One of my long-term goals with my photography was to eventually get in the business of doing weddings. I certainly didn't want to exclusively be a wedding photographer though. I know how busy that could be. Not to mention that it's often just as stressful as the wedding itself. However, I at least wanted to get to the point where I was being hired to do weddings on a semi-regular basis. Maybe around one a month. Or even every two months.
It just never happened.
Wedding photography is a harder niche to break into than I anticipated. People see the work of the main ones in the city and those are the ones that keep getting repeat business. Not that I'm mad at all because many of them are good at what they do. As they should be. They have been doing it often enough that they have been able to hone their craft to where their wedding photos are simply amazing. Before you know it they are eventually able to make a living off that because they get so much of that type of business. And let's face it, wedding photography pays well. With as much work as they put into it, it really should.
That's why I thought I could make a name for myself offering similar packages at lower prices. Plus, the people that I marketed to weren't the same ones you see in those high scale weddings. They were typically those folks that couldn't afford those $1500+ price ranges. So I thought for sure that could get my foot in the door. Not so much. The folks that I did know that were getting married either opted to go with a friend and/or family member with a point and shoot or just not do professional photos. You can imagine how they pictures turned out. But of course folks still dropped their normal "Aww..so beautiful" comments because the pictures were of two people in love getting married. Long story short, the wedding portion side of my photography just never took off.
Instead, I was able to find other avenues to display similar work in my portfolio in an effort to still pursue that business. The renewal of vows. To date, I have had exactly one customer for that type of event. My friend Kraig from my First Fridays connection hired me for their vow renewal months in advance. I wrongly assumed that I would have had a wedding or two shot by the time their date came up. Nada. Instead, I made sure to go all out on their event to insure it had the same feel.
I have to be honest and say that one concern I had with doing their vow renewal was the uncertainty of the aftermath. It was definitely nothing having to do with either Kraig or Ronnie personally. I had just done couples and/or maternity shoots (and even one wedding) in the past where it ended up the couples later broke up. Then I'm faced with the conundrum of having great captures that I felt guilty about using because the two people were no longer together. In the back of my mind, I was thinking the same thing about these two. I could not have been more wrong.
There have been very few couples that I have seen more enamored with one another than Kraig and Ronnie. I'm not even talking about newlyweds either. Once that whole newness wears off and things start getting real, even newlyweds eventually start being more friendly than romantic. Not these two. They've been married seven years now (8 years in May) yet continue to dote on each other as if they were still on their honeymoon. That's why this capture remains my favorite of the bunch from that day.
