Welcome to the new version of schendelphoto.com 🙂
Hello everyone! I’m going to try to keep this post fairly short and sweet. In summary: Schendel Photo is shutting down I’m no longer taking on any new clients at this point. If you are a past client you should’ve received an email from me already with information about how long your photo galleries will be availble.
Oh no! What happened! Are you ok?? Nothing major happened and yes I’m quite alright :). I did some introspection and decided that while I enjoy photography I no longer want to do it as a business. I started this business so focused on whether I could even manage to start a business, get any clients, deliver a stellar experience to them, etc that I never really stopped to think about what it would look like if I was successful. Schendel Photo was still in its infancy but based on how things were going, I have no doubts it could’ve become a successful business and potentially eventually become my full time career. However, as great as some parts of running a wedding photography business are (weekdays mostly free, setting your own availability, seeing awesome venues) there are some downsides as well. Weekends throughout the year are pretty well booked up, there are so many details about each wedding and couple that need to be documented/remembered/captured on the day of, and a ton of work goes into creating an incredible experience for couples.
For a single couple’s wedding this is the process I’ve gone through lately:
- Receive an inquiry from a potential client
- Get on an initial phone call to see if we might be a good fit
- Meet at a coffee shop or similar to talk through their wedding plans and share what I bring to the table. Mostly I just wanted to get them excited about their wedding regardless of whether they booked me or not
- If they booked me, send a new client gift and get-to-know-you questionnaire
- Do the engagement session with the couple
- Cull/Edit/Deliver engagement session
- Send long questionnaire to get the details of the wedding day
- Create a full timeline of the wedding day based on those details
- Meet with the couple to talk through the timeline I created and learn any important details/finalize the plan
- Scout out the wedding venue to see what the light is like, where good locations are, etc
- Photograph the wedding for 6-10 hours
- Prepare for reveal session
- Schedule date with couple
- Cull/Edit wedding gallery
- Create initial album design
- Create slideshow of images
- Book studio for reveal
- Go to a studio with the couple for a reveal session where I show them a slideshow of their images, provide a tasty beverage of choice, and talk through album design decisions
- Receive album design feedback and make changes
- Order album and any other printed artwork
- Receive album and verify the quality/accuracy
- Hand deliver the album to the couple’s home (if they live in the metro)
I know other photographers will look at this list and think some of this is reasonable and some of this is crazy. My intention from the beginning is that I want to provide an incredible experience for my couples throughout the whole time I work with them and not just on their wedding day. However, I realized that unless I’m ready to dive in and make this my full time career that I won’t be able to keep providing this great experience and therefore it’s time to end things. I am very proud of what I was able to deliver for my couples and I truly hope they feel like they were important to me through the actions I performed for them.
For those of you who are looking to hire a wedding photographer or know someone who is in that process I want to offer some questions I’d strongly recommend asking when meeting with photographers:
- What is your backup process for keeping images safe both on the wedding day and afterwards? How many places are the photos backed up?
- What happens if you aren’t available on my wedding day due to illness/etc?
- There are a lot of great wedding photographers out there, why would you recommend someone hire you specifically instead of one of them?
Lastly, I would like to wholeheartedly make a referral to anybody looking for a wedding photographer in Minnesota (or elsewhere, reach out to her) – Rachel Lahlum. I’ve worked with her as a second photographer for a dozen weddings and she is absolutely phenomenal at what she does. If you hire her, you simply don’t have to worry about what happens on the wedding day – she has your back and will capture your story. She books up pretty quickly (she does ~40+ weddings/year) so as soon as you have a date set, reach out to her! https://rachellahlum.com/
Sincerely – thank you to my clients, industry professionals I’ve learned from, and my friends and family who have supported this endeavor. This decision was not easy and that’s mostly because of how incredible my couples are and how inspiring and beautiful their wedding days have been. I wish you all a lifetime of love and partnership 🙂
If anyone ever needs me, you can reach me at [email protected] for the foreseeable future!