The hybrid pro: How a good client relationship improves your wedding photography and video workflow

Wedding shoots are all about relationship. This doesn't just mean it's important to capture and depict the relationship between the couple and their relationship with their friends and family. Here, wedding photographer and videographer Jo Greenfield reveals how the personal connection between photographer and client is key to the success of the shoot and, beyond that, the continuing success of your wedding business.

In a previous article in this series, wedding photographer and content creator Rebecca Carpenter said it was vital to establish that the photographer and couple are a personality fit. She finds it invaluable to have a call with the prospective client before taking a booking. Jo Greenfield takes it one step back from that, using her website almost to screen potential clients. "I have not got the time to deal with 500 or 600 enquiries a year," she says. "I don't want that."

For this reason, Jo's website is intentionally designed to appeal to the clients she wants to get, not offer all things to all people. It doesn't just promote her, it paints a particular picture of her personality and approach. In one place, for example, it declares: "If I die before your wedding, please wait until I'm in the ground before you harass my husband for money back. He'll have to wait for probate." This quirky humour won't appeal to everybody – and that's the point: the site will weed out people who aren't a good personality fit.

As a result, Jo says, "I know that if they enquire, they're going to book. My conversion rate is pretty much 95%, and I'm happy with that."

This personal connection drives Jo's focus on the day. "For me, the experience that the couple have on their wedding day is the most important thing. A shot list of photographs is secondary, because a couple will never print a photograph or look at a photograph fondly if, when they look at it, the thoughts and feelings that come back are 'the photographer made us do it', or 'we were having an argument at that point because we'd had enough photographs taken'. The success of the photographs very much comes from the confidence and the happiness of the couple."

That said, Jo does have a shot list, but it's one based on a questionnaire she sends her couples when they book. "I really feel it is so important to ask your couples what they want. I was a graphic designer, and so I work a lot better having a brief. Then in my head, I can tick off all these things that the couple want. Everything else now is my creativity and what I want to capture – although you can only work with what you're given on the day."

What happens after the wedding day matters as much as the shoot itself, because it continues the relationship. Another of the questions Jo asks her couples is "'when would you like to see some photographs of your day?' Some of them have multi-day weddings, some go on their honeymoon straight away. If you could deliver pictures in half an hour, some would want them in half an hour. But I'm seeing a big movement in couples who say 'in a few days. We just want to have our wedding, spend the next day with our family, unpack, do our washing... and then in a few days, we want to sit down and look at the pictures.'

"Typically, I'd say, 70% of my couples will get a sneak peek of photographs within 24 hours. And they'll put them all over Instagram and Facebook." This kind of referral is the most powerful marketing channel you have. No paid promotion reaches an audience as warm and as ready to act as the friends and family of a couple whose wedding you have just shot and excitedly share what you've done.

"Then they'll get a video teaser on their one-week anniversary. I intentionally stagger the delivery. The finished edits, 90% of the time I'll deliver in six to eight weeks.

"I could get it done faster, but I don't want to. I want to take my time with it. I edit everything myself, and I really enjoy the editing process. I could not think of anything worse than getting someone else to edit my weddings, because I get such joy seeing what I've created."

This personal touch extends to the format in which Jo delivers their pictures to her clients. "They all get a Pic-Time online gallery. That's a given. But actually, all my full-day couples always get something printed, always. One of the biggest bugbears for me is not actually knowing what my photographs look like because of all the different devices people view them on, all the settings and screen brightnesses and all that sort of stuff. To me, a photograph should be seen printed on paper. They should be able to feel it and touch it and see it in the right light.

"I hope more people will start doing this. I'm from an era where as kids we had pen pals and we received letters and it was such a nice place to be, and I think we've lost that somewhere along the line."

However, Jo admits, "I don't do my own printing. That's the one thing that I don't do. If I did that, I would have to put my prices up, and I don't want to do that. I feel my price point is reflective of the couples that I want to shoot for."

In contrast to Rebecca, who revealed how much work it takes to market your wedding business using social media, Jo approaches things differently.

"I don't want to be on Instagram 24/7," Jo says, "and so I shifted my marketing to focus on client experience. If you make that as good as you can, they'll go and tell their friends and family, and you're going to get repeat business. For three years, Instagram was my primary source of enquiries, but now it's number 4. It's gone back to word of mouth, venue recommendation, Google, and then Instagram. And that has just suited my business well, I think."

Jo says it’s valuable to keep relationships going. "I do like to stay in contact with a lot of my couples. Some from ten years ago will still message, particularly some of my elopement couples – they don't have any bridesmaids, so I become like the unofficial bridesmaid. I love it. It's just so special.

"Very, very few couples disappear off the radar." If their experience was positive, and the wedding photographs and videos Jo delivered reflected this, past clients will remember her. Jo gives the example of a couple whose wedding she did three years ago, who are not active on social media and have barely kept in touch, but messaged out of the blue to ask if she would take pictures of the baby they are now expecting.

As Jo's experience demonstrates, a personal relationship with the wedding couple, and through them with their friends and family, can make the difference between photographers who rely on paid marketing to find new clients and those whose work finds new and repeat business for them.