Why you don’t want to be a professional wedding photographer

When one of our photo booths is at a wedding they have to work really hard because of how many people use them, and photo booths are only inanimate objects.

Now imagine you are a professional wedding photographer, having to deal with and socialise with loads of guests while trying to take great photos of the wedding to keep the bride and groom happy.

It’s very hard work. Here’s why you don’t want to be a professional wedding photographer.

 

Say goodbye to your summer holidays

Close your eyes and imagine you’re on a nice sandy beach; the sun’s out and you’re getting a nice tan. A nice breeze brings the fresh sea air and blows away all your worries.

Now forget about the beach because you’ll be spending your summer at strangers’ weddings taking photos instead. Quite inconveniently, people like to have their weddings in the summer (something to do with not wanting to get married when the weather is wet, grey, and miserable, apparently).

 

Are you sure you can handle the pressure?

Another thing about those people who are about to get married is that they don’t very much like it when the wedding photographer isn’t very good.

Your clients expect a lot from you. You can’t just turn up, you need to get involved with the wedding planning because you need to know what is going to happen at any point in the day so you are ready with your camera to take the perfect shot.

 

You might be self-employed, but you’re not your own boss

As a photographer you probably consider yourself to be an artist, and rightly so. But as a professional wedding photographer you are an artist who has to work for your clients, who will sometimes ask you to make some questionable creative choices. You can try to persuade them otherwise but they get the final say – you’ll have to be okay with this.

 

You have to be sociable at all times

Not only are you doing a job as a professional wedding photographer, you need to be able to socialise with all of the wedding guests because you are at a very personal occasion, and you need to make people feel comfortable enough to be on camera. If you can’t be sociable even when you are really stressed, you might want to reconsider being a professional wedding photographer.

 

Weddings are seasonal

All self-employed people have to come to terms with the feast-or-famine cycle, where one week they have way too much work to do, but then a few weeks later they have absolutely no work coming in. Professional wedding photographers also have the fact that the wedding business is seasonal. Most people like to get married in the summer so that’s when most of your wedding photography work will be.

 

Do you remember what sleep feels like?

As a wedding photographer you can’t just turn up for the few hours the wedding takes, take some photos, and then be done with it. You actually have to put in a lot of hours before the wedding when it is still being planned, during the wedding day while everything is being set up, and possibly hours of editing photos afterwards.

If you are getting married and want some even more fun and personal photos of your wedding, hire a photo booth from CheesySmiles for great memories and mementos.