Dear Wedding Photographers….

Morning all my lovelies :)  Now I do intend on featuring some lovely wedding blog content for you, starting around mid-morning.  But for now, I feel compelled to open up a bit of a discussion post 🙂

So yesterday afternoon, I got to reading this post after a flurry of tweet activity led me to go and find out what all the fuss was about.  This blog posts starts off 'Dear Wedding Bloggers – You Suck'.   To be fair, that kind of grabbed my attention from the off and truthfully, it made me giggle :)  I took it all with a bit of a pinch of salt from thereon.  However, the feature raised some important points, so let's spend a moment examining them.

To summarise, the blog post is a rant at wedding blogs in general, for featuring content that intimidates the 'average' bride to be. It accuses wedding blogs of all looking the same, of featuring poor quality photography, of promoting editing fads that will age in time an look dreadful in a few years to come.  It suggests that as wedding bloggers we are being snobbish about the weddings we feature, choosing only to feature Brides with a perfect figure and/or a highly styled wedding. It appealed to bloggers to feature more for the 'typical' and 'realistic' Bride.  It says many things inact and you can read them all here.

I was initially going to paraphrase the blog post and respond to each question it posed accordingly, however, the last thing I want to do is bore my readers to death over their morning Scots oats with some diatribe on the virtues of wedding blogs.  Instead, I will summarise my thoughts in response to this post below…

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(1)  Wedding blogs exist to feature aspirational content. They exist to inspire readers with ideas for their own wedding.  I love weddings that are more 'traditional' and light on details as much the author of this post must {because I love the pure and plain old fashioned romance of weddings}, however, I know my blog readers aren't too interested in seeing too many of those kind of weddings.  That's not to say every wedding I feature is elborate either. I like to feature the simple and unfussy too 🙂

(2)  Wedding blogs aren't here to appeal to all and every type of Bride, eg, I like to feature glamorous and chic weddings, alongside weddings that include era inspired elements {be in the dress, or decor etc}. I love weddings that take reference from the past in however small a way.  Others like to feature more rock n roll, or whimsical style weddings. If we all set out to feature weddings that appealed to everyone and all couples, we'd all be appealing to a mass market and we'd lose our voice and role in the industry. And, I hate to say it, we'd all be rather dull and uninspiring with no competetive edge – wouldn't we?  And we have to have the latter because for a few of us now, blogging is our business and livelihood.

(3)  I might not have got it right every time in the past but I've been blogging almost two years now and feel I know how to judge great from not so great wedding photography.   However, some of the photography I feature could be viewed as 'less technically brilliant' than the rest.  For me though, as long as the photography is of a good standard and it's content 'speaks to me' and makes that connection, then we're bloggin' 😉

All Photographers have to start somewhere, and I love to encourage them to follow their dreams…

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Andrew J R Squires

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(4) I LOVE styled shoots and don't buy into the argument that they have had their day – I love how they inspire all my readers, be they Brides or industry professionals.  I do try to only feature styled shoots that are accessible though.

Pretty inspirational detail from a styled shoot…

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Annemarie King

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"…every bride wants to imagine and fantasize about

her wedding…and images like that {seen on the blogs}

help her do that."

 

5)  …the above is a comment someone left on the blog post and it's so true!  OK, maybe not 'every Bride' but most Brides, for sure.  The blogs I frequent which mostly comprise of my colleagues in the UK wedding industry, certainly do not keep repeatedly featuring rustic style weddings "in every blog post".  But feature them we do, because, that's what our readers want to see!  Brides want to be inspired by detail. They want to see ideas they can take for their own wedding day.  They love pinterest, and mood boards and yes, they love details like mason jars, wild flowers, vintage suitcases, stuffed initials, feathers, tea-length dresses handmade signs and fields.  They dream, they aspire to, they fantasize.  Remember, wedding photographers and bloggers – you see these details every day.  Those coming to visit our blogs however don't, necessarily. They are looking for exactly this type of detail to style their own unique wedding day because it's on trend, its funky and its usually really kinda pretty.  Over time, Brides might tire of this type of detail and err towards something different.  We'll be blogging about that too when that happens 🙂

(6)  Definitely not all the weddings I feature are huge budget affairs that are completely inaccessible to my readers.  The two wedding dresses below are featured in my 'Budget Friendly' weddings section and both cost less than £100.

The £80 wedding dress {left} and the 'just less than' £100 wedding dress {right}


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(7) … and definitely not all the brides I feature have a perfect/magazine feature worthy size 10 figure or match your media definition of drop dead beautiful – but they are all super gorgeous in my books.   What I find beautiful is a radiant smile, a tender embrace, those beautiful moments captured on camera…

Not your average size

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Annamarie Stepney

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…because size is irrelevant

 Love My Dress Wedding Blog -  Film Copyright (c) 2011, Sassy n Frank

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(8)  Above all else, for a wedding to be accepted for a feature on Love My Dress, that wedding has to make a connection with me, be it something about the dress, shoes, table or venue decor.  I know what my readers like – they trust me, and I trust them.  And I would to think that you can trust me too when I say I know my readers keep coming back for more because they love the detail and variety of weddings I feature on my blog.

I choose not to feature too many 'traditional', 'detail light' and ''every day' weddings but that's not because I don't like them, it's because I know my readers aren't as interested in this type of wedding

(9)  As for getting negative images of weddings from wedding blogs, well, ceratinly regarding the blogs I like to support and visit myself, that is frankly, total crap nonsense.  We positively encourage couples to have the wedding they want, to not feel pressured, to keep it as simple or extreme as they wish.  Our readers and their happiness really matter to us! Really! There is nothing that makes us happier than to read an email from a Bride who just got married and who found inspiration or confidence via our blogs.  If I knew any of my readers were intimidated by my blog, I'd feel so sad, but I'd lke to point them in the direction of the less extravagant weddings that I feature, the ones where the couple didn't feeel pressure to 'put on a show' but just be themselves, because those weddings are just as beautiful as the rest.

There's so much more I really want to say but I'd rather leave it at that and maybe open up some discussion with my readers, sponsors and industry colleagues.   You can head on over to read the feature that caused all the fuss in the first place.  Whilst I might not agree with all of it, it's very well written and has generated some really interesting comments 🙂

 

 

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I would like to end this feature by encouraging all photographers to submit their work to Love My DressMy submission guidelines are here.  Please don't be offended if I turn down your work anytime.  It's almost always usually great quality photography, just sometimes, the wedding isn 't quite right for one reason or another because it doesn't quite fit wit th the style I usually feature {I will always provide feedback when I turn down submissions}.  Please respect my choice, editorial integrity and ability to judge the desires of my readers.  I respect you hugely for your kindness and generosity in sharing your beautiful imagery with my blog and my readers.  If it weren't for you, I'd not be here at all, but let's understand each other here and agree on what's best for my blog and my readers – it is the readers we have to put first, every time 🙂

Brides – would you like to see more every day, traditional style weddings on Love My Dress – the kind that aren't led by detail but illustrate a simple love story, or do you primarily enjoy visiting this blog for the visual/image inspiration?

Storm in a tea-cup? I do hope so :)  But I'd love to hear your thoughts anyway :)?

Much love all,

Annabel xXx

 

ps…"This forgot to mention the ‘hold hands and stand apart pose’ whilst I photograph you in front of a dilapidated wall/metal sheet/forest and exclude your heads from the image…"

…..sorry, but I had to laugh at that one!! ;))

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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