Lessons

Lesson Info

Wedding Magazine Submissions

What we're going to make to next is my first print publication and it was inside weddings magazine which still maintains since day to be one of my one of the favorites this wedding happened in carnation washington, which is about twenty minutes twenty five minutes outside of seattle this was in july june of two thousand eight and I photographed their wedding at what was called the carnation farm, which used to be the nestle farm so the big nestle chocolate company was that's where they had milk for their cows which producer chocolate and I was lucky enough to talk them into a first look before their ceremony. They have a plant and what we hear I don't know every time we come to seattle is rained, but what we hear is in july in august it doesn't usually rain what we came and they had slated and outdoor on outdoor wedding ceremony and it was raining on that weekend so we were just really happy that they had planned for a first look because the skies parted for about twenty minutes and sh...

e happened to be ready and so we just call the groomer like, listen, we have twenty minutes to get every photo possible done and so we made everything happening within twenty minutes I wasn't necessarily shooting for the invisible editor at this time because at this particular moment I had been featured once and never in print what they wanted to do is incorporate small details from the farm without making it feel like a hoedown wedding because it was at carnation farm, they wanted to use bright colors, but small references were made to their environment throughout the day, and casey, the bride did a lot of work to personalize every detail. When you walked through the room, there wasn't a piece of floor that wasn't personally touched by her, and it was a lot of photographs, but I think it ended up paying off in a way that I wasn't necessarily anticipating because it was raining. They brought what they were going to do outside inside what they called muse mazu elam, I believe it's called it. This is now the the cool it her wedding still remains one of my favorite still to this day. Part of the reason why I like it is because her family she was born and raised in seattle and the groom was actually her older brother's best friend in high school, and they just never really talked to each other but born and raised here in this area, the other families here, but what they decided to do was take everybody to carnation farm on carnation farm, they have facilities like a small hotel and all of the guests stayed on property, so it was like a four day event and all of this stuff was supposed to be on the outside but there's a lot of latitude leading up to the day so they need was gonna rain. They brought everything indoors and hosted a big indoor party and I felt like she did the best she possibly could, but still at this time I'm not even thinking editorially because in my mind I'm thinking, oh, outdoors this is what the tradition it looks like now. Um when I first posted this wedding one of my past brides and I'm telling you the story of how I got the feature so one of my past brides nicole policias silva had gotten married in october of the previous year in october of two thousand eight, nicole and aaron were married since that point she had contacted me and said she was an assistant editor at inside weddings magazine and I congratulated her and I was so excited I was this is amazing. When I posted this wedding in july, I got a random email from her in just that I really think that you should submit this wedding because she still followed the block, which I thought was really cool I was like, oh good for you so she said, I really think you should submit this wendy and I had said I don't even know where to start I don't even know what's good I don't even know what enters air looking for and I went back to the gallery and I simply chose whatever images that I thought would work I don't even know how many I chose to be honest I just was like uh guess they burned them on a disk and I sent them tio nicole and her boss at the time which is maryland oliviera and I'm quite sure I did it totally wrong I know how to do it I know now what works its best or better then I did it hot mess style maryland kindly email me and asked me for access to my online gallery so she would be able to go through and pick the images that they would want to use for publication so she was very kind and she threw me a bone and explained after I saw her choices I was like oh I clearly need all the wrong choices I was choosing as a wedding photographer she was choosing as an editor now once she chose us images I got them in a edited and they send them to them and inside weddings called casey and nicole as this is an editor wrote her story and I got it all got all the details about the creative team now I learned a ton from this experience I needed not to make extra work for the editor I needed to actually get what she needed before she needed it. I think in this particular situation it worked in that nicole was able to kind of be a champion for me at this fingers at this point in time, but I think it's really important for unedited to have everything she needs at her fingertips and with this taught me was to put together a presentation to send to an editor so that she will have exactly what she needs when she's needing it at that particular moment. What resulted from that that conversation was being featured in inside weddings for the casey penske and nicholas look cleric wedding in june of two thousand eight in carnation, washington does the first time I had been featured in print and I wasn't expecting it, and I pretty sure my mom went to albertsons and bought like every issue and pass them around that church. So this is what I'm one of the reasons why I'm a huge fan of inside weddings is because they're one of the few magazines that dedicates the most space to real weddings, as opposed to advertisements as opposed to editorials. And I think that's kind of what bridezilla on board you'll see the ground is completely wet because it was before the bridal party photos up. In the upper left corner it was raining would read inside it was raining were outside, you know? It was like we did a lot of that throughout the day and inside weddings, love's family pictures, but what I think that he opted to do in this particular situation was just used the purse, the processional pictures because we didn't really get the type of family pictures that would really represent the caliber of their of their magazine, but casey spent so much time on the details and they really did include it, so making sure you get food shots inside weddings loves food shots, and then they had a martini tree, which I thought was really cool. Ashleigh a question about food shots do you typically focus? I mean, I'm so shooting a lot of weddings where maybe there's stations of stations air usually more visually pleasing than a buffet is. But are you going to focus mostly on that type of thing and cocked our food where it's like the past or duras versus a tray of yeah, you know, the jury I would like the court on blue chicken potatoes? Yeah, I'm not really shooting that yeah, yeah like stations, anything that custom, the order ves although sometimes I sometimes have grabbed a plate it's a pretty plate and I just take it and I stylized plates and sometimes of servers hate me but if I talked to the coordinator of I talk to the events manager the catering manager and like I promise I'll get you this image I just want to shoot it like give me five minutes we'll get you a plate but we need to complete the table perfect that makes sense for pleading food cause you're not really gonna go over someone's shoulder and be like exact way taking it by e don't you have cold? Uh yes mark how long after you shot this was it published? They're saying it was like a year yeah, I think that's another thing with print it takes a very long time actually it takes along with this one but mostly this was in um march two thousand nine so almost letting your later but they're usually getting featured about a year to year and a half later. Um this is the last feature of that spread advertising by nicole pluses silva so that was what the feature looked like, but I'm talking about what I learned from that experience and what I learned from that experience is what the print submission process is now this is totally hodgepodge this is my big disclaimer I do not have, you know technique I do not have like any insider information, this is just what I do and from what I've had conversations with print editors this is what works well for them, although people can totally do it better. I'm sure take this idea and run with it personally. To make it your own. When you think would be great for you to do is to create a client question here very similar to what you would do. You want to make sure all types of questions before the editor could possibly have them. Basic things are the name of other clients. The wedding date and location. National wedding magazines like to have diversity. They don't want to have all california weddings are all new york weddings. Eso making sure that you list the location list the creative team. This would requires work on your end, but don't make the editor do it. The floors everybody we listed yesterday, the florist, the designer all that judge goes on there also asked for information up for the shoes dress the chute jewelry invites this is what's going on the invitation for the broader this is what's going on for the question ear for the bride to complete. Oh, and also ask questions to showcase how unique the wedding wass in this particular situation, I had asked why casey opted for cupcakes instead of a cake, but casey was so far ahead of the curve, she was one of the few brides at that time, which is why she got a full page dedicated to her cupcake bar, which we look at that now we're like, ok that's part, of course, but at the time she didn't do a formal cake cutting not so odd, and I included why she didn't do that. The goal for every submission is to personalize it because you have to understand that you're competing with a very large group of people, so the more you personalize it, I think the better it stands out. You want to ensure that your creative team is on board. Every media, outlet, print or online wants exclusivity, so making sure that nobody compromises the feature for you that's what you always want to make sure and actually, when you're creative team sesay, working so hard and ardently on their behalf to get their names in print nobody's out there trying to sabotage the key is just to let them know what your plans are and to keep them posted. Now, how do you make it stand out? Very similar tio online submissions be organized, personalize the submission, ensure that that's emissions a good fit, because we have to understand that inside weddings. Caters to a slightly different audience than martha stewart, a slightly different audience than bride's, a slightly different audience than the not a slightly different audience than destination. I do find where your wedding would fit the most and then cater to that and answer every question in advance. Look at it from an outsider's perspective. Look at your images and say, ok, what could possibly be a question that an editor would have for me at this particular moment and then take things from there? So what does the submission look like? I brought a submission with me kind of sharing. I know it was like, ok, so I brought just a white and blue because I knew I was traveling, but I have a branded a branded envelope with my logo and shipping all that good information. But this is what a client this is. What an editor is sam, are you gonna be the man? So I'm going to actually bring them up and hold him up wanted to time, but we're gonna do a recall right now. Great. So the first thing that I include is a hand written note on my stationary because I want to brand my submission and it's personalized, dearest maryland, thank you kindly for your time and consideration regarding emily and djs wedding. At the montage laguna beach I didn't sincerely hope to see these images grace the pages of inside weddings so please let me know if there's anything else you need for me stay fabulous j star I include my business card so she knows exactly how to contact me and I'm including question here that I'm including for my clients and it's on a veranda paper so in case she happens to find this random loosely piece of paper she has who it's from she has my phone number and she has my website and the paper is rounded corners because I pay attention to detail so I paid for the people who made like I know I don't print everything on that paper thiss uh that was a third thing the fourth thing that I include is a disk of the images now what is important about disc of images what you want to do is making sure this is not like the nicest case you've ever seen but for them it makes the most sense they want to be able if this landed across the art editor's desk because a senior editor and the editor and the assistant editor are all very different people and there's one disk if this ended up randomly two weeks later on to these desk they need to be able to pick it up look at a picture know who they're going to look at and I have their names I have the location so emily and d j wedding laguna beach, california july tenth, two thousand nine this is an older simitian and on the back I have my contact information jasmine star then when they open it in case this disc ever got lost anywhere the same information is on the disc jasmine star emily and e j wedding laguna beach june tenth, two thousand nine lastly and this is optional but I think that this is kind of one things that set it apart is I order contact sheets from white house custom color and what these on what the contact sheets are all the pictures that I'm submitting so if the editor does not have time to look through my disk I gave her no reason not to see my image is making it very hard for her not to see what I'm doing it takes time to get the disc put in a computer dragged the folder look at it and that's a first world problem I know absolutely but if you open it she can look at this and she could get a red pen and she could circle I like this I like this okay, they did it to cuba. We need a jewish wedding do we need a brunette bride? Do we need a mixed family like all of that stuff they care about geographic uh, diversity they care about age diversity they care about ethnic diversity the's editors are looking for a myriad of different things, so making sure that you give them every reason not to say no that's kind of like the goal in this particular in this particular case, um, from that experience, I have learned and have accessibly submitted to other magazines and have been featured, and the next time he had the opportunity to submit team maryland at inside weddings, I felt like I was a little bit more prepared on how to prepare a submission that really reflected myself. And I was really happy because my sister's bridal party bridal shower got featured in inside weddings in december of two thousand ten for her winning, so I felt a little bit more prouder and how I submitted those because I felt it was a representation of my brand so that's a little bit how I got featured, what a submission looks like and for the longest time, I wanted to know how it happened and that's it that's, that's all I got and the good news is that maryland's gonna join us later this afternoon? We're going to ask her questions and shouldn't be available. And she's so sweet she's such a professional, professional, good hearted person, so I'm very excited to have her along.