If you’ve been in the wedding industry for more than a hot minute, you’ve most likely heard of styled shoots – or maybe even participated in one! If not: a styled shoot is like an editorial, or a staged photo shoot. Outside of that short description, I’m afraid that’s where the information out there stops being consistent when it comes to styled shoots.

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There seems to be pretty rampant confusion over styled shoots. How do I get a team together? Who pays for what? How do I get published? I see it in the Facebook groups, at conferences and at networking events: people are talking about styled shoots, but not everyone is clear WHY.

I might not be the best salesperson, and I might not have the biggest team or produce weddings with the largest budgets. However, there are a few things I do in my business that I think we do far and away better than most of the industry – and one of them is styled shoots. I use them in my business to consistently attract and book my ideal client, keep my social media accounts full of beautiful imagery, and try new things. We now do two per year, and it dawned on me as I was putting the first few parts into place for this next one, “Hey, I could pull back the curtain a bit and show some of the behind-the-scenes action of how we do our shoots!”.

So that’s exactly what we’re going to do! I’ll be taking you through our entire styled shoot process, an along the way giving away some freebies I know you’re going to want to help you with your shoots as well! Want the first one? Click here to get our FREE vendor email templates – the same emails we use to reach out to new vendors!

I’m inviting you to head on over to our Instagram: www.instagram.com/harmonycreative (or @harmonycreative), and follow along there as we show you all the behind-the-scenes action for our upcoming shoot!

Since I’m already a few steps into our process, I’ll catch you up with what I think are the basic ‘Starting Points’ for any styled shoot:

Goals:

Everybody says, ‘I should do a shoot!’, but when asked WHY they want to do one, or what they are hoping to get out of it, we always hear a lot of ‘Well all my competitors are doing them!”, or “I want to get published.” Yeah, so does everyone. I hate to be the bearer of bad news: these are not great goals by themselves.  You must have a clear goal for your shoot, or else it will be nearly impossible to achieve anything from doing one.

Design:

Yes, notice I said ‘design’ and not ‘theme’. It’s so important to have a full design already fleshed out before approaching prospective vendors. Don’t come to people with half an idea and expect them to be super pumped and blindly get involved with your shoot.  Next week we’ll have a ton of info for you on how to pull together your design, so stay tuned!

Team:

From what I’ve seen, this is the hardest part for people. I see calls for vendors DAILY on social media.  I literally don’t have enough space to tell you why that is not a good idea. You have to think about your team far in advance and include them in the creative process of turning your design into reality. They cannot be an after-thought.

I can already hear you through the interwebs: “Well, that’s easy for you to say! You’ve been in business for over 8 years and know so many people. I’m new!” True. But I was new once. And luckily for you – I’ve already made the mistakes and struggled to build the right team for my shoots, so you don’t have to. I’ve created an amazing resource for you: our vendor email templates. These are the exact same emails I have been using in my business for the past 4 years with great success. I’ve expanded my network and found the perfect partners using these, and am totally confident you can too!

Sign up here to get the FREE vendor email templates!

And, great news: if you sign up to get this first freebie, you’ll automatically get ALL the freebies I’ve created for this series! Checklists, guides and templates that will help you create amazing shoots, totally FREE! I’ll also be sending out amazing tips and resources via email, so you can get all the best info straight to your inbox!

I can’t wait to see you over on Instagram and look forward to continuing the dialogue around styled shoots. Do you have a burning question about shoots? What are you struggling with currently? I want to know! Send me an email at info@hrmnycreative.com or shoot me a DM on social media and I’ll make sure your question gets answered!!

 

Credits // All Photos: Design + Planning by Harmony Creative Studio // Top Photo: Photography: Jasmine Star  Flowers: Enchanted Garden Floral Tabletop Rentals: Dish Wish Paper Goods: Smitten on Paper Venue: Vibiana Linen: La Tavola Fine Linen  // Middle Photo: Photography: Studio Castillero Flowers: Heirloom Design House Dress: Rmine  Venue: Temecula Creek Inn // Bottom Photo: Photography: Christine Sara Photo Invitations: Dear Darling Calligraphy Dress: Sarah Janks