Elevate Your Wedding Business with Styled Shoots: A Comprehensive Guide to Success

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and this is especially true in the wedding industry. Whether you’re a florist, planner, or anything in between, photographs that showcase the true beauty of your work are a necessity in every wedding professional’s portfolio.

However, if you’re not a photographer, it’s not always easy to snap a few photographs of your work during a client’s wedding. Not only can this be an interruption, but your current client work may not display your true potential. For this reason, many wedding professionals use styled shoots in their portfolios and marketing campaigns.

What is a Styled Shoot?

As its name suggests, a styled shoot is a meticulously planned, styled photo session. Rather than taking candid photos during a ceremony or reception, a styled shoot aims to showcase a specific theme, trend, or design concept within the wedding industry. 

A styled shoot typically involves collaboration between various wedding professionals, including photographers, planners, florists, models, and boutique owners, all of which come together to create a cohesive, visual story.

Why are Styled Shoots Important?

Styled shoots offer wedding professionals the opportunity to showcase your unique creative vision, which is something not always available within the work you do with your clients. With styled shoots, you can experiment with different styles or trends that align with your brand and resonate with your target audience.

More than that, styled shoots can be a fantastic networking opportunity. When collaborating with other wedding professionals, you can push the boundaries of your own work and think outside the box. This allows you to present potential clients with fresh, innovative ideas that set you apart from competitors.

Better yet, it’s easy to build a visual marketing campaign around a styled shoot. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to build a portfolio. This is because you can tailor every aspect of the shoot to both your unique strengths as a wedding professional and the desires of your target audience.

What Should Wedding Professionals Expect From a Styled Shoot?

Just like each of us working in the wedding industry, every styled shoot is unique and will have different results. However, there are a few things you can expect when participating in a styled shoot, such as:

1. Collaboration 

In the wedding industry, it’s impossible to do everything yourself. This can be a sore spot at times, but styled shoots celebrate collaboration and bring us together to create something beautiful. At a styled shoot, you’ll work closely with other wedding professionals to bring a cohesive vision to life, giving everyone an opportunity to showcase their skills and creativity.

2. Exposure

Let’s be real here: we don’t do styled shoots just to keep the resulting photographs to ourselves. After all that hard work, the pictures from the shoot can (and should!) be shared by you and your collaborators across social media, business websites, and media outlets. You can expect that photos help your wedding business gain exposure in the community and beyond.

3. Professional Development

Unlike when working on client projects, styled shoots allow you to flex your skills and build new ones. Expect to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, exploring new techniques and learning from the industry experts you’re collaborating with.

4. Industry Recognition

Combining the exposure your wedding business receives and the networking chances provided by participating in styled shoots, you are establishing credibility within the wedding industry. Industry recognition is paramount, as it opens the door for opportunities like being featured in blogs, publications, and even television.

How Do I Create a Successful Styled Shoot?

Working in the wedding industry requires meticulous attention to detail and intense planning, and creating a styled shoot is no different. These are the steps you need to take to ensure that your styled shoot will be successful:

1. Define Your Vision

Start by selecting a theme, color palette, or concept that aligns with your brand and target audience. Think about who should be represented, the skills or services you want to highlight, and what you want to convey about your wedding business. 

If you’re struggling to create a cohesive story for your styled shoot, I recommend making a moodboard. This can be done on Pinterest or as an old school collage, but gathering inspiration photographs always makes the process easier.

2. Assemble a Team

When you have a clear vision for what you want your styled shoot to convey, share this idea with other wedding professionals. Cover all your bases when gathering a team of talented wedding professionals—photographers, planners, florists, gown owners, etc.—and make sure that they share your vision and complement one another’s skills.

3. Plan and Communicate

For a successful styled shoot, you’ll need a detailed plan that encompasses everything from the location, props, models, logistics, and timeline. To ensure that everyone is on the same page, communicate your plan with your collaborators and coordinate with them to prevent any scheduling mishaps.

4. Execute the Shoot

When the day of the styled shoot comes, you’ll need to be on your A game. To bring your vision to life, coordinate with the team on-site while paying attention to every detail. Be open to compromises, as mistakes often happen and need to be corrected or changed on the spot. From there, you’ll be able to capture stunning images or videos.

5. Follow Up and Share

After the shoot, it’s normal for wedding professionals to feel like they need a short break. Once the stress has subsided and you’ve gathered yourself, share the final images from the shoot with all the participants. Make sure that you express sincere gratitude for their contributions!

Then, you’ll be able to promote the styled shoot. With the help of your collaborators, you can share the images via social media, blogs, and publications. 

Showcase Your Wedding Business With Styled Shoots

Styled shoots can be stressful and time consuming for wedding professionals, but the end result is more than worth the trouble. They offer you new avenues to collaborate and network with your peers, gain exposure within the community, build your skills, and establish yourself as an industry professional.

Whether you want to appeal to a new demographic or are simply dying to advertise that new avant-garde floral arrangement, styled shoots are a fantastic way to do it.