It’s My Birthday!

Happy Friday Romancers!!! Today is actually extra special on top of it being Friday … it’s also MY BIRTHDAY!

(this is me ~ being pumped to get married)

So, while I am busy pampering myself and dealing with turning 26 … I thought I’d leave you with a more personal article today. It’s my birthday, so I am allowed to do that.

The Wedding Blog Business

I hear it all the time from my photographer friends, the frustration of dealing with submitting to wedding blogs. The inane exclusivity rules, the weeks of never hearing a response or the constant rejection. When I started my own wedding blog, I swore I would never be like that. My main reason for starting a blog was that I wanted to help people and I wanted to help change the idea that DC area weddings had to be prim and proper or cost over $50K. Who cares that someone else out there might have a blog post exactly like mine, trying to help people as well?

I think what I have grown to learn and see over the past few years of reading wedding blogs, submitting my own wedding to blogs, and now running a blog myself ~ is that some wedding blogs aren’t in it to help. They are in it for the business, the money. While that might be fine with some people, it is not fine with me. It is not fine with me, because I do not think that these “business wedblogs” make it widely known that, that is their M.O. They use words like “fresh”, “unique” and “one-of-a-kind” in their slogans, yet all their features look the same … and most of the features come from ad-paying vendors. I am not sure who that is really helping …

I wish wedding blogs were in it for the help factor ~ and not the business. It kills me to see some of my photog friends’ work be rejected because couples aren’t holding inanimate objects in their hands, or staging a picnic, or holding balloons. Sure, that looks awesome in a lot of the posts, but I think we also need to be aware that not all shoots look like that, and not all shoots SHOULD, and that shouldn’t be a reason to reject a photog’s feature. Every in-love couple deserves a fair shot at being featured on a wedding blog ~ no matter what they look like, believe in, or might NOT be holding in their hands.

A very wise woman once vented her repeated wedding blog rejection frustration with me and said:

“i think we just have to remember what’s really important here: the couple and their love and this amazing thing they’re doing…this isn’t a magazine, this is real life.”

See, told you she was wise and I couldn’t agree with her more.

So while other blogs continue to ignore, post the same types of shoots & couples, and cater to the $$ paying vendors, I’ll continue to try my hardest to feature variety. I’ll continue to search for different types of shoots, photography, and couples to help the Washington, DC metro area be different AND get the help they need to become different, no matter who submits it to me!