The Cinderella Story

I am working on my pricelist for next year and it really bothers me that I need to and have to raise my prices. 

For this year, I am sacrificing making a profit for the experience shooting weddings.  Although I have been taking pictures since I practically took my first steps, I have not done this professionally for long (1 year) so I needed to do what I could to book weddings.  I am so grateful to all of my couples that have taken a leap of faith with me and booked me for this upcoming wedding season!!  You will forever be stars in my universe!!  However if I want to stay in business, I cannot operate for more than one season at these prices.  

While working on my package set-ups for next year, I kept thinking back to my brides of this current season that would not be able to afford me next year.  It really is bothering me.  I started to brainstorm to come up with some ideas for something that I could do that could help out a bride in need so to speak.  I finally came up with something but I would like everyone’s input on this because sometimes I’ll admit, my ideas aren’t the brightest or the most feasible. 

My idea is this, for $500 I thinking of offering a package called “The Cinderella Story” (to go along with my fairy tale theme of course).  The package will have online hosting of images and a per-event determined set hours of shooting.  The part of the conditions of this package that worry me that people would be upset with is that I would only allow one of these packages to be booked per month during the “busy” wedding season.  I would allow unlimited bookings from October through April as well as any on summer weekdays.  The other part I was toying with was that I would require the Bride to write to me and tell me why she needs this package.  Tell me their love story, tell me why she needs it… etc.  Is that too much?  Is this a good idea?  Have a better one?  Let me know!

The bottom line is that I’m looking forward to serving this area as a photographer for years to come and to do this I want to not run myself into the ground but I still don’t want to forget the people that got me to BE in business either!

Later on this afternoon/evening I will be posting photos from my workshop with Mike Colon and Ray Santana from WPPI!