#the meltdowns are always the worst after i take a huge dab :( | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thesmashcake · 4 years

Text

Why I Quit Wedding Photography for Smash Cake Photo Shoots

Why I Quit Weddings & Shoot Smash Cake Photography Instead

Hello again everybody and thanks for stopping into TheSmashCake.com. In today's blog we are going to cover why I dropped weddings like a dirty diaper and went looking for a better use of my time. As you can tell I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to weddings. It wasn't always there. One day after shooting several not so great weddings that chip just magically appeared and wouldn't go away. Now I would love to sit here and tell you war stories about those weddings because they’re entertaining as hell. But it simply wouldn't be fair to the people involved. And in all honesty, gossiping never does anyone's reputation any good. So in today's blog we're going to avoid going full tilt negative and simply focus on the logical reasons why I quit the world of weddings and exchanged it for smash cake photography.

The hours

Looking back on the several not-so-great weddings that I mentioned above I have to say that in retrospect maybe I was just exhausted. Maybe it was being that tired that made it just a little harder for me to emotionally digest the disrespect, the battles between family members, and the overall pressure cooker that is a wedding. Why was I worn down to the nub you ask? The hours. Those of you who shoot weddings you know that when you sign on for 8 hours worth of coverage you're really into the job for about 35 to 50 hours. That encompasses the consultation, the engagement shoot, the wedding, all the editing, blogging, ordering and you name it that goes along with delivering a wedding. If you shoot one or two weddings a year those hours really aren't a big deal but I guarantee that if you shoot enough weddings it becomes a grueling slog of a job and can really suck your will to live.

On the smash cake side of things we figured that at our studio each one of our projects consists of 10 man hours. Compare that to the 35 to 50 that you'll put into most weddings. A big reason for that huge discrepancy in hours is of course the fact that we only spend about an hour and a half on average shooting each smash cake session. This makes it very easy for us to get needed rest between jobs, schedule family events or even just be home for dinner on the day of a smash cake shoot. That last point leads me effortlessly to my next one.

Weddings can really impact your life

It honestly felt like I never saw my kids when I shot weddings. At our studio our busy season for portraits starts in early July and ends mid December. After that we had a few weeks of chill time with the kids and then we were right back at it with indoor winter weddings. But unlike senior portraits and family portraits that can be scheduled midweek, weddings are almost exclusively on weekends. Which meant that during the week our children would go to school and we would maybe we get a few hours with them in the evening. Then on weekends mom and dad were gone shooting weddings. This caused some very significant stress within our family and was a big reason why we started questioning whether or not weddings were right for us.

Smash cake photography on the other hand was generally something that was done late morning and midweek. I could go into the studio in the morning, photograph a smash cake session, do the cleanup and still be home in time to catch my son's baseball game. No more explaining to a tear-stained little face why daddy couldn't be there.

Weddings took a massive toll on my body

Shooting for 8 hours straight no matter what you're photographing is physically demanding. I don't care if you're 20 and are in better shape than Dwayne Johnson. lugging around a camera and an off camera flash for eight straight hours is going to take its toll on anyone. Not to mention chasing around the bride and groom all day like a meth-crazed paparazzi.

It takes time to recover from that kind of strenuous activity (even if meth isn’t involved.) As an example, when I was younger it took me at least 12 hours to recover from a wedding. Unfortunately time has moved on and it now takes me a full day (or two) to get off the couch after a wedding. Feeling myself slow down forced me to read the writing on the walls. If photography was going to be my long-term career I needed to stop punishing my body and find something I could do well into the next decade.

For me smash cake photography is that something. With my smash cake sessions I'm chasing around a toddler for about an hour and a half. Yes it's still physically demanding but it's not eight hours worth of physical abuse. Plus with all the time I'm saving not shooting weddings I can fight off the effects of aging by hitting the gym. You can't argue with finally having enough time to put yourself first.

Bridezillas & their families behaving poorly

When you tell anyone on the street that you're a wedding photographer the first thing they want to talk about is Bridezillas. This has become such a common part of weddings that it feels like some of the brides have meltdowns just because they think it's expected. The first time you see one of these meltdowns it's pretty easy to give your bride the benefit of the doubt. A wedding day consists of tight timelines, conflicting personalities, and the icing on the cake is the thousands upon thousands of dollars spent on the big day. With all of that at play, it's pretty easy to understand why somebody would get so stressed out that they go absolutely nuclear. But if you do enough weddings you'll start seeing people meltdown because they think it's expected. It's like watching low-budget reality TV but unfortunately instead of being on your couch you're smack-dab in the middle of it. After a few of these it really became impossible for me to just shine it on. Unfortunately it began to affect my opinion of not only weddings, but of people as a whole.

In contrast when I arrive at the studio for a smash cake session everybody is thrilled to be there. No one at my studio calls in sick on smash cake day because it's so much fun. As far as my clients are concerned they took the day off work so they can go play with their child. They couldn't be in a better mood! Yes, there are still some meltdowns but they are nothing a milk sippy and a few Goldfish crackers can't fix.

Nobody takes a smash cake photographer to court

If you go looking on the web you can find thousands of articles about wedding clients suing their photographer. As we mentioned above it takes thousands of dollars to create the perfect day and with that kind of money a play people take things very seriously. As an ex-wedding photographer I completely understand the client's side of things, and when photographers screw up I understand why lawyers need to get involved. But sometimes the photographer doesn't even need to make a mistake to have their clients threaten to sue them. I know photographers who have had their client use the threat of a lawsuit to weasel extra hours of wedding coverage, a better/ larger album and even a massive discount on the price that was agreed upon in the contract. My very last wedding client tried something similar to this and it immediately had me asking myself if the juice was worth the squeeze.

Now imagine If I arrive late to a smash cake session? Or if all of my cameras were to fail during a smash cake session? Maybe I accidentally forgot to backup my files and they all got deleted. NOBODY is going to take me to court or threaten to sue. Yes I would have to call the client and yes I would have to profusely apologize but at the end of the day I wouldn't need a lawyer. Worst case scenario we reshoot the session and the child gets a bit more sugar that week than they normally do.

The editing is so much easier

When you photograph a wedding you're chasing your bride and groom indoors, outdoors, under trees, basically all over hell and back. Each one of those locations has drastically different lighting conditions. Every different lighting situation calls for a different editing solution which takes a massive amount of time. Editing is part of the reason why each 8 hour wedding takes you 30 to 50 hours to deliver.

With smash cake photography most of the time you're shooting in one location. Maybe that location is in the studio or it maybe it’s in a local park but for the most part the lighting conditions never change. So when you put your images into Lightroom you can batch edit. You can make changes to one photo and then copy those changes and paste them on all the other photos. You would not believe how much time this method of editing saves you. The editing wasn't exactly the deciding factor when It came to whether or not we drop weddings, but it was an extremely nice bonus!

Dollars per hour

The way we ultimately decided to give up weddings without any guilt was by looking at the dollars per hour. When we were deciding whether or not to give up weddings I really felt like a quitter. I felt like I was being lazy and that I just needed to suck it up. Even asking if I should give up weddings brought up massive feelings of guilt and made me feel like a failure. Fortunately for me my wife reminded me that we are running a business and that logic not emotion is a better place to make business decisions from. She simply advised me to look at what we make on a wedding compared to the amount of man hours that go into delivering these projects. Her thinking was that if we make a better average dollar per hour doing something else then we will simply go do that. No guilt, no agonizing over this decision, just use logic to make the best business decision possible. It was an elegantly simple solution.

So in the end our average wedding took us 50 hours to deliver and unfortunately we only made $3,000 on our last wedding, giving us an average of $60 an hour. For our smash cake clients an average session takes 10 hours and I'm proud to say that our average sale is $2,200 per client. This gave us $220 per hour.

It was very clear to us where the dollar per hour was and after you add all of the other physical and mental rigors of wedding photography it was a very easy decision. We decided to drop weddings like a hot rock and never look back.

Let's wrap it up

Now I hope writing this blog did more than just provide me with a captive audience and a forum to vent my frustrations. I really hope that those of you on the fence about wedding photography use the dollar per hour method to help you make the best decision possible.

I also think it's fair to point out that there are a lot of wedding photographers out there that are making $10,000, $15,000 and even $20,000 or more per wedding. When you're putting those kinds of numbers on the board, the dollar per hour method is going to tell you you would be an absolute fool to ditch weddings. So don’t.

But, in my case all of the other factors like family stress and physical well-being played a huge part in my decision making process. But OMG five digits per wedding might be worth sucking it up. I would like to think that even if we were making $20,000 a wedding that I would put myself and my family first. In the end it comes down to each individual photographer and what you personally need to be happy. For me... happy came in the form of chubby little babies smashing cakes.

I hope today's blog helped and if you'd like to turn this into a polite conversation about the pros and cons photographing weddings I would be happy to hold up my end of the conversation in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading, have a great day, - Daniel

0 notes

princesszatana · 8 years

Text

AdrienetteMonthDay2:Rain, Rain, Come Again

From Heaven and Back: Chapter 2

Chapter one here

Rainy days were some of the best days, at least in Marinette's mind. There was nothing like watching the city get a good shower. The rain washed away dirt and grime, much like Ladybug's lucky charm cleansed the city after an akuma attack. The smell of fresh rain was so pure and refreshing.

There was also the fact that Marinette fell head-over-heals for Adrien on a rainy day. Just the smell of rain brought the memories fresh to her mind. The way their hands had brushed when she reached for his umbrella. The way his laugh sent chills down her spine. The familiar feeling that spread across her chest. Marinette felt like she already knew him.

"Marinette?" A small voice sounded, pulling the girl from her thoughts. She looked away from her bedroom window to see Tikki, her faithful kawami, hovering near her shoulder.

"What is it Tikki?" Marinette questioned.

"Don't you think we should hurry up?" The pixie flew over to the girl's phone and tapped it. "We don't want you to be later than we already are. Ladybug can't be grounded."

Marinette rushed over, taking the phone and bringing it close to her face.

"WHAT!" The girl shouted in panic. "Is it already that late? Argh!" She dashed over to her desk and began throwing stuff into her bag.

"Just once, I'd like not to be rushed! Is that too much to ask for?" The girl looked to her kawami for an answer but all she got was an unsympathetic giggle. Marinette groaned, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"Come on Tikki! We gotta go!" Marinette paused only long enough for the pixie to fly inside her bag. Flinging open the trap door she took the stairs down two by two.

"Wait! Marine…"

vipp thump thump thump

"Ow…." Marinette groaned. Her body cried out in pain as she pushed herself up from the floor.

The pixie sighed. "I'm sorry Marinette. I tried to warn you."

"Thanks, Tikki. I appreciate the effort." The poor girl moaned, forced herself up and hobbled out the door, rubbing her bruises along the way.

Adrien watched the rain as it drizzled down the car window on his way to school. He was about a half hour late because of a photo shoot. The rhythm of the rain falling was depressing. Adrien felt like he had a huge cloud of gloom above his head. Rainy days weren't Adrien's favorite. One of the side effects of being Chat Noir is that the rain made him feel lazy and unfocused. But it was more than that. Rainy days held mixed feelings for the poor sunshine child.

Adrien's mother had disappeared on a rainy day. She had kissed his head affectionately right before his morning lessons. As she left for a meeting it started to rain. Adrien didn't think anything of it, till she never came home. Ever since that day, the rain weighed heavily on his heart.

Though, it was also the rain that made him think of Marinette. How they became friends. How she had made him laugh. He hadn't laughed like that in so long. Her laugh had resonated through him like a wave. It chased away the sadness and uncertainty that held so tightly to him. Marinette made him feel confident. She seemed so familiar and safe.

"Hey, kid. You still with me?" The blonde jumped at the muffled voice coming from his jacket. Adrien opened his jacket slightly, peering at the small flying cat inside.

"Yeah Plagg, I'm here. What's up?"

"Were you having another Ladybug daydream?" The kawami asked with a mischievous look.

"What? No!" Adrien exclaimed! His cheeks flushed red at the mention of his polka-dotted love.

The flying cat cocked an eyebrow skeptically.

"Ahuh, sure you weren't." Plagg left the confines of the jacket to hover in front of the flustered boy. "You have that look again."

"What look?"

"You always make this twitterpated look when you're thinking about Ladybug. It's painful just watching you make it." The black pixie held his head dramatically as he spoke.

"I don't know what you're talking about. And for your information, I was thinking about Marinette, not Ladybug! So Ha!" Adrien smirked, crossing his arms triumphantly. He'd won this argument.

Plagg just closed his eyes and shook his head. 'These dumb kids are gunna' drive me crazy! Just how thick can they be?' He internally complained.

"What?" Adrien asked as the car slowed to a halt.

"Nothing. Just don't let me get wet!" Plagg hissed and flew back into Adrien's jacket.

Adrien couldn't help but feel like he was missing something. But he would have to figure that out later. He was already late. Adrien grabbed his bag and umbrella and slipped out of the car. He gave his driver a wave and the man drove away. The boy began making his way to the school.

HONK HONK HONK

The blonde jumped at the sounds of a car horn. Adrien turned to face the sound. He discarded his bag and umbrella making him ready to run and transform in an instant. What he was not ready for was something to hit him square in the chest.

"Oomph." Was the sound that escaped Adrien's lungs as he hit the wet cement. His back cried out in agony. His head spun like an old record. It was his lungs that hurt the worst. They felt flat like there was an extra weight pushing down on them. Adrien wheezed slightly. Man, it never hurt this bad when he was wearing Chat's suit.

After a few seconds, Adrien gathered the strength to prop himself up on his elbows. He looked down at his chest. He saw hair… black hair…it looked kinda' like… Ladybug's!

Adrien's eyes widened. Could it be her? He blushed. Plagg was right, he really was twitterpated.

"Ug…" The girl whimpered, slowly rising to her hands and knees. Adrien held his breath. The girl looked up, eyes meeting his.

"Ma... Marinette?" Adrien was surprised to say the least. It was not his Lady, but someone just as sweet, who had run into him. He coughed, clearing his throat. "Marinette! Are you okay?"

Marinette was not okay. She was having an internal meltdown! She had just run into Adrien Agreste! Sure she had missed the car, thanks to her Ladybug skills, but she had run smack dab into Adrien! And to make matters worse, she'd fallen on top of him! ON TOP! What idiot had condemned her to this horrible fate? Who ever thought 'Oh, I'm going to make Marinette a clumsy prone girl with an overactive emotional state.' was an Idiot!

"Marinette?" Adrien called waving a hand in front of her face. "Can you hear me?"

"Huh? What?" Marinette came back to the real world. She had been staring into space. Adrien head called her name several times to no avail. Not even the rain soaking them was enough to bring her too. It was Adrien's touch that got her attention.

Adrien had sat up and now had both his hands on Marinette's shoulders. He'd maneuvered her to sit on her own bent legs. He was studying her critically, a single eyebrow raised in concern.

"I asked you how you were feeling? That was a pretty rough landing." Adrien's hands slowly slipped from Marinette's shoulders as he spoke.

Marinette's blush deepened. He was so close to her. She could see the intensity in his eyes. It reminded her of a certain black cat she knew.

"Oh, I'm not sane." Marinette smiled. It wasn't till Adrien's look grew more worried that she realized her mistake. Marinette began rushing words out as fast as she could, her hands moving wildly as she spoke.

"I MEAN NOT IN PAIN! Because-I'm-sane! Well-most-of-the-time-but-THAT-doesn't-matter-right-now-because-I'm-sane-and-NOT-in-pain-and-You-don't-need-to-worry-about-me! Hehehe..."

There was an awkward silence between the two teens. Adrien was staring at Marinette with a bewildered look. Marinette was internally screaming at herself for messing up in front of Adrien, AGAIN!

It was Adrien who broke the uneasy silence by chuckling. "Marinette, you have to be one of the funniest people I've ever met!"

"Re..really?" The embarrassed girl was taken aback. She knew Adrien was the kindest boy she'd ever met, but he still managed to amazer her.

"Really!" Adrien smiled at her, the same smile he'd given her when they'd first become friends. "You're Hiss-terical!"

Marinette was shocked! Did Adrien Agrest just use a patented Chat Noir pun?

"I didn't know you… um, were a fan of Chat Noir's puns…"

"What?" Adrien jumped slightly at the mention of Chat Noir.

"You… um... You just used a Chat pun."

"I did?"

"Uh-huh. You said 'Hiss-terical'." Marinette naturally did Chat's mannerisms as she purred the pun. "O... or... something like that…"

Adrien blushed. He was flattered that she knew his Super Hero persona so well after only a few encounters. She had his mannerisms down to an art. Now if she just took some punning lessons, from your's truly, she wouldn't make a half-bad Chat Noir. Adrien smiled. Not that he would ever give up his miraculous.

"Huh, I guess I did. He must have infected me or something." Adrien rubbed the back of his head nervously. He had to be more careful or he'd be found out. Then Ladybug would have his tail.

"Yeah, he does tend to have that kind of effect." Marinette giggled slightly.

"We, uh, should head inside. We don't want to catch a cold." The rain was really starting to soak Adrien's hair and clothes. Plagg would certainly have words to say about this later. The blonde looked over to see Marinette was in the same boat.

"Oh, yeah. We should."

Adrien stood up and offered his hand to Marinette. She took it hesitantly and he pulled her up. He held her hand just a little bit longer than he needed too, though neither of the teens seemed to mind.

"Th... thank you…" Marinette stuttered as he let go of her hand.

Both teens gathered their things. Adrien grabbed his umbrella and dumped out the pool of water that was forming in it. He shook it out and brought it over to cover both Marinette and himself.

"Shall we?" The blonde asked. Marinette just nodded in response. She was far too nervous to actually speak. They began making their way up the steps walking in sync with each other and the rain

Marinette walked rigidly as she tried not to invade Adrien's personal space. Adrien was way more relaxed as they walked. They had almost reached the large door when Adrien looked down to see his shadow.

"Hmm?" He hummed. Where there was a shadow there was light. The boy turned around peering at the rainy city scape. "Wow! Hey Marinette, look!"

Marinette turned around and let out a small gasp. "It's beautiful!"

The two watched as the clouds parted and a rainbow fell down from the sky. It painted itself perfectly across the city, landing right at the base of the Eiffel tower. It was breathtaking, like something out of a fairytale.

Adrien stole a side glance at his friend. She wore a look of pure awe that made his heart skip a beat. For just a second, he thought he'd seen Ladybug. Adrien shook his head. He was about to look away when something made him look closer. There, in Marinette's eyes was a rainbow. How was that even possible?

"It..it's pretty... don't you think?" Marinette turned to look at Adrien, she was blushing which somehow made the rainbow in her eyes grow brighter. Adrien felt his chest constrict.

"Yeah, it's amazing."

Kell, Kell, Kell

The school bell rang, meaning there was only fifteen minutes left in class.

"WHAT?" The two teens exclaimed in unison. Both turned and began sprinting for their classroom

"We're late!" Marinette cried.

"I think you mean, later than we were." Adrien corrected. "Not to mention, we're sopping wet."

Marinette let out an exasperated sigh. This was going to be fun to try and explain.

Meanwhile, up in the waiting room.

"I can't believe you did that." The boy stated flatly shaking his head.

"What do you mean?" The girl cocked her head to the side innocently as she finished closing the clouds back up.

"You made a rainbow, for one thing." The blonde began counting on his fingers, a deadpan look on his face. "Then you took it further by reflecting it off her eyes like that. And you were the one who made that girl slip in the first place. Are you trying to get us demoted?"

"I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about." The girl leaned close to her partner letting her eyes flutter a bit to play up her innocence.

"Look, Brie" The boy put a hand on her shoulder and sighed. "we're guardian angels. Not Cupid."

The girl smirked up at her partner mischievously. "You haven't used that nickname in a while. Was it seeing Plagg that reminded you of it?"

The boy turned away from the girl in an attempt to hide the blush creeping onto his cheeks. "Don't change the subject."

His partner just giggled and hugged him from behind. "I love you too, Fe."

Thank you so much for reading!! :D I hope you enjoyed my little chapter for Adrienette Month!! You can also find this on FF.net here.

#My work #adrienettemonthday2 #adrienette #my story #miraculous ladybug #marinette cheng #adrien agreste #princesszatana #princess zatana writting #plagg #tikki

15 notes · View notes