Lately there has been an uprising against many things in the wedding world and it seems that much of this angst has been taken out on the unassuming mason jar and everything it stands for at a wedding.
For what it is worth, I love mason jars. When I was a kid, we had a few of them that had handles and my brother and I would fight over who got that glass because it was by far the best glass. It had a handle so it was hard to drop (major bonus for me, because I am clumsy) and it held a TON of pop which was even better. When the last one finally broke I was very upset. I still think about buying new ones because I loved those glasses so darn much. Yes, I’ve been known to have a wee bit of an attachment issue with inanimate objects.
While the anger has been brewing for a while, today the wedding world seemed to have exploded over the mason jar wedding hate after a blog post and a twitter war. Basically the main complaint from wedding photographers is that they are sick of wedding blogs, Style Me Pretty in particular, featuring weddings that are homogenous and detail oriented. They are upset that their weddings that may not have a lot of details but makes up for that in lots of love filled imagery are not being featured and are turned down for yet another “mason jar wedding.” They are even more upset with the styled shoots that are being labeled as “wedding” images because potential clients may think that wind machines are standards on a wedding day (to my clients, personally I think you’re smarter than that!).
Confession, I rarely go to wedding blogs. If I do, it’s because a friend got featured or someone is talking smack about a particular blog post. Even as a bride I rarely visited them although they were not nearly as popular in 2007 as they are now. I did however love Wedding Bee because they featured all kinds of weddings and the how-to’s behind it. I just wish I’d found out about it sooner to implement more of the awesome things they had there. I also don’t read wedding magazines much. So if they are featuring the same wedding every day, I wouldn’t know it.
What I do know is that here in the midwest, we see trends often as much as 2-3 years later than the rest of the country. While the trend is hot and being photographed, we here in Ohio are clueless about it. When it hits the newsstands or blogs is when we find out about it and then that’s when our clients start adding the “newest” trend to their wedding day which may not be for another year or more. To them, it’s new and exciting!! Case in point, my first mason jar wedding was this July – but this trend has been online for a few years. In Ohio, things just take a bit more time to get here. Heck, we just got our first Five Guys!
Wedding blogs are much like magazines. They are out to make money and they won’t be very popular, or make a lot of ad money, if they featured weddings that may have pretty pictures but nothing that the potential bride or groom want to obtain. They can’t buy that love they see in pictures but they CAN recreate that bouquet they see that captured their heart. I was OBSESSED with a bouquet I saw in Brides magazine as a bride, OBSESSED. It was amazing but also something crazy like $12K. I ended up with my own $750 bouquet that I loved even more but that expensive bouquet gave me a place to start with ideas. There ARE nitche blogs that are out there for the moments, just like there are nitche blogs out there for the weddings that are not your “typical” weddings. If you as a photographer have beef with a blog and the weddings they feature, then do not submit to them! It’s really that easy.
Me personally? I do not care what the wedding looks like. Sure, detail laden weddings are amazing but that doesn’t mean the wedding I shoot with no details but lots-o-love isn’t just as awesome to shoot. I shoot for my CLIENTS and no one else. So long as my clients are happy, I’m happy. If I get a feature out of it down the line, yippie! but it’s not what I am thinking of the day of the wedding nor who I am shooting for.
So, if you are like me and could care less what the industry does so long as your clients are happy, raise your mason jar glass with me! Cheers!
PS: My current mason jar is filled with Jolly Rancher Vodka. So how could that item NOT be seriously awesome?
- The Christy House Wedding with Ashley and Stephon - March 11, 2024
- Peninsula Wedding with Colleen and Eric - March 10, 2024
- Winter Inn Walden Wedding with Julia and Walter - February 29, 2024
I love every single sentence in this post. Could not agree more! 🙂