Marketing Workshop

Wow, this last week was been crazy busy with evening events. After Wednesday night's networking event, I had Farrah Braniff's (www.farrahbraniff.com) Marketing and Branding workshop. She is a family and kid portrait photographer located near Montrose area. Not only is her work awesome and so unique, she's so much fun to be around. We spent time a lot of time hanging out at TX School this year back in April. Her marketing and brand is so awesome. I learned more than I ever thought I would about branding, packaging and how you can create so many unique pieces of stationery if you have a little creativity and enjoy perusing the aisles of TX art supply. She loves going there to explore all the newest envelopment papers and products. She's so funny. She describes her packaging with such passion, you can't help but get excited about it. One of the most important things that I learned that night was that packaging was all part of the image/brand and experience that you give the client when they work with you. It's not just the pictures that excite people but the presentation of the work is also very important. Of course, your studio cannot be sucessful with just pretty packaging alone, you have to back it up with great work and amazing customer service.
Well until next time.

TheKnot Networking Party at House of Blues

Last night I attended the Theknot Networking party at the House of Blues. I met a couple of really interesting folks in the wedding industry. It was a really fun night hanging out with the photographers and some of the wedding planners. I got to see my favorite friends in the business, Samantha, of Soiree Bliss, Joe Cogliandro, from J. Cogliandro Photography, Tammy Price, of Tammy Price Photography and many others. They had food and drinks for everyone to indulge in. Cake’s by Gina hosted the dessert table with their cake balls (I think that’s what they are called). OMG they are so good!!! You have to get some of that stuff. I think I had like 4 of them (that’ll mean about 4 extra miles at Memorial Park for that indulgence). It was a great party.
I really like going to these events that TheKnot holds because it allows me to meet the coordinators and planners that I hope to work with in the future.
My friends were giving me flack because I am so comfortable meeting new people that they told me, "I bet you've never met a stranger." I just laughed. I find that so funny b/c at one point I was actually dscribed as being introverted. Boy, things have changed..
Until next time
Trung

HS Seniors

Well, it's another new area that I've been hoping to do more of. I think my urban style would really lend itself to HS Seniors. Since I specialize in weddings thus far, I have not pursued shooting HS seniors. Lately, I've had several opportunities to do some senior sessions. I had a great time with them. They are usually so laid back that there's very little stress involved and they're usually up for anything, which works perfectly with my random jaunts around town scoping out cool locations to shoot in. here are some images of a recent session with Max. Hope you like them.

Check out the rest of them on Client Galleries

Trung

www.MontagePhotographers.com

Liz and Mike's Wedding

Liz and Mike got married at Second Baptist Church yesterday and then had their reception at the Heights Fire Station. Can I tell you how much fun we had that day?? First, both of them are the sweetest two people you'll ever meet and just so laid back. The groomsmen were all characters in their own right and I'm pretty sure we didn't do one serious picture all day. We pretty much laughed during the whole day while taking pictures and it definitely shows in all the funny pictures we got. It sure makes the day go by faster when you have lively fun people that are just there to have a good time. We went down to the Sabine Street lofts after the wedding b/c we had some time before the reception. That was hilarious. The groomsmens sweated their butts off but they were troopers. Of course the beers they had kept them plenty cool. Onto the reception. Mike sang Liz a song that he wrote. Of course this is a huge surprise b/c she thought he was going to cover a song, but instead wrote her a song, and of course gave her a frame print of the lyrics as he sang to her. Of course, he's got an awesome voice and there was not a dry eye in the room. He finished to a standing ovation. Of course all the girlfriends in the room are all looking at their boyfriends and saying, "Why didn't you write me a song and sing it??" (but I digress) needless to say it was beautiful and she was in tears. It was really special. The rest of the night was filled with partying and craziness by all the groomsmen dancing and rapping to "Ice Ice Baby".. Aaaahhh you can never go wrong with the classics....here are some pictures from that night.

Check out most of the teaser images on our facebook album Liz and Mike Wedding

Recent Weddings

I know I'm so far behind on posting images from recent weddings. I've just had so much to do lately, that this keeps getting pushed back. Friends have asked me to post some of the images online and now I'm finally doing it.
These images are from Tracy and Jacob's wedding in June. This couple is way too cute for words. All their friends pretty much knew they were meant for each other. Talk about seeing two people that you know will last forever. Of course I had so much fun with them and they were game for any crazy ideas we had. I really love those clients that trust me to be the artist and allow me the artistic freedom to be creative!! That's when I really love what I do.

check out our facebook album for more images from the wedding itself.
Enjoy!!
Trung

List Party

I am so busy following up with brides from the bridal show. We've had many brides come into the studio for consultations. I have been following up with them with our newly designed postcards and then with our newsletters. This is the hardest part after the bridal show.
After work today, I attended the Bridal Extravaganza Show List Party at The Lounge on Mercer. If you've ever been to Uropa on Mercer, you know what I'm talking about when I say, "Wow, I never thought you'd have a lounge in this business district." It's in the middle of a business district where you'd never see a club like Uropa much less a lounge. The list party was an opportunity for us to get the list of all the registered brides that attended the show. It was an opportunity to meet and greet other vendors as well. It's a great way to meet some new vendors to network with. I did get to see some of my favorite vendors, Lisa from Petals by Design and Linly, from Cakes by Gina. It was a lot of fun to hang out with all of them.

Bridal Show is Over!!

As you could imagine, the Bridal Show is very tiring for the vendors, not only selling to the throngs of brides sweeping through the place, but being on your feet for 7 hours. I don't know how the women do it in their high heels but I do applaud them for it. Overall it was a great bridal show. I met some really good vendors that I want to work with in creating my preferred vendor list. I met with several vendors today that I have worked with in the past that I thought were exceptional. After being at so many weddings, you get to see what other vendors do and can spot which ones did a great job and which ones are just okay. I am hoping to create a preferred vendor list for my brides that will hopefully help them in picking out other vendors they are still looking for. I think this will really help out the brides. I am often asked for recommendations on make up artists, DJs, and especially videographers. This list should be done soon and hopefully I will have to packet ready for some of my brides from this show. Well back to work for me.
Trung

Bridal Show 1st day done!!

Wow, that first day of the bridal show was awesome. I met some really great brides yesterday. This show is a lot different from the bridal show in January. In January it seemed like most of the brides just got engaged in the holiday season and were very non committal. That combined with the fact that the economy was heading in a downward spiral, left most of the brides very reluctant to book a lot of their vendors since a lot of them didn't know if they would still have a job or not. Yesterday, on the other hand, we met a lot of brides that wanted to come into the studio and wanted to book consultations on the spot!! That was very exciting!!
Yesterday was very interesting in that we got a lot of inquiries for upcoming weddings for the later part of this year and even some in September. That's less than 2 months away!!! The July show, historically, has been the show where we book mostly Spring weddings, but this weekend we've talked to many brides about weddings coming in in less than 3 - 4 months!! This is very unusual. I would speculate that the economy has something to do with this.
Another interesting this I noticed yesterday was the smaller number of vendors at the show!! There were noticeably less photographer vendors there, which I guess is a good thing, less competition. The economy has definitely affected everyone's business.
Hope to have another great day at the show!!
Trung

Bridal Show Dilemma and Tips

The Bridal Extravaganza show is coming up and there will be so many brides looking to plan their whole wedding in one weekend. This is a great place to find a lot of your vendors and do comparison shopping. As Americans we often thrive on the fact that we have so many options to pick from. At the bridal show this January, of the the more than 500 vendors present, there were more than 110 photographers alone!! There were more photographers than any other single type of vendor there!! Now that's some serious competition and enormous selection!! there is a wide gamut of price and styles of photography to suit every kind of bride. This is good and bad for the bride. On the one hand, she has a lot of choices and we all generally think that is a good idea. sometimes though, I think too many choices tend to overwhelm them. Before the show, I often walk the floor and meet many of the other photographers to see their work and chit chat. After going through the show looking at ONLY the photographers, I'm overwhelmed!! Imagine a bride trying to look for all the other vendors as well!!! This is bad for the photographers exhibiting. All photographers want to work with clients that value their work and that can afford their prices. We want to connect with the bride and then explain what makes us unique. At the show, I would much rather connect with 10 brides and really get them excited instead of getting 500 names without connecting with a single bride and get her excited about working with us. Unfortunately, a lot of what happens at the show is, "Do you have a price list??!!", and then they take off to the next booth to ask for another pricelist from another vendor, just to be able to get through the whole show. I do realize my prices are not suited for everyone and I don't want to necessarily book every bride there.

Honestly I think there are a couple of tips I can give brides to make their day more productive and less overwhelming when shopping for photographers.

1. Meet the photographer that would potentially cover your wedding. Do you connect with them??

2. Carry two bags. Place all the brochures that you really are truly interested in and put all the brochures that you happened to get that you have no interest in in the other bag. When you get home, it's easier to know which bag you need to go over first and which bag to perhaps discard....

3. Wear comfortable shoes. I know girls that want to be cute and wear heels, but by the 8th aisle, their feet are killing them. There's going to be a lot of walking.

4. Bring a friend to bounce ideas off of and help you screen your vendors.

5. Print out labels with your contact information. Save yourself from writing down your information a million times to all the vendors you will be talking to.

That's all I have for now.

Hope to see you at our booth at the bridal show! Booth #532