So, we did our first full year...
This blog page definitely died a death after the first four posts. I love to write, but I ran out of time, life went mental, let me tell you about it, nearly two years later.
So, it's November 2022, I'm in my bedroom, I've got ZERO bookings for 2023, I'm understandably a little stressed. 21-year-old me was naive, I'm thinking "why did I do this? Why did i quit my job? You're gonna be skint in 3 months tops, when was the last time you updated your CV? You are going to need it".
I think, what can I do? I need to get myself out there more, the Instagram isn't working as well as it could be, absolutely no one in the wedding world knows who I am. So I turn to TikTok.
I'm sat at my desk, I record an 8 second video of myself just smiling at the camera, add the caption that I'm a wedding photographer and that I am essentially begging for bookings, added on some images after the video just to show a little bit of my portfolio, and then I go to bed.
I wake up the next day, and I start getting ready to go out and meet my friend, just before I do I check my phone and open the TikTok app. 99+ notifications, I am so so confused. My inbox is flooded with stuff, likes, comments, follows, people telling me how amazing they think my work is, compliments on a scale I never even imagined for myself.
I head out to breakfast with my friend and when I get back my nan and my mum are in the kitchen and I open my laptop. Every time I refresh my emails a new enquiry is coming in, emails from London, up-north, France, Austria, The States, I was in absolute shock. In the end I think I ended up getting over 50 enquiries just from that one TikTok.
In short, that TikTok changed my life.
I was being booked in for weddings in 2023 in The Cotswolds, Central London, The Savoy, River Cottage in Devon. They were amazing, each one was such an experience. I couldn't believe people had booked me for my work and wanted me to travel to photograph their weddings. I really did feel like I was dreaming every day.
With all this amazing new work I had suddenly got, came a lot of pressure. I was stressed. I had this new pressure to perform, my work really mattered now, more and more people started to know who I am. But with that pressure, came a duty, it was me they had chosen to photograph their day, they wanted me.
Looking back now, it was just the beginning, what a journey.
