Photographing destination weddings is something extraordinary. Many photographers view it as an accolade and a higher goal. The light is unique, as are the locations and vegetation.
There are incredibly many destination weddings in Italy or Spain every year. Local photographers live solely with clients from the USA who are getting married in Italy. There are hundreds of weddings every weekend for couples from places other than Italy or Spain. The market is enormous.
How can I finally get booked for a destination wedding?
Do a great job!
If you do good work in your region, your first wedding abroad will eventually find you. You don’t have to do anything extra. If you deliver good work over several years, the first couple will ultimately take you because they want you as their destination wedding photographer.
It would help if you were patient and demanding. Nobody gets booked for a destination wedding in their first year.
Communicate in English
Couples from Australia, the USA, or England (to mention our clients’ most common countries of origin) usually don’t speak German. By communicating in English, you signal that you work with international clients.
So, communicate in English on all your platforms, like Instagram, and on your website. You can also offer the option to change the language of your website.
Adjust Your Offer
Simply writing on your website: I love to travel. It sounds more like: Would you finance my travel lust?
Destination weddings mean high planning effort. Such clients want to avoid dealing with complicated offers or booking your flights. Therefore, use all-inclusive prices to make booking as easy as possible.
Necessary: When you get a request for a destination wedding, always check flight and hotel prices to adjust the all-inclusive price possible. If there’s a regional holiday on the wedding day, your trip and accommodation costs could suddenly be very high!
Show what you want to be booked for through free projects
Many photographers have invested much time and money in free projects abroad. If you have travel plans anyway, why not photograph a couple for your portfolio?
This shows your willingness to travel and work well with the local light. This strengthens trust in you and your work.
You could borrow dresses and take them with you for a free project. You could also organize a couple on-site that you can photograph.
We know getting couples in front of the camera takes a lot of work. We’ve been doing this for years, and sometimes, we messaged more than 30 people on Instagram only to end up without commitment. Let us tell you: It’s the same for everyone. Be persistent, and don’t give up!
Networking
This doesn’t work well over emails, but it works well through workshops abroad! There you’ll meet many photographers from different countries. For us, this has led to friendships that have lasted to this day. These contacts, which we made at events, still recommend us for weddings in Spain or Italy every year.
Disadvantages / Problems
You often make less profit from destination weddings. This is well known to most colleagues who attend many destination weddings. In addition to the increased travel costs for flights, car rentals, or accommodations, there are costs for meals.
When we are abroad, we like to stay an extra 1-2 days. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage because while it’s nice, it also incurs additional costs. These are costs you wouldn’t have if you were photographing a wedding in your region.
Not everything is automatically beautiful or suits you just because it occurs abroad. If clients try to lower your price because the wedding is supposed to take place abroad, then be careful.
