Having been wedding photographers for the past fourteen years we are well aware that wedding planning without a global pandemic can be stressful enough. However, as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to unfold and these stresses become more acute we want to make sure that our couples feel taken care of while we also navigate the challenges that we are facing as small business owners.
Weddings are our full time job and a year round commitment, even though most of the shooting takes place in the spring and summer months. Even in the so called “off season”, we are maintaining our website, advertising, connecting with new clients, and working out the details of events with clients we have already booked. The deposits we use to secure dates for future services are used not only to “keep the lights on” for our business throughout the year but are our primary source of income during this time and our only income prior to receiving final installments before an event. Inevitably, it looks that many of the weddings that we were looking forward to in the months of April, May, and June will need to be rescheduled.
While this is initially stressful and disappointing, we plan to work together with our clients and their other vendors to find an alternative date. Deposits already received will be applied to future dates. The benefit of working with e&b is that there are two of us. Each of us regularly photograph weddings and events with associate photographers and should the need arise we will be able to better accommodate clients with a limited selection of dates as wedding venues fill up their calendars. In addition this allows us to help our friends and colleagues who are also photographers who might be struggling during this time by working with them as second shooters.
The clients who have booked with us, booked with us for a reason. We are proud of the quality images that we produce but also take the same amount of pride in treating the people we work with the way we would want to be treated. We are happy to hop on the phone, be available by text message, and to do anything that we can do to make a new date work for our couples. These days have been long, stressful and very confusing for all of us collectively and we are looking forward to (albeit delayed) celebrations in the near future.