How I Got Started In Destination Weddings

When I first started my wedding photography journey I knew that I’d want to shoot destination weddings. So I wasted no time in trying to make this happen.

I feel like it’s a bit of a cliche now for people to say “l love to travel” but it’s a cliche for a reason. It’s so good. Good for the mind, good for the soul and great for the taste buds. So if you are a wedding photographer or wedding filmmaker who likes to travel it makes sense to shoot weddings abroad right? Always easier said than done but I wanted to share my brief story on how I became a destination wedding photographer.

Since the start of this story, I’ve gone on to book weddings in Sri Lanka, Albania, Mexico, Greece Italy, France, Spain, USA, Ireland and Kenya. I got many of these weddings through my SEO, you can find out more about SEO here.

This isn’t a blueprint or cheat sheet for booking destination weddings. However, If you’re new to wedding photography/filmmaking and like the idea of doing destination weddings hopefully this brief story of how I got into it will help inspire you.

Building A Destination Portfolio

To increase my chances of booking weddings abroad I decided I needed to shoot some weddings abroad. After a 16-year career in the Royal Air Force, I had an extensive friends list on Facebook and I decided to reach out to everyone and anyone I knew to ask if anyone knew anyone who was getting married in the next 12 months. I reached out to those who responded and made them an offer.

Some couples had already sorted their photographer or declined my offer. The intro to the message changed from person to person as I knew some of the people but here is roughly what I’d said to them;

“Hey *name*! Hope you’re are well. I just wanted to let you know I’m currently only charging for flights and accommodation for overseas weddings. You’ll get everything included in my full UK package including all full-resolution files in colour and black and white with full professional editing. Ordinarily, couples would have to pay my full prices here; (insert price list/brochure), pay for travel expenses including, flights and accommodation as well as transfer costs. So basically you guys could have my services for the price of a flight and somewhere cheap to stay. How does this sound?”

I had two people who took me up on it. My offer was that I would shoot their weddings for just the cost of my expenses. One of these weddings was on a remote island in Greece and one of them was in the Spanish city of Barcelona. In fact, one of these couples was so overwhelmed by the offer they decided to pay me double what my expenses were.

Not long after I had these images on my website and I’d made the page Destination Wedding Photogrpaher, I got an enquiry for a wedding in Cyprus. Now I’m not going too deep in this blog post but I wonder if it was a coincidence or if I was putting my destination wedding photographer vibes into the universe that this happened, either way times were good on my journey to becoming a more frequent and fully paid wedding photographer that shoots abroad.

I was incredibly lucky at the time that my personal circumstances allowed me to give up this time to use it as an investment into my goal to shoot more weddings abroad. Not everyone has the time and circumstances that allow them to sacrifice that time. In fact, I wouldn’t have that time now but back then I was in a different situation. I’ve got a great return on this time now though.

My Message To A Destination Wedding Planner

Another thing I did that hugely helped me on my journey to becoming a destination wedding photographer was I reached out to a wedding planner who mainly did weddings in Italy. This planner was Jo of Accent Events who was based in the UK and sadly no longer trades as a wedding planner. I’ll be forever grateful though as this next little story was a huge lift on the the destination wedding stage.

I planned to reach out to some wedding planners who did destination weddings to ask if they’d like to do a guest post on my blog about creating some value for couples who may be planning a wedding abroad. I in return offered to create some content for their website, for example, “Things to consider when finding a wedding photographer”.

I planned to reach out to one planner at a time as if I messaged several and they all said yes I was worried that I’d not be able to accommodate similar articles and also I wanted the article I was going to gift out to be exclusive to the one planner.

A stroke of luck. The first planner I reached out to thought it was an amazing idea and Jo kindly wrote this article for me, my website and browsing brides to be; Planning A Wedding In Italy.

After some back-and-forth conversations and getting to know Jo better, she recommended me for three weddings in Italy. One on Lake Como, one in Sorrento and one in Tuscany. All three of these couples booked me based on Jo’s recommendation and my experience and destination portfolio grew in strength. From this content, I was able to build a great SEO content strategy which I explain more about and teach in the SEO Workshops. Some examples of the pages I created that now rank well on Google and still get me work today are my Lake Como Wedding Photogrpaher page and another place that I’ve now shot several weddings in is my Sicily Wedding Photographer page.

How To Build A Destination Portfolio

Maybe you have a friend or family member that’s getting married abroad and you could make them an attractive offer so you can gain some destination wedding experience.

Another way you can get images to show yourself as a wedding photographer with destination experience is to reach out to other photographers you know who already shoot abroad. For some shooting destination weddings can be a lonely experience and having some company could be welcomed.

Some however may love the time they get alone whilst travelling so don’t be offended if they don’t want someone else along.

A final way to get destination wedding photography images is to book destination workshops. Some are coming very soon with FEDWED and to be the first to find out about these limited workshops, be sure to join the mailing list to be the first to know.

I would always advise you to be transparent with any future couples on how you built your destination portfolio. Perhaps it was a styled shoot or a workshop abroad, then I wouldn’t want to be dishonest by allowing couples to believe I have a full destination wedding experience. Integrity goes a long way in any field and once you have shot your first destination wedding you’re well on your way to building that trust and experience that your future couples will value.