Streamline Your Invoicing with Photography Bill Book for Enterprises

Photography bill book for enterprises

hey thank you for clicking on such a long video i know that might feel intimidating but i really hope this video is informative for you it is a big section of one of the modules in my brand new course called the classroom for wedding photographers and wedding filmmakers two separate courses or two if you'd like to get both of them um this is the free module that i'm just giving away to everybody and this is 45 minutes of the entire two hour module so if you get to the end of this and you still want to watch the rest of module 7 the client experience you can click the link in the description to go watch that if you're inside of watching this during launch week which ends november 1st at midnight 2021 so if you're watching this outside of launch week after november 1st at midnight in 2021 you can still click the link in the description to be notified of any other educational stuff i do when it comes to photo and video education hey welcome to module 7 client experience as as insecure as i feel about any kind of technical thing in my business this is the thing i feel rock solid on the thing that i feel like is one of my biggest strengths and not something where you need a whole ton of technical skill it just involves a lot of heart and it involves a lot of care and caring for your clients so let's just jump into it um yeah i'm really pumped to talk about this with you guys today i just want to open up with this idea that one thing we often get mistaken as artists as artist entrepreneurs we're in the client service industry we provide service a service to our clients we might give them digital tangible items at the end of our service but we are serving them throughout a wedding day throughout the beginning process and prepping for it and even serving them when delivering their images and their videos as well so above all else um this is this is what we do especially above our own ego or ultimately that's what i believe it should be because at the end of the day photographing a wedding isn't about us we're just the vehicle and the medium in which our clients get to experience that day again get to see it again get to relive it again get to experience it again so this is at the core of who i am my business and the core philosophy of what i do to give my clients a good experience setting aside my own ego of the instagram bangers that i get to put out into the world are the youtube videos that i get to make and put out into the world but rather putting them at the forefront of everything i do and that being the primary focus the first thing you could be the greatest photographer or filmmaker in the world but if you don't treat people well you'll never run a successful and sustainable business i truly believe this sentiment that in some way at some point you're going to crash and burn whether it's because you make a client very unhappy or multiple clients very unhappy or if you just make it all about yourself you're going to feel unfulfilled eventually because we all kind of feel that way after a certain amount of time without feeling anything without feeling like we're giving back in any capacity you might disagree with the sentiment but i just truly believe that that's the case that if we don't have a deeper and more meaningful purpose behind our work that it's just going to lead to that burnout and also we should just treat everyone well always because that's just a great way to live and i hope that you believe the set that same sentiment no matter who it is no matter if they agree with your philosophy or they agree with the things you believe or your worldview or whatever just setting that ego aside and serving whoever is in front of the camera so we're gonna kick this off with a live client demo call uh you might recognize this couple we're just gonna go through what it looks like after an inquiry and what it looks like just to have that phone call and all the questions that a client or clients might ask and all of the responses that i would give in response to said questions said popular questions so let's kick it off hey guys obviously i know these two if you watch our podcast rally cap steven is my co-host i shot steven and laura's wedding back in 2019 so clearly we're not going to be doing an actual uh potential client meeting because that would be super awkward with a camera in the corner like signing a release at the end being like oh yeah by the way i was filming you this whole time is that okay i use it for my course so obviously we're not going to do that but we're going to emulate exactly what it looks like to have a sit-down conversation with me whether it's face-to-face like this which is what i highly recommend to get that face-to-face time start earning that trust building that relationship and if this isn't possible at least doing facetime or google hangouts or zoom or whatever you use online to try to get that face-to-face interaction there's such from my anecdotal experience and all the other anecdotal experiences i've heard from friends you have a much higher booking rate with the face-to-face communication as opposed to audio just on the phone so really push for that face-to-face meeting show off your personality lay some dad jokes on them and then you know uh yeah sell them with like who you are and really get into your philosophy like as you'll see here so without further ado you guys ready yes ready cool thanks for coming out guys appreciate it of course thanks for having us this place is really cool yeah it's uh we've had it for like well this one we've had for sevenish months we used to have a unit downstairs um and we had that one for like three and a half years you might see people come in and out it's a co-working space and we're all photographers and filmmakers and creatives um but yeah like we shoot around the corner over there you can see there's like a bunch of natural light and it's not like totally done right now we sorry it's kind of rough around the edges right now but uh we'll yeah we in the next like coming months and year we're gonna be furnishing it doing fun stuff with it wish you could have seen the last space all built out but um i really appreciate you guys coming out i always like i never like to just like jump into business on these meetings i always want to like ask you guys who you are so like are you cool just sharing your story and i don't want you to like hold back at all so tell me like everything how you met plans for the future all that stuff definitely so i mean we got engaged i think two months ago now we've been together for a little over three years uh we actually we met in college i was a junior she was a senior cougar i know i'm really i mean i wasn't gonna say i felt really cool when i told my friends about that but we met at a little kind of beginning of the year barbecue that happened in the building that we lived in which is funny because we're both vegetarian we are so we met at a barbecue yeah yeah a nice little ironic footnote but yeah we we met there she actually had no idea who i was really and she actually had a little crush on a friend of mine a roommate actually uh but when i got back to our apartment after i was like guys who is that laura girl she is so cool and some of my roommates we're friends with her and they're like whoa we got to hook this up we got to make this happen they were super excited because they were some of my good friends they were seniors and so we had gone to school together and then i just had never met stephen which is crazy yeah um but he did stand out that day even though i did have a crush on someone else at the time i literally stood out because i'm six foot three and she's always looked for someone tall so true that's my favorite thing about it i was head and shoulders above the competition so um yeah a couple months pass and we saw each other here and there and this because we lived in the same apartment building would say hi every now and again i worked at the gym at our school and so he would come and work out and so he would see me there sometimes too but nothing really happened until until i woke up one day and decided that it was just the day to go to her apartment and ask her out like out of the call ask me it was it was like a message from the lord because i woke up and i was like this is the day i'm going to ask laura out on a date and i tried once in the afternoon and i got cold feet and so i i took off after that no until later in the day let me just set the scene for that first one oh no so i was um walking out of a class in the science building i was a biology major steven shouldn't be in the science building he somehow popped up next to me yeah i studied and started walking with me and he's someone who i didn't know at that time and he just started walking me to like the mail room and i was like what is this guy doing we like have said hi to each other like three times before or after the barbecue this is after the barbecue this is i knew him but like it wasn't total strangers but it was like passing conversations where the most he'd ever interacted and suddenly i was like let me walk you to your next class kind of thing yeah so we get to my next so we stopped at the mail room went to calculus that was my class and x that was next and um across from inside the campuses too and we get to calculus and he was like okay bye and i was just like i mean all right so you clearly had an inkling that he had a thing i was like something's going on here this is this is interesting so then later on that day um i also happened to run into one of his best friends who did some detective work and found out that i was going to be in my apartment later that night after an all hall meeting and told stephen this information so that he could actually go and ask me out so then he was a great wingman but also that stood out like a sore thumb even more because okay why is this guy's friend asking what i'm up to later honestly that was i was it didn't it wasn't that wasn't weird it just like happened no no no it wasn't weird it was just i don't know so anyways so then it's later that night i get a knock knock knock on my door and since we had this all hall meeting i was with um eight of my like best girlfriends in the apartment that we lived in all of us together and we opened the door it's sweet little stephen oh you didn't you didn't open the door oh no i didn't i yeah well again to actually set the scene again for this part first floor is where i live third floor is where you live i walked up to the third floor and paced outside your door for 10 minutes i texted chase he hyped me up i was like okay the wingman from earlier from earlier cold feet again almost got cold feet again did for 10 minutes my feet were very cold during all that pacing and then i thought okay i'm just going to do this i knocked i heard one person say come in great awesome i opened the door and like a horror movie all eight of their heads turned to me and looked at me and i got so scared that i didn't even step foot in their apartment i just kind of like leaned in like used the door to prop myself up a little bit just kind of leaned my body in literally his head was in the room and i made the most awkward small talk for like 60 seconds and i said hey um can i talk to you pointing to laura and she's like oh yeah she doesn't say my name no points at me can i talk to you and i'm like in the corner so i got into the and they all just go away uh yes sure exactly so we go out we go out we talk and i ask you out to coffee we didn't even have each other's numbers so we exchanged numbers um and then i opened up my door and all the girls were at the door listening and they were all so excited so so excited and then you go down i walk into my apartment and they all stop as soon as i open the door and they look at me and i'm like we're going out on friday and they start beating their chests and they jump up on the coffee table and they're like hooting and hollering and it was hysterical yeah it was it was a very good moment i'll never forget that then we went on our first date um two days after i asked you after yeah went on a second date two days after that had a steady date the day after that one yep so in four days we had roughly three dates yeah and then i mean we can go on forever but that's that's the beginning of a relationship and from the very beginning we like knew that we were going to get married um i was always the very closed off logical non-emotional one so it took a lot of convincing to get this uh this hardened heart to actually uh admit that we were going to get married and you know that we were in love and all of that um so yeah that leads us to where we are today and we are just so excited to get married and we're excited that you are shooting our wedding too or hopefully as long as this all works out um and so yeah we would love to hear a little bit more maybe from you about how you shoot i know i love your photos like on instagram and youtube videos and stuff um steven is a huge fan of your work too he's the one who found you first um yeah so i just kind of love to hear a little bit more too about your style cool pause um so not all conversations go like this there are a lot of conversations that are like a minute where they're just like yeah we met in college and now we're getting married and yeah that's about it and you're like okay so what i want to teach you in this moment is be really good at listening interject when it's appropriate make jokes and just like be normal and interact with them in like any other way you'd with friends but when you get gems of humans like these two you listen you relate and then you'll hear like what i say in that process as well and how i relate to them based on their story play so first of all thank you so much for sharing your story um a lot of people just kind of like give me a little spark notes version and i really don't like it when they do that i like to hear the whole thing and honestly that's because i i love stories i am a storyteller as a photographer and um like i love the story of how my wife and i met and it was also like in the college years so i can totally relate to you guys in that way except we weren't on the same campus she eventually came but we like sort of met on facebook and then skyped each other for like five hours at a time every other night yeah and then she came to school and then we started dating and all that but um i always love hearing the nuance of those stories too especially if you guys do hire me because then it gives me way more of a glimpse like i've already heard the name chase and i can only assume he's going to stand up at your wedding okay yeah so like what's cool is you know like i can walk up to him and be like so that night when stephen yeah but at the same time with that it's like i love doing that because then i can relate to your wedding party as well and they're like they're gonna be like wow he like actually knows them or like knows parts of their story and um then i'm able to start connecting all these dots and throughout this whole process again if you guys go with me like i want to i want to be learning all those things especially like the nuance of your family and those things as well because when i hear stories of your parents or your grandparents like all that stuff gets interwoven and then all of a sudden i'm like connecting all the dots of your experience when i'm there for your wedding day and it gives me this idea of like who who are your most important people like who would it be super important uh to grab a few like i call them grip and grins like hey let's go stand the corner smile look at the camera um because those are just kind of invaluable photos anyway i'm getting ahead of myself um a little bit about me is it cool if i share like my background and all that cool um yeah so like i said i uh i met my wife in college that was around 2010 2011. and we dated throughout the end of college and got married super young like in uh in 2013 and definitely had a kid before we thought we were going to and now we have four so uh but yeah that was uh that was kind of in the midst of me starting this whole career in 2010 is when i shot my first wedding so it's been a full 10 years now it all kind of started when my parents bought me a camera around that time and even before that in junior high in high school i was always the kid like making dumb videos for class projects and it just like it just was this creative endeavor this creative and thing that i got to um to do on the side and and for school work as well and because of that i just kept making videos for fun not even as assignments anymore just with friends to goof off we post them on facebook and that kind of like turned into my first marketing like people saw these goofy videos that i made but that camera that my parents bought me like kind of upped the quality and then people were like oh wow like you kind of you're like kind of a semi professional doing this and i'm like yeah i am um so in the midst of all that as my wife and i were dating as we were engaged i started photographing um with that same camera photographing my friends at any event we went to hang out some asked me to do like their proposals engagement sessions then someone eventually asked me uh to shoot their wedding both video and photo and took a chance on me i just fell in love with it the first uh wedding i shot was on video actually and then i went back and um and watched the film with the family and it was like a whole hour-long film and they loved it and the whole night was really cool and it just really incentivized me to like that's where that's where kind of my philosophy like blossomed from that moment on because i was like this this imagery and these mediums like they can they can really impact a family and so much so that first family i ended up shooting the younger two sisters weddings like literally the last one was last summer so like nine years later and that was the friend that referred me to the first one and uh i'm literally at that wedding last year nine years later and jim and julie come up to me and they're like we watch the film every single year on our anniversary and it's like to hear now they have four kids and again it's like that that kind of goes into the the part of my philosophy of like this being a legacy and i get to be a legacy for you and your family and be a part of that and that's really important to me in my life like i just absolutely adore my family and personally want to be the one documenting and having other people around me documenting that that process for me too um because it's like at your wedding this is this is the most important people in your life and the really the only time ever they're all going to be together in the same place and i want to i want to just do it justice on you know photographing that and giving you the experience of um looking at the images and feeling the same emotions and moments you felt you know like in the moment then um because if you've seen my stuff on instagram sometimes i'll post like the really creative ones i don't know if you've seen like double exposures and like really creative lighting and that kind of stuff um to me almost that's that's just kind of my marketing of like i love these really cool creative shots but like just as much i love the storytelling ones where there's tears and there's hugging and just incredible moments of like of speech is happening and um really that creative stuff is like five to ten percent of the day whereas like ninety percent of the day i'm just kind of the fly on the wall and documenting the whole thing um just for the sake of like i said when you look back at the images you're looking at them and just being like i i vividly remember this moment um and just having that rush of those same feelings come up so that it's not just every other photo is just you standing and smiling at the camera looking you know um not to say i don't love those two like i said i'm a huge proponent of making sure we have legacy images like family photos where everyone's looking really polished and it's all nice and beautiful backdrop as well as grip and grins like with your wedding party with your parents with your family um all your important people um so yeah ultimately i just like i want to be that person for you and like outside of just documenting it in that way i just kind of want to be your friend on your wedding day um i am not afraid to say this in this meeting i say this at the beginning of any client relationship like if you're freaking out as most people do on their wedding days especially like in the beginning and feeling stressed out about all the things that are going on i'm just not going to be afraid to like grab you by the shoulders and be like hey we're good like that's all good you know like um at this point in the stage of my career i'm pretty much just just as much a planner as i am a photographer i know the nuances and ins and outs of wedding days and what it's like and how stressful it is i experienced it myself i got married like i freaked out about losing my tie clip like uh that stuff happens um but i want to be someone that's in your corner who's there to like ground you and center you and at the end of the day um just as much as delivering photos that are legacy images for you that you're going to experience and love and cherish for decades i want to be someone who's there with you on the day who gives you a great experience and lets you like be comfortable on the day instead of feeling stressed i want you to have someone who's just going to be there that you don't have to worry about we're just like oh he's got it unlocked i can just have fun and enjoy everything um so ultimately that's the goal and uh yeah that's i feel like that track record is pretty strong with the past and my clients and you know them experiencing that kind of stuff that's usually the thing that's um said to me at the end of most wedding days is just like they haven't seen the images they're like we know you did a great job but oh my goodness it was so fun to like have you here and um like you made us feel so comfortable and all that good stuff so yeah that's just i mean at the end of the day like there are a lot of wedding photographers there are a lot of people who just do this as a career and just kind of like go through the motions you know shooting 30 40 weddings a year i try to limit it to the amount that's manageable for me so i can give that care and concern to like each client so yeah that's sorry i was kind of long-winded but i like that's the most important thing to me is to share the philosophy because i don't want you to just like be handed a price sheet just be like this is who i am these are my rates deal with it you know as some photographers might do um and hopefully you haven't experienced but um hopefully that feels a little bit different or like you know resonates with you does it feel like it kind of resonates oh yeah yeah i think one thing that i have worried about is that i would be really stressed on my wedding day and would be worried about you know every little thing going on including the photography but you just have so much confidence in what you're doing and your philosophy which is very very reassuring for um for me as a as a potential bride um and yeah i'm just really glad that you have that kind of confidence already instilled in you um because then i'll be confident that you're doing doing what you need to do and i'll be doing what i need to do and i'm very glad to hear that cool yeah we actually we wrote down a list of questions would you would you mind if we asked a couple of those that would be it would be awesome yeah this is the part where you just kind of transition into like nitty-gritty like what are the details look like because yeah there's a bunch of nuance and like coverage and hours and shooters yeah we just don't even know where to begin so some of our friends that have gotten married before they've they've had their photographer bring a second shooter is that something you do or would you recommend that so uh when you guys inquired i sent that pricing pdf i don't know if you saw it yeah so there are four packages that i offer it's just really simple six hours eight hours ten hours and then the top package is ten hours and two photographers that's just the top tier package you can add a second photographer to any of the other ones so it's just an a la carte add-on to six eight or ten and then you can also add any other hours on top of those two i basically the way i structured that is you could fully customize coverage um because some photographers will do their packages like they'll try to lock you into you have to buy an album if you want the downloads on this one or like you if you have to you have to do this many hours to get this next thing i'm just like here's my rate here's the hourly coverage and you can customize that hourly coverage however you want and i do it all the way straight through start to end so if you had me getting you know starting getting ready at noon and you did the eight hour package then i'd go all the way to eight o'clock you might wanna in that sense add another hour make it nine so i get the dance floor and that'll just be dependent on your wedding specifically so if you don't know your timeline yet like you can feel free to book the six hour or the eight hour and then if you need more time after you can just add that on later at any point literally day of you could do that i don't i don't care do the general recommendation it's yeah so usually most people go with eight hours that's usually the the bread and butter and two shooters i recommend two shooters if you have 100 people or more and the reason for the second shooter is you just get more photos first and foremost especially if you have a lot of guests it's just more coverage you can split us up two places at once so during getting ready i could be on your side second shooter could be on your side during cocktail hour they could be covering cocktail hour and i could be doing family photos like you could split us up in that way um it's also just added insurance in case god forbid i get in a car crash or whatever that person is going to show up and contractually like i do my best in whatever state i am or whatever my second shooter can do for me in that circumstance to get someone else there for you but that ensures that someone at least one person will be there it's never happened before so but uh that insurance policy is there then too and then the last thing is just what i call high stakes moments like when you're coming down the aisle um you have two different perspectives of that like very small window so it's not just me pivoting which i get both of your reactions but second shooter might be getting like a wide shot of you going down the aisle this way and then pull up their other camera and get a reaction as well as me getting his reaction and yeah so cool it's good to know okay i think kind of in that same vein um timeline i kind of know what i'm doing a little bit just from what friends have done but with let's say we did have a second shooter and we wanted to do the eight hours um do you suggest more getting ready photos more dancing at the end like where would you kind of cut it that's a great question yeah so what i would recommend is you do half an hour to an hour of dance floor open dance floor um and then work your way backwards that's my recommendation to everyone because after 30 to 60 minutes of open dance floor it's just all kind of the same stuff unless you're doing something like a sparkler exit or something at the end of the night or there's another event that's what i would recommend if you're doing that exit at the end then i would recommend probably the 10 hour package to get the full coverage all the way through but usually 30 minutes to 60 minutes of open dance for will be enough time on the front end as well because with the getting ready i i usually only recommend like the last parts of getting makeup on his side's usually a lot quicker just like throwing on a suit and um but being there for like an hour when your makeup's getting applied for a whole hour is kind of like unless i'm shooting like a ton of details and other things um i usually just recommend like about an hour of getting ready and then hour of dance floor and that kind of gives you the guide of what you're saying good wiggle room yeah cool so uh in in that timeline would you recommend that we do a first look before the ceremony i know some couples have done that so uh most most photographers try to push their clients to do the second or to do the first look um and i don't really jive with that i understand why they do it and there's a reason why they do it because it is easier for a photographer to do that because and it is easier as far as logistics go because when you do the first look you just have more time for portraits you have more time it opens up the day so much more because usually ceremonies are in like the three to five o'clock window and once you get to the end of the ceremony you're like going to the reception going to cocktail hour and things just start moving so um so yeah it's it's totally up to you because i always think of my own perspective and try to have empathy with with people's perspectives i didn't want to do a first look because i just always imagined seeing my bride walk down the aisle like that was what i wanted for my wedding and i don't want to take that away from anyone so i always just leave it up to you guys because i'm fully confident in getting as much portraits as we need at different times of the day even if we have to like squeeze it into a 15 to 30 minute section at one part now if that is not something that's super important to you i would recommend you just go for the first look because it can be just as special um if that's if that's something you just like haven't dreamed of then yeah then i'd recommend that cool and we can talk about that more especially a lot of people end up choosing the first look okay unless you're like just really adamant down the aisle cool good to know thank you of course and the other thing i wanted to say um about second shooter um is that you just like uh i when i first started out i would be like yeah either way like you could i'm fully confident doing it by myself which i which i am 100 um i'm just more creative like if i'm doing creative portraits or it just frees up more time for myself to like and it just gives that extra padding for me to feel a bit more comfortable with like with coverage instead of just being go go go go go all the time so in years past i was like either way which which is how i am kind of with first look but with second shooter now i'm like especially if you have more than 100 people i'm like you should just probably go for the second shooter um yeah i am so i'm not really sure if we can actually afford a second shooter and like the higher packages um are your prices flexible at all or are they pretty set with the pitches that you have yeah totally hear you um yeah at this point my career um i have to keep my prices set at a certain uh certain price point because i'm only taking a limited amount of weddings a year so for for it to be uh reasonable for me to you know provide for my own family and do all that stuff like i have to and it's just like over the years it's just something i've committed to my wife is um because it like a lot of times i i do want to be that person that's just like i would love to negotiate and make it work but the only natural deterrent for me not to overwork myself and spend more time away from my family is to keep those prices where they are so with that said i do have associate associate photographer and an associate filmmaker so if you want to explore those options i can talk to you about what it would look like to work with this this guy named steven okay we broke that's a good name we've been doing really good so far okay so that's an option as well and you know like i'm not gonna sit here and be like you have to go with me you have to go with one of my associates like if it doesn't work that's totally cool i'm not gonna be offended i have tons of referrals in chicago and people i know um but yeah i mean like if if it is something that you really want to invest in like yeah um yeah i've had people like bring it to their parents and talk about that and see what other options are as far as coverage goes and to break it up price wise you don't have to pay all of it up front i just require 50 to lock in the date and then the last 50 is just due up to a week before the wedding um instead of being all front loaded um so there's time to pay that as well um yeah and then timeout um in the early days like if you really need to book something like this if you are just looking to book weddings what i would recommend in this moment is you say you know what like you guys i like i loved your inquiry i love your philosophy and like everything and your story and all this like what if we just went 50 off your second shooter or if i threw in an engagement session for you like and you needed a second what would that look like you know so and i'll un-pause here another option is like if if you do really need to cut those costs like i am perfectly fine with shooting by myself and when i do shoot by myself i do bring an assistant pause because i'll pay that assistant like 15 20 an hour and it's not as expensive as 40 or 50 an hour for a second shooter um so yeah these pauses are funny you're doing a great job i see you freeze um you guys are killing it um yeah so that's that's what that looks like i hope i hope you can understand like where you come from it could feel like an awkward conversation i just like i i hate to like be like oh my prices are firm but like i said it's just after doing it for a handful of years is it like really is something i promised to my family like i can't budge for the reason of i need to keep it to like a dozen a year yeah definitely i think there are other areas where we can probably cut back yeah because i think uh he made a great point yeah second shooter is good and we're having like 150 175 people at our wedding so and like the way i put it on the pricing guide is all the packages are labeled as investments and i just like i really like to emphasize that point of like you're investing and having someone who's going to be there so you don't have to worry about this stuff and you're investing in something where you're going to have images for the rest of your life and pass out to other generations and in like in some sense based on you know how much you care about your photographs and your imagery from your wedding like that can be that can be something that is just you can't put a price tag on it and i don't mean that in a really cheesy way to try to upsell you on some garbage you know like um but just to just to kind of share it back into that philosophy of like you know creating legacy stuff here so yeah that's cool it is the only thing that we'll keep from the wedding day yeah outside of our marriage yeah but yeah so so um so on the note of the the photos themselves yeah how do you deliver them like how do we get the photos yeah so a lot of people will just like deliver them on a usb flash drive or like here's your dropbox you know um what's really cool is i work with an online gallery service where i deliver a full gallery to you um this experience where you get to see the whole gallery in live view spread and collage and if i have my computer here right now i don't sorry but i can literally just send you a link to a few of real galleries where you can just see what it looks like to go all the way through from start to finish they're all segmented like getting ready uh first look ceremony reception family portraits portraits and then you can click in and view it image by image you can make favorites lists you can download straight from there because my packages are all you get you get to download all of the fully edited jpegs because i edit all of the selected images and deliver them through here um the gallery and then you can order prints there as well so you're allowed to you like you can order prints wherever you want like you have the rights the printing rights um but it's like really convenient through the gallery and it's especially convenient for like for family that wants to um and i run discounts like the week i deliver the gallery there'll be a discount for all your prints um and then like holidays and stuff so usually parents and aunts and uncles and cousins like ordering through the gallery but it's just like it's your one-stop shop for literally everything and it's just a fun viewing experience and i keep it live all the way into your first anniversary so oh that's great yeah that's great that's great i know we'll probably be pretty anxious to get the photos um so about how long would you say for sure yeah so after the wedding uh in the the week or two following i'll send sneak peeks just like a dozen a couple dozen photos um so you'll get to see it and relive it in that short period um during busy season it i tend to um you know and you guys are in september so that's like the busy busy season like unfortunately that tends to be the time where things start to stack up um so like earlier in the season the turnaround's quicker but getting into like late summer and fall my turnaround time tends to be like in the four to six week window four to seven week window and that might feel like a long time in the moment but like again thinking back to like the legacy images i'm going in and like really detailing the heck out of each image so i'm like a total freak about symmetry about cropping about lines being straight you know if you have any blemishes like i'm getting rid of all the blemishes i'm closer up shots um otherwise not not doing anything else like to affect the way you look but if there's anything like that and if there is a blemish that day then it's a lot of extra editing so but i'm just going to make sure that like you guys look your absolute best and that i'm getting colors as true life as possible so based on different like lighting situations sometimes it will create like a different color cast and then i have to like recorrect all those images to make them look true to life again that goes into my philosophy of like the experience of the images i don't want them to look too trendy or yeah like like orange skin and the sepia tone and like funky colors i want it to look and feel like real life and so i model a lot of my editing off of like um timeless film photography which looks very true to life and has like a lot of texture and like just character um so yeah uh where were we on that i just yeah yeah i hope i answered that question we've actually we've stood in some bridal parties um where the photos that came back felt kind of like what you were talking about where they're like old trendy money didn't feel like what the wedding looked like that's fine some people love that look yeah that's what we want that's why we're choosing you as our potential it's good to hear you say that and like to reaffirm that you see that in my images because it could be really sad to like 20 30 years from now you're looking back your images and you're like why is everything brown you know um and it can be really easy for creative photographers like myself to fall into that gap you know because so many other photographers are doing it but even if i'm not doing the most trendy thing at the end of the day like my biggest thing is serving you guys and ultimately the biggest part of my philosophy is that it's not about me like i like sure i want my images to look great i want my portfolio to look great i want to book more work truth is i'm at this time in my my career or it's like you go through the season earlier in your career as a photographer where it's really really self-absorbed and you're like i need this portfolio piece i need to be featured in places and you're not really thinking about your clients and i'm like way way past that season because it's it's just not a sustainable thing to do for myself and i love my job so much more when i'm able to put you guys at the forefront and meet your needs over my own so that also means if like if you feel like anything is weird with editing or anything like that you shouldn't be afraid to come to me and be like hey something's you know and like we can resolve that thing and you know i ask you you know in our meeting up before the wedding i ask you for a family photo list and i've had situations where someone forgot a combination but since we had pictures of all those people i can actually send it off to a lab and we can try to photoshop like an actual family photo together that looks real um i've gone that far to like make sure clients are happy you know and so at the end of the day i want you guys to be taken care of and i want you to be super happy with having me there thank you thank you very much one other thing you kind of mentioned earlier uh you try to base some of your edits off of some old film photography and things like that do you actually shoot any film or like instant film um weddings at all is that like an add-on or yeah no no i i never like to i never want to guarantee that i can do any of that just because of it's crazy day and that's a little bit slower i want to make sure that the two cameras i have on me the digital ones are like my primary focus and from time to time i'll bring a film camera or an instant film camera and um most of the time i end up just like kind of surprising but you didn't hear that from me um so yeah i like i try to sneak that stuff in but i always like to give an expectation of because like sometimes there could like film is going through this crazy time right now where it's like resurging in popularity right so like i shoot all my personal stuff on film and we even develop it here and scan it in our lab here um but yeah it's super fun but because of costs and scarcity like fuji 400h is a film stock that just went completely extinct and so i'm like i can't predict it's the same thing i'm like i'm a videographer too so i i never guarantee like giving couples drone footage because i'm like i don't know what the regulations are going to be like where we are if i can fly there if the drone hits a tree like i can't guarantee it so i never like to guarantee anything like that um i am definitely open to the idea of doing if you want to do a film add-on um that would be a separate cost and i would probably just bring another second shooter who's film competent and then they can shoot film alongside me um or or we could figure out something where i am shooting hybrid film but i would just ask an assistant to come and just include that as an add-on as well so yeah and then we didn't touch engagement session if i never like to push that on anyone because like if you guys you know you're not you're from here but like if if any of my clients from out of town i don't want them to feel like they have to come here to do an engagement session or i have to go out there to do that with them i always keep it a la carte because sometimes it's something people don't want to do and for me like i really care about that being special a lot of people will just do an engagement session where it's like oh let's go to a forest preserve for an hour and take some pretty photos again with the philosophy of my wedding photography i really like care about going to a place where you guys feel comfortable and you enjoy your time maybe we go to your favorite you know coffee shop donut shop and we're shoving donuts in our faces or you know like if we had the circumstance where we could go back to your school and like shoot on campus like something like that could be really cool i'm always really open to ideas like that but i never want to pressure you to have to do it um it's just it's there as an add-on if you want to and i do a two-hour session and that's um 750 dollars for the 200 uh two hour session so yeah i mean i don't know about you but i i kind of want to know what the next steps would be if we could talk about that yeah super simple um i just have this online service where i have an assistant her name's nami she'll send you an email um where you will be uh so i'll tell her like would you guys probably want to do the eight it sounds like eight hours two shooters yeah i think it'll probably start there yeah okay so that feels like a good starting point i think so so i'll i'll have her send that quote um with that and like i said you can add on anything afterwards whether it's days weeks months or on the wedding day um after the fact so she'll send you that it will also have the wedding agreement so you can read through all the terms and conditions make sure everything's um cool there we just sign that agreement both sides and then you do your 50 retainer which you can do through through your bank or credit card there we do do it we we have a three percent fee for credit card transactions so if you want to like avoid that you could do chase quick pay or paypal friends and family or venmo if you feel comfortable with that so there are other free options should include all that in the email um but yeah that locks in the date the the signed agreement 50 retainer and then the 50 the last 50 percent is just due a week before the wedding which you'll get an automated message from that system as well so super easy great sounds awesome yeah sounds good to me you might want to talk about it a little bit no i don't want like i don't bring a contract here and be like yeah yeah you have to yeah um it sounds like we'd be a great fit it seems like we totally match up on that philosophy point there's legitimately been meetings where like i don't end it this way i'm just kind of like okay nice and i know there wasn't a connection but like you guys are totally my kind of people and i think it'd be incredible and i'd love to be there and um yeah if you have any questions just email away um you can ask me or not me on that email interface and um that whole thing if you have any questions about that agreement or the pricing or anything like that just let me know awesome yeah that's perfect thank you so much for taking the time and for having us over here of course yeah this is awesome yeah i uh i should have made you coffee i'm just realizing right now oh that's okay that's what i oh wait there's some right here oh wait that's disgusting that's mike's from earlier wait did you really think it might be it really did no sorry who's mike who's mine who's he and sam thank you so much for watching all the way to the end like i said if you'd like to watch the full entire two hours of this module and you're inside launch week you can click the link in the description to check out the classroom and module 7 in its entirety and like i said if you are outside of launch week past november 1st you could still click that link to be notified for future educational content by me eric your youtube dad all right see you guys