What if I told you that I have a friend who, through the pandemic, was able to bring in over $50,000 in her wedding business? And it was all through her wedding album sales? Babe, I am so excited to have the incredible Amandarose Szezo of AGS Photo Art as my guest today. We are continuing the Amplify Your Weddings series by discussing everything about wedding albums: why you should be offering them, how to showcase them to your clients, and the whole process of designing and ordering albums that will resonate with you and your brand. Amandarose has amazing experience with creating these heirlooms for her couples, and she has a wealth of knowledge to share. I’m hoping our conversation will inspire you to add albums to your offers and increase the bottom line in your business right now. 

Review the Show Notes:

Adding Value For Your Couples With Albums (3:18)

How To Showcase The Value Of Albums To New Clients (5:41)

The Value And Income You Gain By Offering Albums (13:52)

Changing Your Mindset Around Charging For Albums (16:40)

Tips For The Designing And Ordering Process (22:34)

Proofing The Album With Your Clients (25:44)

Shooting For The Album (29:50)

Why You Should Be Creating Sample Albums (33:31)

Creating Albums For Venues (35:07)

Get Connected with Amandarose Szezo (39:04)

Connect with Amandarose

Wedding Album Email Workflow Template

instagram.com/agsphotoart

agsphotoart.com

Review the Transcript:

Quianna Marie
What if I told you that I have a friend that even through a pandemic, her wedding business brought in over $50,000 Only through her album sales. So this was an addition to what she was doing scraping by. Even though her business came to a halt, she was still able to collect that kind of change. With wedding albums. This is going to be a super juicy conversation, and I am so so grateful. And Amandarose has taken the time to chat with me today. Amandarose is one of my good good friends, one of my besties in the industry. She resides in Carmel, California, originally from Pennsylvania, and she is honestly an inspiration. As a hybrid photographer, Amandarose offers both film actual old school film photography, as well as digital. She even has a couple of photos studios. It is just so incredible to have a friend like her that encourages me to honestly increase my pricing, polish up my packages and truly, truly inspire and help each other grow. Now, I don’t want to take any longer introducing her because we just are gonna dive right into this conversation help you increase your bottom line, increase your profits, and at the end of the day truly increase and add value to your client experience with the use of albums. So dust off those old packages, pull out your sample albums, it is time to refresh everything. Let’s get this party started.

Quianna Marie
Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at quiannamarie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready? Let’s go.

Quianna Marie
Hey, hey, hey, welcome Amandarose. I’m so so thankful you can join us today.

Amandarose Szezo
Hey, Quianna. Thank you so much for having me.

Quianna Marie
I am obsessed with albums. As you know, we all got into photography for a reason. And a lot of it is because we actually want to have these memories on our walls in our family homes and in our hands for photo albums on coffee tables. And I’m so grateful that we have kindred spirits. And we also share the same passion for albums. Yeah, I

Amandarose Szezo
love doing wedding albums, I think it’s really important to have printed images, they mean a lot to me. And I know for my couples, they’re so happy when they receive them in their hands.

Quianna Marie
That’s amazing. And I know like let’s just let’s just dive right into these questions. Because I know we’re very passionate about this. And you and I can talk for days and days about creating these unique client experiences. And truly creating a luxury experience. That is something that I absolutely am inspired by you is by stepping into this luxury world. And a lot of it has to do with albums. So can you please share with us? How can albums add value for our couples?

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, I think it’s a really good question. I believe albums add value for our couples in many ways. We’re bringing them value by printed artwork instead of it being in the cloud. I’m a huge believer of it being, you know, in front of them tangible in print. I mean, we all have cell phones these days, right? We’re constantly taking photos. But the unfortunate part is, how often do we actually get to look at those photos? Probably never, right? So it’s really important to have those images in an album. So on occasion, you can go and look at that, right? So I think we’re bringing value to our couples that way. Another way we’re bringing value to them is often this is their first family heirloom, right? It’s the first thing that they get to have after their wedding day. And for them, it’s really beautiful because they get to have all these precious moments from the day to relive. And so often it’s our first family heirloom. Another thing that brings value to them is we’re offering them like an elevated level of service. And so, you know, there’s a lot of photographers that, you know, when they’re first starting out, they don’t realize that they could be offering printed products, frames, albums, books, anything that kind of gives their clients to hold at the end of the at the end of the day. And so we’re offering them an elevated level of service in that regard. And then being a photographer, you know, often we got into this career as being an artist. And honestly, it’s adding value to us, right is offering and letting us be artists too. So that’s what we believe.

Quianna Marie
I’m so happy you mentioned that because oftentimes photographers I feel a lot of us struggle with kind of dancing between capturing and creating ANOVA Every day, right? Like, we feel like we, we feel like we have to kind of like get our ego in the way and try to create these luxury images and these intimate moments by either capturing them candidly, but then also posing them and directing them and making them happen. So I love that you mentioned that we actually do get to be artists. And we get to be storytellers. And we get to capture these beautiful moments, and then curate them into these, these just generational time pieces. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing.

Amandarose Szezo
I don’t know how we couldn’t offer albums at the end of the day, right? It makes me feel better as an artist, and I know it serves my couples really well. I love that. So we

Quianna Marie
know, they’re important as photographers, and our parents know how important these albums are. And many of our past clients, obviously yours for sure that are they are investing in these albums. What are some ways that photographers can kind of create touch points, or weave in the value of albums into our into the sales process? Because I know for me, for example, I’ve been doing it all wrong for years is I don’t even really mention the album until it’s time to pay, right. For years, it’s always been kind of an afterthought, even though in my heart of hearts. I know I’m ordering an album for myself and my mom and for grandparents on my wedding day. But I guess like we I just want to share, like we know the value of it. But how are we creating those touch points for new clients and new couples that come into our world to truly share that value?

Amandarose Szezo
Good question. Um, so for me, it’s all about educating them, right? So we say educate, educate, educate, right? We’re the professionals, we know what to do, we know how to serve our couples, you know, often it’s their first time getting married, and they don’t know, they don’t know what to expect, they don’t know what to expect, at the end of the day, they don’t know how to go through the process. So for me, you know, from the inquiry up until the engagement session till right before the wedding to delivery of the wedding. You know, we’re constantly touching about, you know, wedding albums and what you want to do with your photos, you know, what’s your goal? Like? What’s the end result of where you want these things to be? Right? Where do you want these memories to land to live? So in my workflow, we just kind of this recently, actually, I mentioned albums, 18 different times in my workflow.

Quianna Marie
Yeah. Wow, wow. Oh, my gosh,

Amandarose Szezo
yeah. And I don’t know if it’s just because it’s like a natural thing that I want to talk about, or if it makes sense in the workflow, but it’s just there. Right? So we just counted it, you know, just for kind of, you know, giggles to see how much you know how often we talk about it. But honestly, from the first inquiry, I noticed that in my emails, I mean, mainly talking about, like, after we, you know, connect for a phone call, you know, I’d love to talk to you guys about, you know, what’s your end result? Like? What’s the end goal with these images? Like, what do you want to do with those at the end of the day, so even in the initial inquiry, I’m talking to him about the wedding album immediately. And then when it comes to the actual like discovery call, because I get on the call with every single one of my clients. And we talked about their day and everything, and you know, just like images that like, really, really talked to like their heart, right? And what images they would want to have in their wedding day and things like that. And then I’ll ask like, Oh, where do you want to see that image? Right? Do you want to see that in your album? Do you want to see it on a wall? Do you want to see it like in a print in a frame, right? So in the discovery call, we have a conversation, and they’re already thinking like, Oh, you’re right, where do I want these photos? Right? After that discovery call? We do the booking, right? And then the booking, I have a questionnaire about do they want to have the images included in the actual collections? Or do they want to have them later, right? Sometimes they want to have them later. And that’s totally okay. But we’re still talking about it, then we’ll go into the actual engagement session, right before they come in. So I have a studio here in Carmel, often we’re doing my engagement sessions locally. So I’ll have him pop in 30 minutes prior, we’ll get to know each other, they get an opportunity to touch feel go through the albums and really have a chance to like see what they are look at the pictures on the wall. But not every photographer has an opportunity, right? Not everyone has a studio. So my tip for people is that, you know, photographers, if they have a sample album, and they meet their client on location, bring your album with you, that gives the client and the couple the greatest opportunity to actually feel the weight of an album and to really start getting excited and kind of live in the moment of the engagement session and what they could do with images even from the engagement session, right? So often I’ll show them like guest books at that time or and also wedding album. So bring it to us. So bring an album with you on your engagement session, right? Post wedding, you know, the weddings happening or not postponing the wedding. The wedding day. We’re going through the wedding day. I’m talking about the wedding album all day long, right.

Quianna Marie
I think you do that to Kiana right? Oh, yeah, totally. Yep.

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah. So even when we’re doing you know, I go cheap She’s looking at me like, Oh, this is gonna be for your, you know, your grandparents or on your wall. Like, I just talk about it naturally. And I think it’s just because I’m excited about it. And it’s something that means a lot to me. So, so that’s all during the wedding day, we’re talking about that. And then post wedding I am, you know, immediately jumping back into like, Hey, guys, like, it was so great, you know, having this beautiful wedding day with you. And I can’t wait to show you your sneak peek of your wedding album.

Quianna Marie
Right? Amazing. And I love how you are visualizing this for your couples, or you’re allowing your couples to truly see their wedding day. And there are moments on their walls and on their coffee tables, or above their fireplace, right? Like they’re nice portraits in their homes. And I feel like that is something that couples don’t really think about, they’re so concerned with the day. And they’re so concerned with all the details and the decor and all the moving parts and the vendors and honestly all the money that they’re spending on that day, that they don’t really look past it, right, like they have their honeymoon to look forward to. But they oftentimes don’t, because like you said, we’re the experts, we’re educating them on this, that they’re not really visualizing these canvases and these beautiful framed prints. And these high end I love how you mentioned the weight of the album, right? Like the quality and because when you hold I know, I’ve photographed your albums I’ve played with them, I flipped through them. I have firsthand experience with your work. It’s just It’s stunning. And it’s true. There’s something powerful about having that album sit on your lap, as you are flipping through the day. It’s just so beautiful.

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, I always joke around with my couples to when they come in to look at the wedding albums because they’re so heavy in the pandemic, when I don’t know if you’re like me, and you like to like, you know, do weights and stuff like that. But like you couldn’t find weights online, anywhere for your home gym. Right? So, I mean, so what I would do is I joke with them, of course, like oh, yeah, and use the wedding albums as my weights. And they just they think it’s so funny because they’re heavy. They’re meant to last for generations, right? So

Quianna Marie
hilarious. Yeah, no, that’s funny. I can see you like already lifting up your arms above and doing squats with your elbows as well. And it’s, it’s funny, you mentioned the pandemic, because I actually have one of my couples mentioned to me how special it was because they actually had a COVID baby, right. So they had their son, I think was born in February of 2020 or something. So I mean, he was just so tiny, and then being able to look through the family album of their wedding and point out grandparents and point out siblings and cousins and just family members. That’s the power of these albums is still staying connected to your family into those memories. And just right there on your coffee table. It’s just the coolest thing. So that’s amazing.

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, and not to pivot for a second. But during the pandemic. I mean, a lot of us didn’t know what to do with ourselves as photographers, right wedding photographers. There were no events happening, you know, and to be quite honest with you. album sales are what took me through the pandemic. And I kid you not, but I’ve had several couples, I mean, gosh, 2014 2015 I think one was from 2013, who inquired with me, and they finally did their wedding albums. Right. So this, so this conversation that we’re having is not necessarily just for our future couples, we could also be serving our couples that, you know, happened five years ago, six years ago, last year, the year before, right. So I think this is good conversation for everyone to hear.

Quianna Marie
I love that. And you’re right. It’s it’s an opportunity to work with or to think kind of front of mind, your past clients, your current clients and your future clients. It’s all encompassing. So I just think that is so cool. Albums are never going out of style. So let’s talk numbers I like I feel like we’ve all decided, okay, as photographers, if you are not already adding needs to your workflow, what are we leaving on the table, literally, by not offering albums?

Amandarose Szezo
Well, I would say, I mean, if I did not offer albums last year, I would personally be leaving minimum 50 grand on the table. So last year alone. You know, we have a workflow for all of our wedding albums, but at the very minimum, we made 50 grand last year. So and that might be intimidating to some new photographers who are listening to your podcast, right. And I don’t want to intimidate them, but I want to encourage them because even if they just have a few weddings in one year, they can very easily still serve their clients and still put put something in their pocket and still feel very valuable, right. So for example, there are companies that are album companies that are very affordable and then there are album companies that are very exclusive and there are a lot of money for cost of goods right. So for example, like I love Miller’s Miller’s is a really approachable lab to work with. Their albums are are amazing. And they’re great for every type of couple, right at every price point. So one of the album’s that we offer is a 10 by 10, right? That’s a pretty general size album for couples for wedding days, right? So say you want to give them 15 spreads, which is a left page and a right page, that’s one spread, you do 15 Of those, right, that’s 30 pages. That’s a pretty average starting of a wedding album. And so the cost of that wedding album through a company like Miller’s is about 200 bucks plus shipping, so maybe like 230, right, the general rule is, when you have that cost of good is that you’re going to multiply that by four, at least. So if you think about it that way, that’s, that’s $1,000 it’s so much more money that you’d have, if you didn’t, I mean, you’re able to make that money without picking up your camera. Again, I think that’s really valuable for the people who are, you know, parents, and they want to be spending more time with their kids, or they just don’t know how to, you know, even today, I have a conversation with a good friend of mine, I was helping her implement albums into her system. And she just thanked me and just said that, how much more time that she has spent with her kids. Right? So so for the numbers wise, I know that’s helped her because she’s able to not take another session, because she sold her wedding album, you know, that’s one album sale and $1,000. That’s

Quianna Marie
amazing. And I feel like all of us are trying to look for ways to add to that bottom line without creating more work, like I you know, substantially more work. Like you mentioned, you didn’t have to pick up your camera, or your friend didn’t have to do that. And that. That’s amazing. That is an offer. And that is something that we can add, basically, to our menu of our business. How would you suggest someone kind of as a photographer can get through that guilt? Because I feel that guilt sometimes, as I’m trying to sell these albums thinking, okay, they’ve just invested a bunch in me, they’re already investing 345 $6,000 in there just wedding coverage, not including an album, and then I’m gonna slap them with another 12 to 1200 or $2,000 album sale. For me personally like just me being Kiana. I’m thinking, like, that’s a lot of money, right? So how can we as photographers kind of change that mindset and think, Wait a minute, this is not about the money. This is you are adding so much value. You’re curating these stories, and you are adding, like you mentioned before, a generational heirloom that is going to just stand the test of time for these families. I mean, it is a beautiful thing. It is priceless. I mean, I’ve had couples Tell me, oh my gosh, key, this is so affordable, like I would have paid 10 times this amount to have this album in my hand like the thought of not having this. It’s just not even an option. So in your experience, how can photographers kind of break that? That guilt?

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, and I understand that, like when it comes to albums or products, there’s this, there’s like this selling but you don’t want to be salesy, but honestly, in so many in so many photographers in our industry will say this, it’s more like serving your clients, right? It’s more like serving your couples, it really is. So even though sure you can make $1,000 off a one album, or you know, and that’s not even, that’s not even adding additional spreads, or upgrading covers or adding boxes or adding parent albums or product right, like frames and stuff like I totally understand. But I think what’s important is just one you have to be really confident in what you offer, right? You don’t want to just pull up, you know, an album company site or a lab company site and be like, I order all the I offer all of these things like that’s overwhelming, right to anybody. Right? And you can generally, you know, confidently say like, oh, yeah, this, this print comes, you know, in this way with this type of frame, right? Because you can’t because you don’t know because there’s too much there, right? I think the best way is to find a product that speaks to your brand. Something that you love, like you know, the girl I was talking to today like she chose an album that was a leather wrap. I don’t have leather wrapped in mind. My album hat my albums have three different albums. I have a suede for my elopements I have a genuine leather for my bigger weddings. And then they offer a linen right and they’re all square ratio album. So I think like having that that confident in what you’re what you’re offering having that album fit your brand, so you feel great selling it. And also, like I said, again, it’s not about selling It’s about serving them, right? Because here they are investing X amount of money into photography, right? It’s the one thing that they actually get to go home with. And I know I’m speaking to like a lot of hearts right now, but it’s the truth. Sure. They have the top layer their cake for next year. Amazing. It’s probably doesn’t taste that good. No, but their flowers die within 24 to 48. Right. And then you have these images and once again, it brings back to the value questions that we asked earlier, but like, you’re basically saying that your photos, you know, iPhone photos are just as good as your wedding photos. And I think that’s fair, because you’re not spending X amount of money, you know, this amount, this amount of money on those iPhone photos, right? But you’re spending this amount of money on your wedding day photos, I believe, firmly believe that they should be living somewhere else except for the cloud, right? So to get past like that mindset, you know, that mind shift of like, I think it’s about serving them well, right, you don’t want these images live in the cloud, like your iPhone photos. That’s crazy, right? I mean, if they’re spending this much money, help them, help them finish the job by offering them a finished product that makes you feel good, you’re confident in selling, it fits your brand. And you know, at the end of the day, they’re gonna have their first family heirloom, and they’re gonna love it day in and day out. From like, um, like an iPhone photo.

Quianna Marie
Oh, that’s so powerful. And I feel that you totally hit the nail on the head where you said you are serving, you are not selling that right there is kind of I think that’s your mic drop moment. So far in the conversation, I’m serious, because that’s exactly what people need, they are investing in you. And they, they don’t want a gazillion options that’s paralyzing. They may not even want to actually go through their photos, they may just want to see a sample album of images of what you like a proof of what they’re gonna get, right, we can get into that a little bit more to you about designing the albums. But I just feel like it’s a disservice. Like, you are not providing the absolute best experience. If you’re not offering these albums,

Amandarose Szezo
though. It’s the truth. I mean, as artists, once again, like we want to see our, our final work, you know, somewhere, right? We want to see either in like a frame or an album. I mean, it breaks my heart when couples are like, Oh, we’re not ready. You know, it’s like, Oh, okay. I hope you don’t mean so. Let’s talk about our your wedding anniversary, you know, but, um, but yeah, I would say 90% of my clients, though, my couples scuze me, definitely get an album within the first year.

Quianna Marie
That’s incredible. And I, I truly believe it’s because you speak so highly of them, and you’re constantly educating on them. And I just feel like that’s at that point. It’s a need. It’s just as important as you said, like the cake, right? It’s just as important as having the DJ on the wedding day, as much as we need to be there for photography. They need those albums. So providing that service is just such a blessing. So let’s dive into another question. What are some tips that you would have for photographers, so we’ve already decided, okay, if you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking, okay, you’ve convinced me like, I don’t feel slimy and salesy, like, you know, I feel equipped and a little more confident to, you know, to start actually offering these, but what tips or advice would you share with photographers to kind of streamline the ordering process like, what does that look like for you? Are you designing the album’s Are you picking the pictures? You know, what does that workflow look like? Because as as overwhelming as it could be for our clients, and our couples, I’m sure it’s even more crazy for us behind the scenes trying to develop this workflow. So what does that look like for you, if you could kind of give us like the Cliff’s Notes version of that?

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah. So I would say that comes back to like, finding the one product you want to sell, right? The one product you want to offer to your clients. So pick an album company, look at their albums, see which one speaks to you, which one you think you could use for, you know, future marketing to start showing your couples, right, you pick that album? For me, it’d be a 10 by 10 leather, because I feel like that that’s a timeless album, a lot of people are gonna like that, right? So I would choose one of those albums as my as my product. So you’ve shown it, you’ve seen it, right? You’ve designed it once. If you haven’t designed it yet, this is the perfect time to do a sample album. So that’s when you would find that product that you want. You’re like, this is the album I want. When I first did this, it was confusing. I’m not gonna lie. You’re trying to figure out like how to order a book that costs a pretty, pretty, pretty good amount of money, right? And then you want to figure out make sure it’s done Correct, right. So what I did is I picked up my phone and I talked to the company and said hey, can you walk me through how to how to order this album and they will be happy to do so. So I never made I never made a mistake in ordering my first sample album because they walk you through because they want to encourage you to be comfortable in the process of doing it. And so there are there are online software’s you can use like I use Fundy which is really amazing. So you can go there and select what company your album is with. Then you can put your photos in and then you can design and then you can even order through the the software. But if you didn’t even get that far yet and you don’t have that software, a lot of album companies have a software built in there built in there. company called Rose. And that’s where you can start. And they will walk you through how to actually order the album. The only other part is you picking the images. So you go through your online gallery, you select the images that you want, and you start placing them in the book. And the reason why I suggest that you do that, is because once you put that ball in your couples court, it will take forever,

Quianna Marie
it never happens.

Amandarose Szezo
And I learned that the hard way many years ago. And honestly, that’s overwhelming. I mean, do we really want to have that responsibility as a couple in an area that we’ve never done before to? to design our own wedding? No way. Right? So leave it to us.

Quianna Marie
I love that. And then do you give your clients the opportunity to make any edits? Or once you kind of create that proof or that sample album for your couple? What does that exchange look like? What does that back and forth look like for you?

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, so um, I’m actually going to be teaching on this pretty soon. But I offer I offer like an in person design. So whether they are local, or they’re not, they can be virtual, but I offer the possibility for them to hop on a zoom call kind of like this. And we are able to have a conversation about the album that I’ve already designed for them. And then I walk them through the whole process of how images talk to each other, what images go where, in my opinion of telling a story. And then that’s their opportunity to be like, Oh, wait, I like image 123 Can we put that here? I mean, at the end of the day, it’s their wedding. So they are attached to certain imagery that that I’m not attached to an image that I may think is like absolutely stunning and breathtaking. They might be like, Oh, I like this one. And it’s actually like a really goofy one of them. And I would have never picked it right. So I think that, you know, having the opportunity to do that live design with each other gives them you know, the flexibility of picking and choosing their images and swapping things out.

Quianna Marie
I love that. To be honest, I’ve never heard of that. I’ve you know, I’ve heard of other you know, design conversations where there’s there’s tons of other programs or like even working with align albums for me, like they, you know, my clients can go back and they can add notes and comments like they’re flipping through. It looks like a high school yearbook template, right? Like they kind of like can flip back the pages and make those comments, but what a great service that you can offer. And I feel like okay, so I don’t know why I’m getting this thought right now. But you know, in friends when Monica is literally having a tantrum, because her wedding day is over. And Chandler and Chandler is like, what is wrong with you? Like, why are you this way, and she’s just like huffing and puffing. And so it just kind of reminds me what a gift that photographers can give to their brides into their couples to almost create this continuation of their wedding day. And create this fun, I mean, I can just imagine, cause you can go all out and say, Hey, we’re gonna plan this wine night, or grab a toast of champagne. And you know, we’re going to cuddle up on the couch. And do this live album does like the live design, it just that is such a branded Word to create another fun, intimate moment for your couples that is just mind blowing. Amanda rose. I love that.

Amandarose Szezo
And honestly, it’s fun for me too, because I get to relive the day with them, we get to banter back and forth about certain moments of the day. And I think what it does is that it connects feelings and emotions to certain imagery. And it weighs on them more for them to really value it in a way that they might not want to remove it from the album. Right? They might want to keep it there.

Quianna Marie
Oh, and that’s a great way to kind of add those little sales tactics to start adding pages possibly increase the bottom line, right. And, and having that Kickstarter having that visual. And that’s one thing I struggle with a lot. I suffer from monkey brain where I think that everybody thinks like I do, right? I think, Oh, if if couples aren’t designing their albums, it’s not because they don’t know how, or because they’re not good at it. It’s just because they’re busy, or because they don’t have enough time or you know, maybe they don’t have the money. Because they just drained their savings for their wedding day. So all these thoughts are swirling in my head, but that’s just not true. There’s so many of our couples that I mean, looking at album design, and picking photos would be like speaking a new language to them. Like they just that is not their expertise. And so if we can provide that for them. Oh my gosh, like they’re, they’re happy. Like they’re so excited to spend that money because they know it’s going to what they want.

Amandarose Szezo
Exactly, yeah, the work is done for them. They just need to show up have a glass of wine and you know pick which which images they want to keep.

Quianna Marie
I’m obsessed. This is a whole process that oh my gosh, and I’m so happy that you’re working on education for this because I know so many photographers need this. So okay, so now that we’ve decided okay, we are absolutely adding albums to our workflow. We are adding albums to our client experience And, you know, making them a little checkpoint that we can add to their purchase? What are some tips or advice do you have for shooting for the album? So like, if you could share, like, you know, maybe what are some five must have images that you know that it doesn’t matter what it is whether it’s an elopement or a Big Fat Greek Wedding, or, you know, some type of larger event, what are some images that photographers can proactively look for, to sort of create that, like that wedding story for the album?

Amandarose Szezo
I think this differs between each photographer, what, what their, what their vision is. So for me, I’m a storyteller. And so I believe in actually telling the story from the beginning to the end from how I see it, right? There are photographers who will select imagery that are more portraits, and they speak to each other in that regard. But for me, like if it was my wedding album, and I looked at it, and 50 years from now, I would want to see the whole day, not just the portraits of the day, right. So because of that, to be quite simple about it, you’re already shooting for the wedding album, like you’re already doing it. So to have five images to include, like the must have five, I think about it more like the five checkpoints of the day. So you have I think we’ve talked about this too. But, you know, the checkpoints are really like, you know, getting ready, couples portraits, ceremony, family portraits, and the reception. So as long as you have a mix of photos, and each of those check points of the day, I’d say, pick, pick 75 to 100 photos for yourself to kind of go through a variety of of each section, write some vertical, some horizontal, and then you can have more flexibility in the design process, right. But really, it’s if you want to do a storytelling way, you have five checkpoints of a wedding day, pull from each of those sections, and do it from left to right from start to finish.

Quianna Marie
Amazing. And I feel like having those kind of in the back of our mind thinking that’s almost another checklist to of just actually capturing images of the day. So whether that’s for the album or not, it’s so important to have those reminders. I love how you mentioned the checkpoints. So it’s not Oh, a photo of getting into the dress, or Oh, a photo of the first kiss. It’s more, it’s more capturing the essence of those timeline checkpoints. So I love that.

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, because think about it. Like, I’m sure we’ve come across some couples who you know, in our online galleries these days, we can make images private, if you take note of that before you design a proof and you look and see what images they made private. Often it’s you know, getting ready photos or things that they don’t want people to see. And or sometimes maybe she didn’t feel confident, you know, in that section of the day is sometimes they don’t want to have those photos in their in their actual wedding day. So but you could have portraits of her mom getting ready in the day right? In the beginning or her and her girls and that that with their champagne, you could do those images instead of like her actually buttoning up the dress was just such a classic shot, right. So there’s other ways of doing it. But I think just having a variety of photos for each point of the day, each checkpoint of the day, will really put you at a great start.

Quianna Marie
Amazing. I love this. I feel like you’re already painting a really good picture from like, start to finish and curating that story. I feel. I mean, like that’s why we’re photographers. I love that. So I have one more question for you. Why should you be creating sample albums? I know, we touched on sample albums before a little bit earlier. But I want to dig a little bit deeper into this. And why should we actually be creating these sample albums,

Amandarose Szezo
I think this is a really great opportunity for you to have the experience of designing an album ordering an album, going through all the little hiccups you might go through. I call it troubleshooting. Even on the web, like before wedding day myself, I go through all my gear, I set up all my lighting to make sure there’s no hiccups, right. So I feel like it’s really important for a photographer to have that experience of ordering a sample album. And then once again, it’s just it’s just the fact that like, it’s something that you can be proud of. You are able to talk about it more you can photograph with it, you can market it, you can you know, once again, the girl I was talking to you earlier, all she did was do stories of her doing an album and she made so many sales because she showed an album right. So it’s powerful in that regard, you know from from like a serving and selling standpoint. Absolutely. But in the same regard, it’s like an opportunity for you to be really confident in ordering and knowing what you want as part of your brand and offering an elevator product for your

Quianna Marie
couple. Yeah, and I feel like that’s a lot of us need to actually just create them. I feel like there’s no more dancing around this. If this is something that you want to do order them now. Don’t wait for busy season. Don’t wait Wait for booking season don’t wait for, you know, things to slow down order them now. Oh my gosh, it’s it’s so important. And I wanted to ask your opinion too. This is a little off the cuff. You’re a random question. I didn’t prompt us so sorry. But what is your advice for creating albums for venues? Is it something like have you created albums in the past where maybe you would have a sample album that you would drop off at a local venue that you love working at? And would you include a variety of weddings from that specific venue? Would you include? Would you recommend just kind of doing like a whole like day in the life of a real wedding? Like an actual sample album, you would deliver for a couple that got married at that specific venue? Like, what is your advice for marketing these albums at your favorite venues?

Amandarose Szezo
Gosh, I mean, I feel like this, this really, this really resonates with me, because I am originally from the East Coast, right, which you know, and I moved here about eight years ago, and I didn’t have any weddings here, right. So I didn’t have that marketing tool to offer. So what I did originally, just until I got a wedding somewhere was I, besides sell shoots, of course, those are all always really important. And you know, really great to have. So you could always make an album out of that, right? I would do venue features. So I would go around to the venues and I would you know, interview them, I read a blog about them, and I would photograph them, those images that I photographed, I would then put into a you know, a smaller album, just so they had the texture and feel of everything. And I would use that album, give it to the actual venue. And that was their sample album, and it was of their venue. And to be honest with you, I think they valued that more because it was of their venue. And there were you know, no models in there, there was no real wedding in there. And so for them, they actually marketed me more. Because I had served the venue more. Yeah, then the actual couple, right. And then what I did is that once I got a wedding there, I turned around, photograph that wedding and gave them another sample of a wedding of an actual wedding. Also, a lot of couples will, or a lot of marketing tips will be like, Oh, do a sample wedding album for venues, which is awesome. It’s a great idea. But then also inside of your studio, if you have one or you know, when you visit them for the engagement session, and you know what, you know what venue they’re going to be married at, you could make your own sample album for a specific venue and say, Oh, you’re already married a folktale winery? Great. Let me show you that sample wedding album. And then you’re showing them a specific venue album of their wedding of a wedding that could be potentially theirs. And then they can see themselves in those photos. So that’s something I learned a very long time ago. So I actually have a myriad of photo albums for different venues, specifically, depending on the client that I’m talking to. Wow,

Quianna Marie
that is incredible. I just have to pause and just kind of reiterate how impactful it could be to just showcase the venue without people. I’ve never heard that before. And I have never even seen one of those albums. Because I mean, I don’t I don’t think you even have any in your studio of just a venue of like, right, like just the actual winery or just the event space or the vineyards. And I mean, that is a powerful marketing tool. And I love that because it’s cross promoting. So what it’s actually doing is, you know, we feel like we’re selfishly promoting ourselves. But the venue sees that they get those images in their hands, and they can showcase their venue, they can try to sell them, like the venue to these dream couples that are coming in and shopping. So for the venue. So that is amazing that I mean, I’ve never heard that before Amanda rose. I love it.

Amandarose Szezo
Probably never told you. But yeah, I did that many years ago. Yeah,

Quianna Marie
that’s brilliant. And I’m so so thankful that you share this. So you have a boat load of just pages and pages and pages. We’re talking about albums, pages and pages of education. So how can we learn from you I know you have oodles and oodles of education and freebies, we need to mention your freebie about your workflow stuff. So I mean, tell us like how can we work with you? And what type of education are you dropping that we can invest in so we can make that money and truly, truly create that experience? That leaves an impact for generations?

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, so I’m currently in the process of wrapping up an online course that I’m creating. It’s going to be called albums A to Z. We’re planning to launch in like August September, so stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, I have tons of resources online, I blogs all about it. You know you’re welcome to personally DM me if you have questions about it. I’m an open book. But yeah, we have tons of you know freebies that we have lined up as well as free resources online or blog. But the one that I think would go really well with this conversation is the 18, the 18 checkpoints or the 18, you know, times that I talked about, you know, wedding albums, in my workflow, it’s something that we are making into an actual downloadable email template system. Right. So workflow. So that’s going to be available wedding workflow with albums in mind. And, yeah, so I’ll give it to cap piano, and then you can, she can share it with everyone. So

Quianna Marie
I love that we’ll definitely add that to the show notes, make sure that’s included in the blog is well, and I love that I love that you’re creating this kind of like, drag and drop workflow system. So any photographer, whether you are just starting out, or maybe you’re someone like me, who’s super seasoned, you’ve been in the business for 10 years, and you kind of just need to revamp things and you need to look at your sales strategies and look at your client experience and think how can I add value that is not only adding value for my couples, but also increasing my bottom line? I mean, this inflation is insane. So we photographers need to stick together. And thank you, thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge and helping us feel inspired. I love how you mentioned a little bit Amanda rose about this can be really intimidating. And it you know, not only for our couples that are picking pictures and trying to pick out you know, leather versus linen and all these options can be so incredibly overwhelming not just with one album company, but with dozens and dozens it can be so just paralyzing. So, thank you. Thank you for making the streamline for us and truly being a resource.

Amandarose Szezo
Yeah, thank you for having me on here. And yeah, if I could be a help of any way, just let me know.

Quianna Marie
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at Quiannamarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.