Today I’m excited to share about the experience we offer for our couples when they ask us to photograph their big day. From the beginning of our business, Grant and I wanted to ensure that we always made each couple feel special. We want to provide every couple with such an incredible experience that instead of feeling burdened by another vendor, they feel like they have gained new friends who are there to help make their day the best ever.
Once a couple books with us, we send them a welcome gift box that comes with a special bridal guide that is FULL of valuable information to help our brides plan their wedding day. A groom’s guide is also in the works so all the guys don’t feel left out. 🙂
We love being available to answer any questions our couples may have throughout the months leading up to their wedding. The bridal guide has helped to answer a lot of questions already, but we still love continuing to chat with our brides and hearing their plans along the way.
With each of our wedding packages we offer a complimentary engagement session. We make it complimentary as a way to encourage couples to do an engagement session with us so we can get to know each other better. We LOVE these sessions with our couples! We’ve been known to spend an extra hour with our couples just chatting and getting to know each other better and we love that! It’s also a great way to ease into posing so that the couple feels more comfortable and excited for their portraits on the wedding day. We typically do their engagement session as early in advance that the couple wants to be able to use them for save the dates.
Roughly two months before the wedding, we send a questionnaire about their specific plans for the wedding day. For example, whether or not they are doing a first look or traditional, father daughter look, etc. It also goes over the colors the couple are using for their wedding so if I don’t have matching detail items, I have the time to purchase those. Common items are silk ribbon and a ring box that I love to have for styling wedding details. 🙂
From there, we build a detailed timeline specific to their needs. Something we’ve started doing this year is meeting with the couple to go over the timeline and hear any concerns they might have, as well as to take note of any special or unique events they want photographed. This is something we could do over the phone or via video chat, but I love the extra time with the couple that it gives us, especially because this is usually planned a month or so before their wedding. 🙂
The day before the wedding, we’re prepping gear, charging batteries, calibrating lenses (if needed), and getting a details bag put together with ribbon, styling mat, ring box, etc.
On the wedding day, we show up ready and eager to be with our couple and see them finally get married! 🙂 Wedding days make me so happy, and I love how excited and happy our couple is that THEIR day is here at last! 🙂
Last week we shared our post-wedding workflow, so I won’t repeat any of that, but you can check it out here. We love that we’ve been able to continue the experience with our couples by giving them their entire wedding gallery in less than 10 days! I’ve not heard anyone complain about it, so I think they enjoy it as well. 🙂
We send one final gift to our couples after that, which I’ll keep a secret in case any of our couples are reading this. 😉
If the couple ordered a wedding album, we work on this once the gallery is finished and try to have the completed album sent to our couples 8 weeks after their wedding.
We never want that final gift or wedding album to be our last time communicating with our couples. We want to continue that friendship! So, we’ve been talking about doing a reunion with our couples once a year! What?! Grant and I talked about doing our first one this summer, but then COVID-19 happened and we had to delay the idea. So, we’re going to reevaluate this summer and see if we could possibly still make it happen this fall! 🙂
We rarely do discounts, but all our HGP couples will receive 20% off any session type (anniversary, family, etc) every year for the rest of our lives! Okay, or at least until we retire from the photography world. 😉 It’s just one little extra way we can still be part of their life and also say thank you.
We hope you enjoyed reading about the experience we offer to our couples! And if you’re a bride looking for a wedding photographer, we would love to chat with you! 🙂
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