Becoming a wedding photographer - my journey.

Apr 29

I sometimes get messages from people who are wanting to start out as wedding photographers, asking me if I have any advice. And I never feel like I’m the best person to ask because the truth is I’ve had a really long journey and it’s a journey I’m still on to this day.

April 29th has strangely become a day where I look back and reflect on how far I’ve come and so as April 29th is today, I thought I’d share some of my journey with you…

2011

I was 21, a barmaid and studying English Literature and Creative Writing at university. My plan was to have a career based around writing. Another thing that I loved was music (particularly heavy metal) and I spent a chunk of my student loan on gig tickets. I used to buy the Kerrang! magazine every Wednesday and I felt so inspired when I read the reviews on various gigs. So I started to wonder if I could become a music journalist and work for Kerrang!. I started writing reviews of gigs I went to and I set up a facebook page called ‘Leah’s Ears Music Reviews’, where I posted all of my reviews. Then I realised that all of the reviews in Kerrang! had photos too, so I would sneak my camera into gigs, trying to get the best photo I could from within the crowd. But the truth is, I knew nothing about photography. I just used the camera’s auto settings and hoped for the best.

Some friends of mine knew I had a nice camera (nicer than most anyway) and asked if I’d take some photos for them. I saw it as good practice because I still had no idea what I was doing with my camera. I did a photo shoot for my friend in her back garden with her niece and got some really nice photos (one of which is in the slideshow here). I put those photos on facebook (more to show them to my friends than anything) and off the back of that I had more people asking if I could take photos of them.

2012

I was still taking my camera along to gigs (one perfectly timed photo of Rammstein actually was published in Kerrang!). I occasionally managed to wangle an access all areas press pass but most of the time I was just photographing from the crowd.

But I was also photographing more families and I had enough people asking me for photos to get up the confidence to charge for it. I think I only charged around £30 though.

But more notably I was asked to photograph some weddings! The first wedding I photographed was for a friend of mine and the wedding was up in Blackpool (around 6 hours away from home). I would have gone even if I hadn’t been asked to do the photos, so I didn’t see the travel as an issue. I didn’t actually charge them anything but they did pay for my B&B for me.

I was booked by another friend of mine for my second wedding. His dad and step mum weren’t going to have a wedding photographer, so him and his sister hired me as a wedding present. I remember charging £60 for it. I was just thinking of it as a longer photo shoot at the time, so I doubled what I was charging for that. I had no idea that people did wedding photography as a job and lived off that income (I clearly hadn’t been to many weddings). To me it was just pressing a button, I was still only using my camera on auto and I didn’t think any more of it.

I charged more again for my third wedding (£150 I think) because I realised I was spending a long time editing the photos. I met the third couple while I was at work (I was still a barmaid). We’d got chatting and somehow my new hobby had come up in conversation. So they asked if I’d photograph their wedding. I really wasn’t seeking photography out, I just kept getting asked if I’d do these things and I kept saying yes.

I’m not digging out those first few wedding photos btw (they’re on disks).

2013

I was in my final year of university and I was struggling a bit with the pressure of that. I think at this point, I had started to question what I should be doing with my life. I’d spent years being so sure I wanted to become a writer but now photography had become important to me too. I only photographed one wedding in 2013 and this was another couple I’d met whilst at work (still a barmaid). I can’t remember for certain, but I think I charged £200 for this fourth wedding. I had started to experiment with manual camera settings by this point but I was still very much a beginner and the couple knew that. It feels so strange to be uploading photos from so long ago but it gives you an idea of where my work was at, at that time. Colour popping (making part of the photo colour and part black and white) was really popular back then. I’ve seen a few trends come and go during my time as a wedding photographer, at the moment the trend is editorial photography. Trends come and go and I try not to join in with them these days because I feel like it’s important to find your style and then be consistent with it.

2014

I’d finished Uni and I think I had come to the realisation that I wanted to explore photography more. I felt deflated because I’d spent so many years at college and Uni and now I was changing my mind on what I wanted to do. I was still a barmaid and I didn’t feel any closer to having a career. I photographed five weddings in 2014, so it was my busiest year yet but I was really only taking baby steps. I wasn’t paying for advertising, business was slow because I didn’t have much of a portfolio yet and I still only knew the very basics of photography. I also didn’t have a lot of equipment, I think I only had the one camera at this point (and that’s not good, you should always have back up cameras with you at a wedding) and I probably still only had one lens too, which would have been a very basic kit lens. So even though I’d been photographing people for a few years by this point, I couldn’t have been more of a beginner if I’d tried.
If you’re interested in where I got the five wedding bookings this year, one was a family wedding, one was a friend’s wedding, one was word of mouth, one was someone I spoke to at work (another booking off the back of being a barmaid) and then one came from a free gumtree advert - seriously.

2015

I photographed thirteen weddings in 2015, so I’d more than doubled what I’d done the previous year which felt like such a huge accomplishment. I'm pretty sure this was the year that I started investing in more camera gear too. I had more lenses, a second camera body, flash guns etc. So it was becoming clear to me at this point that this wasn't just a hobby anymore. I'd fully stopped pursuing a career in writing and accepted the fact that I had new ambitions now. And that was great but it also really sucked because I'd wasted so many years studying something I now wasn't using. I thought I'd have been in a well paid, full time job by this point in my life but I was still a barmaid, working part time hours earning minimum wage.

I was living pay check to pay check, renting a small annexe above my landlord's garage and most of my earnings from photography were going straight into buying more camera gear. I was 25 and I couldn't help but notice that friends around me were really settling down into adult life. They had full time jobs, promising careers, they were homeowners, they were getting married, having children, travelling. And I couldn't help but compare myself to those people. I felt like I was still living a student life (just without the partying).

In April 2015 I poured my last pint as a barmaid and I started working as a teaching assistant in a secondary school. This was huge for me because I'd grown so tired of pub work after 7 years. The TA job was 9-3 Monday to Friday and I didn't have to work during the school holidays. It was better money than the pub work but still not much in the grand scheme of things. A great job to fit around wedding photography though, because I had my weekends free for weddings and I finished work early enough in the weekdays to be able to do some editing. I would get home from working in the school and get straight to work at home, and I'd work into the late evening most of the time. They were long days and I felt convinced that I couldn't ever get a full time job because I was only just managing juggling everything with my part time job. I knew that my dream of becoming a full time wedding photographer was the main thing holding me back in life at that point. It was the reason I'd stayed in part time, low paid jobs, when I could have utilised my degree instead.

On April 29th 2015 I saw this picture online and it resonated with me so much. It was a reminder to me to keep going for my dreams. If I turn back and choose stability with a well paid full time job, I'd never know how close I was to success. I shared the picture on Facebook and I opened up about all the sacrifices I was making in order to follow my dreams. And this is the reason why April 29th has become a day of reflection for me every year since.

2016

I photographed slightly less weddings in 2016 compared to 2015. I'm not too sure why that was but I don't remember panicking about it. I had my TA job, so I wasn't relying financially on my wedding photography at all. I'm not 100% sure on this but I think I was only charging around £550-£600 for a full day wedding at this stage, even though I had been photographing weddings for four years at this point. But I do think that my prices were in line with the level of work I was producing at the time. I was a slow learner with photography, obviously completely self taught too and I felt that my prices reflected the skill and experience I had at the time. At the end of 2016, I had photographed a total of 30 weddings to date.

At one of my 2016 weddings (not the one pictured) I had a bad experience with a wedding guest. She wanted to become a wedding photographer herself but she hadn’t ever photographed a wedding before. So she bought her camera along and she was there all day taking pictures next to me. She was there in the morning while the bride was getting ready, she was stood in the aisle (in front of me) when the couple were exiting the ceremony, she wouldn’t get in any group photos because she wanted to be taking them. I found it really difficult to work around her because she wasn’t being considerate at all, even when I politely asked her to give me some more space. The couple did mention her to me before the wedding, they said she was a family member and asked if it would be okay for her to take a few photos from the day. And I’d said yes because I didn’t see it as a problem, guests take photos all the time at weddings and I’d never have wanted to say that wasn’t allowed. But after the wedding she uploaded the photos she’d taken on a facebook page that she’d set up. She was using photos from my booking to advertise herself. She made no mention of the fact that she was a guest at the wedding, she worded it in a way that made people think she had been hired for the job, not me. This was incredibly upsetting but I didn’t feel like I had any grounds to complain as I had agreed she could take photos and there was nothing in my contract to say that people couldn’t advertise their own photography with photos from the day. So I took it on the chin and learned from the experience. I amended my contract so that I’d be covered if something like this happened again.

2017

In 2017 another wedding photographer called Matt Stansfield approached me online as he was looking for a second photographer for some of the weddings he had coming up that year. I remember feeling incredibly nervous about meeting him and I now realise it was due to my imposter syndrome. Being a completely self taught photographer I felt like I wouldn’t be able to hold my own around other photographers. I imagined them saying photography jargon that I didn’t understand or dissing my gear because it wasn’t the latest model. I think my experience in 2016 with the wedding guest photographer, had meant I had put a bit of a guard up when it came to mixing with other photographers. But spoiler alert, Matt and I are still very good friends to this day. He has stepped away from photographing weddings now but he’s still my go to person to talk to about all things wedding related.

Being a second photographer for the first time was really eye opening for me, seeing how another photographer worked really helped me to acknowledge my own strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately though, imposter syndrome has always stopped me from putting my name forward for second shooting jobs with other photographers. Even today, 12 years into wedding photography I have only ever worked with Matt. I’ve never been a second for anyone else and never had anyone second for me.

Looking back now, I can see that business was still still quite slow for me in 2017. But it didn’t feel like that at the time. I remember photographing a full day wedding which I’d charged £700 for and that felt like such a big deal to me at the time. I couldn’t believe I’d got that booking and I was over the moon. It’s things like this that make me realise how far I’ve come because I charge over double for a full day weekend wedding now.

Lastly, in December 2017 my partner and I became homeowners. This achievement in life was largely only possible due to an inheritance I had received.

2018

Over 50% of my weddings in 2018 were all in the spring. Lots of people think being a wedding photographer is a glamourous job but they don’t realise how difficult it is to get the wedding bookings for the dates you want them. Two weddings a month would be amazing but it never happens like that. Some months you’ll have none, other months you’ll have seven and it rarely evens out throughout the year for you. This also means that some months you’re good for money and other months you’re skint. It can be so sporadic and unpredictable and that’s what makes it so scary to go full time with it.

But in 2018 the school I worked at were offering a number of redundancies. And I felt like this was my chance to take the leap and try being a full time wedding photographer. It wasn’t good timing for me though because I left the TA job in July and I’d already photographed most of that year’s weddings, the second half of the year was much quieter for me. And so I didn’t last long as a full time wedding photographer and I started doing work for a foster care company as a support worker. It was a zero hour contract job, so I knew I couldn’t rely on it and that was good. It was the perfect stepping stone for me, easing me out of those regular pay checks and getting me used to a random income. I should point out that my other half did have a secure and stable job, so I really couldn’t have done all of this without him and his support.

2019

So I was 29, I had a zero hour contract job as a support worker and I was hustling all I could to make it as a full time wedding photographer. It’s safe to say this is not what I thought life would be like for me at 29. All I could think about was where I’d get the next wedding booking from, I had to make it work and I only had a certain amount of time left, before finances would get too low and I’d have to go and get another regular paid job. Looking back on this year, it felt like a year of anxiety. I desperately wanted more bookings for 2019 but most of the bookings I was getting were for 2020. In fact, 2020 was looking very good for me! And I knew that if I could just get through 2019, I’d be exactly where I wanted to be. 2020 was going to be my year…

2020

I don’t need to tell you this but 2020 was not my year. The pandemic came along and as a result I only photographed 4 small weddings. I hadn’t had a year that quiet since my first two years (when I wasn’t even looking for wedding bookings). And to add to the trouble, no-one was really booking wedding photography at the time either, because no-one wanted to take the risk with booking anything. I even stopped getting work with the foster care company, so I ended up delivering Amazon parcels to get me by.

2021

My first wedding of 2021 wasn’t until the May, but after that they just kept coming. There was a backlog of people who all wanted to get married in 2020 and suddenly it was a great time to be a wedding photographer. I photographed 26 weddings in 2021, which was the busiest year I’d had by far. My ideal amount was 24 weddings (2 weddings per month) so this was more than I’d ever aimed for. Things went from being super quiet to super busy, just like that.

I worked my last shift delivering Amazon parcels on April 24th and since then I have not earned a single penny elsewhere, I have been fully self employed for three years now. But I didn’t want to assume that I’d reached the diamonds (from the picture I’d posted back in 2015). For all I knew my success could have just been a product of the pandemic.

2022

2022 was also incredibly busy, I photographed 31 weddings and I learned that 31 was too many for me to handle in one year. Some photographers boast about photographing 50 odd weddings in a year and I never quite know whether to believe that or not. The year is a bit of a blur, all I did was work but it felt great to be doing well in my business. I celebrated photographing my 100th wedding, which was a really awesome milestone but I did feel a tinge of shame when I realised how long it took me to get to that milestone - my first wedding was 10 years ago! And those photographers who apparently do 50 weddings in a year would have photographed 500 in the time it took me to photograph 100. And so comparing myself to those other photographers kind of took some of that glory away from me.

Leah Karen Photography - Leah Turner 1.jpg

2023

The mad rush of weddings that came after the pandemic had finally subsided and things were beginning to get back to a new normal. It was a relief to have things slowing down a bit. I realised that this was the first ‘normal year’ for me as a full time wedding photographer. I had nothing to compare 2023 to, because the pandemic had thrown all booking statistics out of the window.

Sometime around October 2023 I randomly discovered that there’s such a thing as wedding photography podcasts. A lot of these podcasts had started back in 2019 so I had some serious catching up to do (I’m still catching up now). What I’ve listened to recently has taught me so much and I realise that I’ve been living in a box for the past decade. I only really knew of the other local photographers within the South West, and I kind of thought that doing well in your region was as high as you could go in this industry. But the ceiling is actually much higher than that. And going forward I’m hoping to attend photography conferences and network with incredible photographers around the UK.

Another notable thing that happened in 2023 was that I encountered another photographer at one of the weddings I was photographing. This was a very similar situation to the wedding guest photographer back in 2016 but this time around the photographer who had turned up had not been invited at all! The couple had hired a young videographer who was very early into his career and he decided to bring his friend along, who wanted to get into wedding photography. The couple had no idea he was going to bring another photographer along for the day, he hadn’t asked them if this was okay at all. He told the couple and myself that she was there to get behind the scenes photographs for him. But after the wedding she was posting on facebook groups with photos from the day, advertising her services, exactly like in 2016. She had not asked the couple’s permission to use any of the photos online and therefore the couple were not happy about it all either. Luckily I had the couple backing me this time and I also had the clause in my contract too. I’ll explain why I’m telling you about these two incidences shortly…

2024

And here we are in the present day. I’m not sure what I can say about this year as it’s still so early into the year. My partner and I are due to get married later this year and so I’m not going to be spending money on attending photography conferences this year but I do intend to explore things like this in 2025.

So what’s the point in telling you all of this?

There are so many people who think being a wedding photographer is glamorous and I believe a big reason for that is because we make it seem like that on social media. We’re always telling you the good news, celebrating our achievements, showing off the beautiful photos we’ve taken in all the incredible places we go to. But we don’t talk to you about imposter syndromes and how we’re wondering how we’re going to financially survive through the off season. We don’t post about how many times we’ve been ghosted that month (this is where someone enquires with you and then you never hear from them again). We don’t speak enough about how saturated the wedding photography industry is. There are loads of us, and if you want to stand out amongst the rest you’ve got to have something special about you. It can get pretty competitive out there, so much so that people will literally turn up with a camera at a wedding you have been booked to photograph, and then dishonestly advertise with the photos that they’ve taken from your booking online. We don’t talk about all the times we’ve wondered if we should give up, just so we can have a stable job with a regular income, sick pay, holiday pay and the likes. It’s also a really lonely job because aside from the days where you’re at weddings, you’re home by yourself with no work colleagues and no Christmas do’s. We are often one person businesses, meaning we do the editing, admin, marketing, accounting, website building - all by ourselves. It’s by no means an easy job.

In 2015 I first shared that cartoon photo of the two men tunnelling for diamonds and I have re-shared it on facebook every year since. Because of that image, today has become a day where I open up about the difficulties I have faced whilst chasing my dreams. It has become a day of raw honesty, where I’m not thinking about marketing and where my next booking will come from - I set aside all that stuff to talk about the tough stuff. To me, April 29th is now known as Diamond Day. I even got a little pickaxe tattooed on my ankle. It's a metaphor for going for your dreams, chipping away until you've reached your goals. If you turn away too soon, you'll never know how close you were to success. It’s a little reminder of how far I’ve come and how much further I plan to go.

What advice do I have for those starting out?

I often get messages from people wanting to be a wedding photographer. They ask if I have any advice for them and sometimes they ask if they can come along to some of my weddings and work as a second photographer for me. Now if you’ve read this blog, you’ll know that I don’t actually work with a second photographer. And if a client of mine did want to pay extra for a second photographer, I would have to make sure they’re getting someone who’s got a lot of experience with weddings. Some photographers will allow beginner photographers to join them for weddings, but most of the time this will come at a price. It’s not something a lot of photographer’s would do for free. But fear not because there are always couples out there who don’t mind having a beginner photographing their wedding day. And just remember that all our journey’s will be different, yours may be slow like mine was or you may be full time in under a year. You can try and plan your life out but in the end the flowers will arrange themselves.

Leah Karen