Planning A Wedding During Covid-19, What You Need To Know
How to plan a wedding during covid-19
The world is a very scary place right now.
We are all dealing with rapid and constant change, uncertainty and the fear of the future. How will Covid-19 change the landscape of our lives? Many couples that had their wedding plans firmly cemented in place have been devastated. I’m deeply saddened for those couples that won’t get to fully experience their wedding dreams.
Many couples have postponed their wedding while many others are just beginning their wedding planning. That’s good news for a lot of couples.
Or is it?
I see two major problems facing couples and the wedding industry right now as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Weddings have been always been an emotional experience for couples. But in light of everything that we have gone through over the past several months, I think it will make the entire wedding experience even more emotional for couples. With that being said, every couple will need to give serious attention to the question, “How do we plan our wedding due to the Covid-19 situation?”
Let me explain.
Prior to Covid-19, wedding scams became common place, especially over the past several years. We see these horrifying stories in the news all the time. Wedding photography has always been one aspect of weddings where we see a lot of scams. I have always attributed these scams to a few major reasons:
The affordability and accessibility of quality camera equipment
The abundance of social media platforms and the ease at which ANYONE can create a FREE business page and promote themselves as a professional
The stealing of photos from real professional wedding photographers - scammers steal their photos and create fraudulent portfolios using them and selling them as their work
Wedding Professionals Closing Their Doors
Unfortunately, with the impact of the Coronavirus, many wedding professionals are struggling. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been seeing stories of wedding professionals announcing they are closing their doors. I feel very fortunate that my wedding photography business will not be facing this decision. Thankfully, I have other sources of income; therefore, I will continue to service my couples as usual and they won’t have to worry about lost deposits or other payments or whether or not they will have to find a new wedding photographer.
But what about those couples that did hire one of these wedding professionals going out of business? Chances are, any payment they made to these professionals won’t be refunded. The money is gone. Not only will couples lose money, but now they will have to scramble to find another quality wedding professional. And what are the chances this new professional will go out of business? These are serious concerns.
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Scammers Taking Advantage Of The Situation
The minute the world changed as a result of Covid-19, stories stared popping up in the news regarding scams. These particular scams didn’t have anything to do with the wedding industry, but there will always be people looking to take advantage of the vulnerable. I personally find it sickening and disgusting.
I fully anticipate that we are going to see theses scams taking place in the wedding industry too. I’ve seen a lot of stories about couples wedding plans being severely impacted. This can lead couples to panic and desperation, completely impairing their normally sound judgement. I promise you that scammers are already crafting plans to prey on the emotions of unsuspecting couples.
How Can couples Protect Themselves & Avoid Being Scammed?
It’s important to understand that I’m going to give you some tips to avoid being scammed, but there aren’t any guarantees it won’t happen to you. Trust your gut and your instincts. If something feels wrong, step away for a second. Don’t make any quick decisions. Let’s take a look at some red flags that are often used by scammers.
Price Temptation
We’re all familiar with the saying, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” This couldn’t be more true when it comes to wedding photography. Scammers will offer you prices that appeal to your emotions - especially if money is tight or you lost money because your previous photographer went out of business. But how do you know what a good price is? My favorite resource is www.costofwedding.com. Simply enter a few basic pieces of information and they will provide you the prices couples actually paid in your area for wedding details. If you see that wedding photography averaged $3,000 in your area and a photographer is quoting you $1,000 - $1,5000, it’s a red flag.
The Facebook Photographer
If a photographer only has a few social media profiles and doesn’t have a professional website, this is another huge red flag. Social media is FREE and websites generally cost $200 - $300 a year. If a professional wedding photographer can’t invest $200 - $300 in themselves, why should you?
A Full Wedding
Any photographer that you are considering hiring, ask them to show you a full wedding. I’m going to give you two reasons why should you do this and you probably never heard either of these before!
Many newer or inexperienced wedding photographers participate in “stylized wedding shoots.” This is where a group of photographers pay a fee to photograph fake wedding scenes. Each scene is set up and the photographers go from scene to scene photographing them. Each scene is perfectly set up and arranged, and they use models to play the bride and groom.
The photographers then take these images and create portfolios from them. I understand that everyone has to start somewhere. I did too. I got my first weddings by going to Craigslist and letting people know that I was a new photographer looking to build my portfolio. I offered to photograph their wedding for free or for a very minimal fee so I could use the photos to promote my work. A stylized wedding shoot is nothing like photographing a real wedding - you don’t have the time constraints that come with a wedding, the constantly changing lighting conditions and one chance to get the shot perfect.
A stylized wedding shoot is a controlled environment and it’s 100 times easier to photograph models since they are trained in perfect posing. With stylized shoots, you might have 6 other photographers with you. If your creative juices suddenly go dry, you can simply look around to see what other photographers are doing. You definitely don’t have this luxury on the wedding day.
Stylized wedding shoots do nothing to prepare you for the pressures of a real wedding day and this is a critical component to being a successful wedding photographer.
The second reason that you want to see a full wedding is that photo stealing has become a major issue in the wedding industry. If a photographer has an image that blows you away, but they can’t show you any other images from that wedding, huge red flag!
References
If you’re considering a photographer, don’t feel funny or hesitate to ask for references. Sure, if a photographer is trying to scam you they could give you a “fake client.” You really don’t know the person on the other end of the line. Consider this though. Consider how the photographer reacts when you ask for references? Is there a nervousness in their voice? Does their body language appear uncomfortable? You may never intend on calling a reference, but their reaction to the question just might be enough to make your decision.
You Should Now Have A Plan
There’s no question that Covid-19 has impacted all of our lives and has possibly changed the landscape of our world as we knew it. I hope this article will help you with your wedding planning and has given you some useful ideas on how to avoid potential wedding fraud and scammers. If you have any questions please feel free to share them in the comments and don’t forget to share this article with anyone you think it might benefit.