You’ve likely shot your last wedding of 2021, or are just about to. Before totally hibernating on your couch until the busy wedding season next summer, we have some tasks that might have fallen to the backburner that you might want to jump on. When you’re shooting wedding after wedding, little things can slip from your to-do list that are actually super important to your business.

Here’s what we’ll be working on this wedding off-season.

Taking a Class

Think about areas of your business you want to improve on or learn more about – and go beyond the obvious! Photography classes are great, but so are marketing, business development, website coding, and other creative classes. Right now, we’ve got our sights on some classes to up our video skills. Especially with Instagram prioritizing video over photos now, a little extra knowledge (and confidence) in video will help you produce more engaging Reels with higher reach.

Refresh Your Website and Portfolio

After a busy summer, we’re loaded with new photos we love – but haven’t had any time to properly display them and show them off. Keeping up with social media is doable, like posting some of your gallery sneak peeks,  but often big website updates don’t happen until we have more time in the off-season. Take advantage of your downtime and give your website a facelift! Featuring new photos that you love will help attract more clients who like the work you’re producing now, versus the work you produced two years ago.

Update Your Guides, Or Make One

Take a look at all your informational guides and see what needs updating. Things like best locations close to you, answers to your FAQs, and even your rates might have changed, so you’ll want to go through and make sure everything is up to date. If you have any photos featured in your guide, now’s also a good time to update them.

And, if you haven’t made an information guide yet, jump on it! We’ve pulled together our best tips to help you out – read the blog post here.

Accounting

Running your own business means you wear every hat – including the accountant. The slower shooting season is a good time to get on top of your finances from the previous year before tax time. Make sure you’ve collected all of the information and receipts you’ll need when filing your taxes, including revenue, expenses, mileage, and equipment you’ll be writing off. Trust us, you’ll be thankful come April.

Keep Shooting

Even when it’s slow, try and keep shooting. When you have time on your hands, it can be fun to find models or friends that will work with you on a creative project. Think of a new style you’ve been dying to try, and find someone game to stand in front of the lens for you. Not only does this help you learn a new skill, it also gives you current content to post on your social media pages.

Find a New Preset You Love

Okay, we might be a bit biased, but a lull in shooting is a great time to play around and find a new favorite preset pack. Plus, you’ll have time to fine tune the way you use it! We like to pull some raw photos we love from our last set of weddings and see what we can create. Using your best work as the testing tool helps you to see how well the preset works with your style.

Catch up

If you have some extra hours to fill, take advantage! The busy season can be INSANE and you can go months without having time to yourself. Recharge, sleep, get back into your hobbies, tackle projects, and spend time with family and friends – knowing it will be a lot harder to do later when it picks back up. 

How do you keep busy during the off-season? Let us know on Instagram!