Welcome back to another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly! I am so thankful that you’re here as we continue the Amplify Your Weddings series. Today we are diving into Instagram stories: why you should be sharing them, what exactly you should be sharing, and how you can use them strategically to truly amplify your weddings and your business. Insta stories are amazing for engagement, plus we can use them as an incredible marketing tool. I am so excited for you to use them even more effectively to reach all of your dream couples!

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Today’s episode is brought to you by my Book More Weddings Guide! After sharing sneak peeks from your weddings, do you hear crickets? You’re likely blowing away the client experience, leaving a wedding hyped up on how well you did, but then no new inquiries come in—you can use your existing clients to capture behind the scenes content that gets you organic referrals, followers, and more! Download my free guide today!

Review the Show Notes:

Why Are Insta Stories Important? (3:06)

What You Should Be Doing Before The Wedding (9:29)

Checkpoints To Capture On A Wedding Day (10:54)

How To Share Your Insta Stories, And The Strategy Behind Posting (12:47)

Mentioned in this Episode:

Book More Weddings Guide

032: Creating Reels + TikToks To Amplify Your Weddings

009: Booking Your Next Wedding While Working Your Current Wedding

Review the Transcript:

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? Loves though.

Hey, hey, welcome back cutie, I am so thankful that you’re here as we continue the amplify your wedding series, I have been having so much fun pouring into your business, and helping you feel inspired to truly show up for yourself shine online and book those super organic and super easy referrals.

Today’s episode we will be diving into Insta Stories. I know it’s kind of hard to I’m gonna get a little fumbled as I say that over and over again today. But truly, at the core of this conversation, we’re going to be sharing about how to share stories about your wedding. Now I know this sounds kind of crazy as I try to be as vague as possible, but also very direct. Because we have to always keep in mind that technology is changing by the second by the minute it’s happening. And so for me to have this complete podcast all about Insta Stories, I feel like that’s a disservice. Because who knows what that’s gonna look like tomorrow, right? So we all know that Insta Stories are buzzing, that is where we are engaging in constant contact with our dream couples with our current audience. And it’s just a great way to truly stay engaged.

And top of mind, if you’re anything like me, I find like my feed is a little bit more curated, we’re talking about Instagram. And then Insta Stories is a little more wild, right? It’s a little more personal, it’s a little bit more fleeting, they only last for 24 hours. And so it’s just a great way for us to stay in touch with each other. And also a great way to underline market the crap out of your business. Right? So for today’s episode, we’re gonna be going over three key points. Okay, we’re going to talk about exactly why we should be sharing these Insta Stories. Okay, we’re going to share what you should be doing. Okay, so we’re gonna do the why the what and then the house. So then we’re going to also close out with the ways that you can truly connect with content. Now, I have actually done quite a few episodes about this in the past. So episode number 32 is all about creating reels and tiktoks for your next wedding. And I feel like this is a really powerful episode. If you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure to listen to that or add that to your playlist. And then also episode number nine where I chat about booking your next wedding while working your next wedding. I do kind of bring up some Insta Stories and videos and engagement that you can create easily at your next wedding. So let’s chat about why this is important.

I mentioned just now how important it is that you are staying engaged and that you are showing that you’re a real human, a real brand behind your business. And I feel like Insta Stories are a great way to do that. Now I want to give you a little bit of a backstory, and how this kind of happened naturally as my business has grown. Okay, I am naturally a fun, like storyteller, or at least I think I’m fun. Okay, so like, I love sharing my experiences. I love taking people along for the adventure. And I do that because not only am I having fun living my daily life, and I want to include you in those stories and in those experiences. But I love watching other people do it too. It’s not a coincidence that there were so many reality TV shows going on that people just get obsessed with all these bloggers, I’m sure there’s a couple bloggers that you feel like you know her entire life story, but have probably never met in person, right? And it’s because we engage in their content, and we see their daily lives. So how can we do that safely for weddings, so we know that we can guarantee that we are showing up being super professional, and relatable.

Okay, and so we’re in chat about these Insta Stories. It’s gonna be so fun. So first and foremost, I have to just say before we even get going, why it’s so important that you do not share anything why? So before we even dive into all of this and like the tactics and the strategy and the types of video that you should be recording, it’s so important that you are not capturing something live and then posting it right away. Now a couple of reasons why I feel like you should listen to that or take that advice and not just say oh, okay, whatever key I get it, but one thing that’s really important to me before we even begin is to remind you how important safety is on a wedding day. Okay, I know I post a lot. And I post often. And I will say that I even have some of my family members asking, oh, hey, you know, were you just in California or what’s going on or right? Like, sometimes my stories don’t really add up as far as where I’m located. And I do that for a reason. Because I don’t want someone it could be a creeper. Who knows, or maybe even a family friend, I don’t know someone that I love and trust, I don’t want someone to see that I am at a specific venue.

And they can just roll up and say hi, or they can happen to be in the neighborhood. And I’m doing air quotes over here and come and see me. Absolutely not. I do not want anybody to know where I am for my own safety reasons, as well as the couple and their guests. This is so important. And they make sure that my couples know this when you know, I contract out what it looks like when I’m interested in their weddings. And when I’m sharing their images on social media, I make it crystal clear that I am not sharing anything live. So that to me is actually more important than leaking footage of the day for guests to see what the ceremony and reception looks like before or even this is also so important to is you don’t want to give any sneak peeks of the bride or the groom or any of the details of the day before their wedding guests and each other actually see each other. Okay, so that should be like that should be number one, let’s be honest. But I’m just a stickler for safety for myself and for my couples, for vendors and for wedding guests.

So now that we understand the safety protocol of this, I also want to share one last key tip about waiting to post is if you wait, and this I don’t have the crazy statistics to prove this, but just in my experience, if you can wait a good 12 to 24 hours, if not 48 hours realistically, after your either event that you’re showcasing Frances story, it’s not just weddings that after your wedding, you will literally see a quadruple amount of views. And think about it when you are posting these stories. Your couple is busy, hello, they’re living the best day of their lives, they’re having fun, their phone probably isn’t in their pocket isn’t, you know, readily available in their hands like they’re living their best life. And same thing for the wedding party and all the guests as well. Like, don’t get me wrong, they’re gonna be you know, having their phones out taking pictures and probably getting in our way. Even to this day, it happens, we can roll our eyes about it, it still happens. But ultimately they’re not on their phones and checking things out. They want to see this the next day when they are enjoying brunch.

Like, you know, they’re they’re seeing their hangover the next day, or they’re on the beaches for their honeymoon. Like that’s when they want to see these video clips, not within seconds of the day. And it’s also not up to us. I feel like this is the day for our couples to post and share about it and wedding guests and wedding party is not up for us to blast their day within seconds. So it’s a great marketing tool for you to share. And just kind of hold your horses on that. Okay.

Hey, wedding photographers. After sharing sneak peeks? Do you hear crickets? Now I’m talking about after a wedding day where you completely blew away the wedding experience. As soon as you were packing up, you knew that the bridesmaids and wedding guests were raving about you and excited to work with you again. But where are those emails? Where are those inquiries? And where are those booking contracts to make sure that you are secured for the next wedding? Well, what if I told you it was as simple as whipping out your phone, capturing a handful of behind the scenes videos and sharing them online. I have a free guide for you.

It’s all about quick and easy ways to capture those behind the scenes videos for organic referrals, local followers, and building genuine brand awareness. Okay, this is a fun guide that you absolutely have to download today. So you can look over and study before your next wedding. Because let’s be honest, wouldn’t it be incredible if you can book your next wedding while working your next wedding. Run don’t walk to grab this free guide called book more weddings, capturing behind the scenes to help boost easy referrals. You can find this link in the show notes are also on my Instagram in my lead page. Hurry, hurry, hurry, you’re going to want this to start booking more dream weddings.

Let’s dive into what we should be doing before the wedding to ensure that we have permission from our couples to do this. So I suggest adding a social media clause in your contract with your couples to initial. This is really important because it’s not just kind of blended in with all the all the big words in your contract. It kind of makes them pause and actually click say yes yes or no. Discuss your workflow and share all of the fun things that they get to look forward to. So While you may run into a client that prefers nothing to be shared online, and that’s okay. I always, always put people over profits and my wedding experience always goes over, you know what I have like on the agenda for the day. But it’s important to be aware of this. So you know how to safely and strategically plan their day, being upfront with your process will have them feeling excited to see all the little behind the scenes moments of their day.

Now, I’ve been doing this for years, okay, I literally have been doing this since and so stories came out, since I was able to record things on my phone. I mean, I even have, okay, I’m gonna date myself, I even have videos on old flip phones, they’ll kind of access them. No, they’re like gone in the digital world. But that’s how long I’ve been recording little videos as long as I could. And so that’s why I’m excited to share this process with you, and to share the possibilities and all the opportunities that come with sharing these little videos. So after you have asked permission, you’ve reminded them of your workflow and what it looks like. Let’s dive into what it actually looks like on a wedding day for some checkpoints to capture. We’ve already covered the why now we’re gonna go into the how, okay, so how are you actually capturing these, so I have a couple checkpoints that are always just kind of burned into my mind, and I call these I hate calling them lazy moments, because they’re not lazy moments, or just maybe quiet are still moments throughout the day. So I don’t feel rushed and flustered. So a couple of those include getting ready.

The details I’m talking about, like the ring shots in the shoes, or maybe a dress hanging back can be a quick little video, just a little quick little scan, wedding party dance parties, those are so fun getting a quick scan of the bridesmaids and their bouquets, getting the groomsmen walking out looking all like GQ, as they’re getting ready to head to either have a first look or to the ceremony, I have the first look on here. Of course, this is when the couple may be exchanging vows. Maybe they are just kind of having a moment, this is a great time to kind of whip out your phone and get a little behind the scenes. Or I highly encourage you to pack a tripod or kind of clean up your phone up against your water bottle or something and maybe capture a time lapse of the first look. That is magical. And I know your couples would really appreciate that. But of course, the ceremony you know, sometimes ceremonies only lasts 15 minutes. But you’d be surprised in that 15 minutes how much you can photograph. And then how you have a couple minutes to just kind of take a breather. That’s when I suggest getting a scan of the ceremony space. And of course all those details. So this even happens before the ceremony is actually happening before your eyes, you can capture the full look before guests even arrive. And then of course I have reception, sunset portraits and dancing. Don’t forget to get cute little videos of your couples dancing and just living their best life. Alright, so now I’m gonna dive into what to do now that you have this just bank of videos. Okay, so now we’re going to share exactly how to share them and the strategy behind posting them.

So one thing that’s so important, if I can sum up this entire conversation, it’s really just three points. It’s capture, tag and share. That’s really it, babe. So if you can figure out how to safely and strategically capture these really fun videos, tag all of the vendors as they pertain to the video, of course and attend to everybody in every single video of the wedding day. But making sure that you are being strategic with tagging vendors, the location and extra hashtags to that Insta story, you are creating the spark. And then these vendors are creating the wildfire that just goes out like confetti on social media and they will share it, you’re making your life so much easier. So tagging your couples and the wedding party if you have access to their handles as well make sure you’re tagging them which is so fun, which is another reason why you should wait another like I said 12 hours or 24 hours after is you can kind of be a little sneaky and Snoopy and check out. Maybe you’re if you’re friends with the bride. You can look at her Instagram and check out you know if she’s had a bridal shower recently. This is me being really sneaky, but you can absolutely tag if they have if they don’t have private accounts tagging the bright maid of honor and other bridesmaids as well. That’ll be us tons of little sparks as well that I’m sure they’d be happy to share. So these are just some fun ways that you can strategically capture and then share I actually have this whole little mini course designed for you it’s in the works right now depending on when you listen to this it may be available, but it is called book more weddings.

And this course is so fun. It’s so relatable, it’s quick. You can literally digest this within like less than a week. It goes by so fast but I definitely highly suggest you getting this so you can watch and learn and soak up all this goodness before your next wedding. Because I’m telling you this is such a free marketing way that you can get your name out there, build that brand awareness. build genuine friendships with vendors because I’m telling you, if you can show up and capture your vendors in the best light, doing their best work, showing that they’re superheroes on the wedding day, sharing about it posting about it, they’re going to share it, they’re going to be so grateful that all they have to do is click Add to story. And like I mentioned earlier in the episode of making sure that we’re strategic about this, so it’s, it’s not just specific to Insta Stories, these are just plain videos that you should be capturing anyway. And then you can utilize them for reals and tiktoks as well. And then I also encourage you to include the tag from your couples so if they have a hashtag, make sure you’re including that as well, because that once again, can be blasted to wedding guests as well to see your beautiful work and to be engaged with you for future referrals as well. So book more dream weddings, they get your name out there, you’re

already doing the work. I just I’m just so excited for you. Keep shining babe. 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.