This series is literally just me figuratively talking out loud to get out all of the things running through my brain. When I was younger, there was a time that I very haphazardly kept a diary. Any time I had a lot of thoughts running through my mind I would try and write it down because it felt like talking to someone. There’s no feedback and no advice, but sometimes just working it out by writing it down can help me process it all. None of this is meant to be overly negative, or any sort of advice, I am simply writing what I’m thinking. So I’m gonna write it all down here and just see what happens.

Today the best three words that describe how I’m feeling are STRESSED, OVERWHELMED, DEFEATED. I started this business last year because I love photography, I love weddings and I love beautiful things. To me wedding photography felt like a way to combine creativity, art, happiness and luxury into one job that I would love doing. The funny thing is I had the idea to do wedding photography almost 10 years earlier. When I was in college I bought a full-frame DSLR camera. I bought a bunch of books on how to shoot manually, wedding photography, editing and everything else I thought I would need. But reading through those books I noticed that not only did I not really learn anything helpful, I had ZERO idea where to even begin. So I dropped it. I used my camera for family trips and that was about it.

After I started dating Ryan I randomly thought back to when that was a goal of mine and he pushed me to just start. So first thing I did was reach out to one of my best friends, Heather Dodge, who was just starting out with her own wedding photography business. She agreed to let me work a few weddings with her as an unpaid assistant and would let me “second shoot” for her on days where she didn’t have a booked second shooter. Looking back, she was the sweetest person for letting me do this because I’m pretty sure I didn’t produce more than a handful of images for her to actually use in her galleries haha. But it showed me what it was like and I was desperate to learn more, become better and start shooting some weddings of my own!

My thoughts now are that I was just naive about how hard it is to start a new business. Especially in the wedding industry. It is so competitive, saturated and it is constantly changing. Today I was having a conversation with another photographer about my pricing. And this is not the first time someone has told me I should be charging more. It always boils down to the same thing. They say that looking at my work, I should raise my prices. I say that since I haven’t been in business very long and I’ve shot less than a handful of my own weddings, I don’t think I can justify charging more. But I don’t know how to make myself more visible and book more weddings from where I am currently. It’s a catch 22. I have to book more weddings to grow my portfolio and continue to elevate my brand, but I have to have the higher-end content to attract those elevated clients.

So what do I do? I’ve paid to shoot at styled shoots, but I just don’t enjoy competing with 15 other photographers to get THE SHOT of the same thing. There’s a reason there’s only one lead photographer at a wedding. I’ve photographed my own wedding rings and invitations, etc. but there’s only so many times I can show the same details over and over again. I’ve also been a second shooter at over a dozen weddings, but those are not my clients. I can’t market those as my weddings and post the photos all over my website because they are not my bookings.

Another thing that has come up recently is all of the marketing strategy that is necessary to build and grow a small business. Where do brides find you? Google, Instagram, Facebook, etc. I look at all those platforms and see how I am lacking in all of them. Trying to navigate Google SEO makes me want to rip my hair out. None of it makes sense to me and nothing is ever straightforward. It makes me wonder how everyone else is able to figure it out? Do they hire someone to take care of it for them? Do they spend countless hours trying to teach themselves? Or do they just get it and I don’t? Instagram used to be the thing that I clicked with the most. Post photos with a brief caption, some topic-relevant hashtags and that’s it! Maybe post a story every once in a while if I had a video to share. But now it’s all about figuring out the ever-changing algorithm, posting Reels, only use X amount of hashtags, post to stories X amount of times per day, etc. It’s just SO MUCH!

To just add to all of this, I try and wrap my head around how I am going to continue this (on top of my full-time job) when Ryan and I have kids! Being in our 30’s, growing our family is something we are actively thinking about for our near future. I honestly don’t know how to juggle growing a new business, working a full-time job and raising a baby. Did I start too late? Should I have started my business when I was in college so I could work all this stuff out and have a better foothold by this time? Did I mess up by trying to do this now? If not, then what am I missing? How is anyone else doing this successfully?

If you are still here, and have stayed with me through all of this, then you are a trooper! And thank you haha. I honestly didn’t have much of a goal with this other than to just get all these thoughts out of my head. BUT if any of this sounds familiar, or resonated with you then maybe at least I helped you realize you are not alone! Or if you have any ADVICE for me, that would also be SUPER helpful! I would appreciate any and all input.