everything is backed up to several other external hard drives and a solid state drive. On most post-wedding nights–depending on our coverage and length of driving–we normally don’t go to bed until after midnight. This makes for a LONG day since we typically get up between 5 and 6 that morning, but we do it so that on Monday morning I can immediately get started on Tuesday’s blog post preparation.
Monday morning rolls around and I pick roughly 100-150 images taken throughout the wedding day and edit them all. Either Grant or I will write a blog post sharing about the day and then add those photos to the post. On Tuesday, the blog goes LIVE, which gives our couples a sneak peek of their wedding! For the rest of the week, I will spend hours editing an entire gallery, which usually ends up being over 1,000 photos. Grant is a huge help during this time, taking on a lot of the cleaning, laundry and food prep so I can finish editing.
Yes, we absolutely could take our time and send out our photos 3-4 weeks after the wedding like most photographers do, but we want to be different and invest the time during the first week to provide our couples with a completed gallery as they return from their honeymoon. Last year, all of our couples received their wedding galleries less than 10 days after their wedding!
I really believe we’re able to make this happen for our couples because of our very structured workflow starting before the wedding is even over. Spending the extra time immediately after a wedding to cull, import and back-up photos, ensures that on Monday morning I am ready to start working on the blog and the images for it. It’s a lot of work, but the reward is how excited and thrilled our couples are when they are able to see the first glimpses of their wedding images on Tuesday’s blog post and receive their entire gallery the following week!
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