Bridals/Engagements for Destination Weddings?

[tinycomet]

Hi everyone,

I'm starting to take an interest in advertising for out-of-state and international weddings and have wondered about something for some time.

How do you offer bridal and engagement sessions for an out-of-state bride and still keep it cost-effective?

I'm currently living in Utah and planning on advertising to New York brides. The only package I offer will include an engagement session. Now, the airfare alone is more than the cost of a single session, let alone cost of food, hotel, etc. Even booking a flight and hotel for a whole week in NYC would cost me about $1000-$1500 depending on the season, so packing as many sessions as possible within the week still doesn't seem ideal (though a decent alternative), plus, what if I can't pack enough brides during the week because of the bride and groom's schedules?

Any destination wedding photographers out there care to give some tips?

Raji

[Jill-of-all-Trades]

Confused here... are you planning to market to someone who is getting married or doing engagements in New York (whether they live there or not) or to someone from New York who is getting married in Utah?
Personally, unless I knew of some really amazing photographer and I had lots of money to throw around, I would not fly the photographer in. I would go with someone relatively local, who knows the area.
Just my opinion.

[ssim]

I don't market myself as a destination photographer but have been fortunate enough to do a handful of weddings in the Caribbean and Hawaii. These were people from my service area that contacted me and were willing to pay the rates for me to accompany them.

I would suggest that you make sure you have a good local name before you start jetting around trying to do this. I get the impression that you want to go somewhere and try and fit in a number of different clients. That is traditionally not the way destination photography works. The client hires you to go with them, or meet them there, and they are your only focus. What you are explaining seems to be what I see alot of advertisements on places like craigslist where a photographer will advertise that they are going to be in Biloxi for the week of and are trying to book clients. That is a different mix altogether, imo.

If would suggest that you simply spend some time with your favorite search engine looking for destination photographers. Look at their marketing techniques. Organizations like WPPI would probably have more information than you are likely to get here.

[tinycomet]

I probably should have explained better then... Sorry about that.

I'm planning on moving to NYC (though I'd love to do work around the country) and need to establish some business presence there, but I feel like I'm faced with 2 options.

1. Make the leap and just move there, then work towards getting business. Can't really afford to do that without any business coming in though. Rent alone would kill me.

2. Fly back and forth for weddings until I have enough to sustain myself for a life in NYC and THEN move.

I was rooting for #2, where I wouldn't charge any traveling fees (bad idea entirely?) and absorb the cost of travel. To me that works ok for the wedding day itself, but if someone wants me 6 months ahead of time for an engagement session then 3 months ahead of time when the dress is finally fitted for a bridal session and then on the wedding day... Well now I doubt that I'll be making anything and in the mean time giving up dates for weddings in Utah where I'm actually making a profit.

But that's why I got to wondering about destination weddings. I do have a wedding in Vegas next week, so the client is flying me out at a relatively low cost but she only booked me for the wedding day and nothing else.

Had she booked me for engagements and bridals, is the cost usually taken care of by the bride or is the photographer responsible for designing his/her pricing to absorb the cost of travel or what?

From the research I've done, I can't find any mention for what photographers do if they're needed for more than the wedding. Unless it's assumed that the cost of booking the photographer includes any travel needed, but I haven't found anything explicitly saying so.

[mcorrea]

Most of the time, I don't include engagement session for destination weddings.