Advice Required

The problem with free is it makes people suspicious - "if you need to give away your services for free then you must be rubbish"

I would imagine very reduced rate, maybe cost price so you make no profit would be better?

I think a swap for services idea is good

Thanks for the reply.

I can see where you are coming from, but take it from me, my business is anything but "rubbish"! I prefer to interpret it that I'm that confident its good, I'm prepared to do it for free.

The plan is simply to make a move into the wedding market and being a reasonable sort of chap, I was thinking that a win/win kind of arrangement would be best.

However, thanks for the input, and I welcome other responses to help clarify this issue!

Hi

Im from the nw area was just wondering what your fab business is

x

If you do a wedding find out who the photographer is, more than likely they will let you have the pictures for free if they can put their name on them. With choc fountains + similar get in to wedding fayres, people will book off the taste.

I think free is too suspicious but if you put a discount on for say the first so many bookings.

Free is too suspicious but cost price is better, I agree with talking to the photographer. He's likely to take a few shots and give you them if you put his name over them so you're advertising him also whilst yourself.

I think Free is a good idea. x

You know what? i think, you can just try it~

there are advantages for you to do this:

you do this just for a few couples right? maybe just for 5 or 10 couples.

so, first merit, you can promote your place, and by your propaganda, you can just show your business to a large number of people out there.

second, you can reach your goal and make out perfect photos during the free catering.

third, it's a little implicit, perhaps. through doing free catering, people can see your attitude in this activity. the way you run your business, the service level you provide do customers and the intends of having good relationships with all the other people.

the best situation would be:

you do several free catering, and make others realize how good your job is, local newspaper or other medium help you to make promotion, and you get every photo you want.

but, risks is all along with this.

1 if your service is not that good, or you meet some one whom it's really difficult to be with, you may have trouble with your fame and service level. you know, word of mouth~

2 there are possibilities that your competiters follow you, and if they perform better than you, this activity may just become their good weapon.

3 the most important point is, can you haddle this cost management? it would be a great burden for you~

4 do your family or your team support you? sometimes, support is very important. when something screwed up, and there are your people there encouraging you, nothing would be that difficult for you~

i hope you just think twice and analyze all the factors before you make a decision.

best regards~

It may seem the obvious answer, but why don't you just hire a photographer to take some photos for you?

And expecting photos from a wedding weather you charge or not probably isn't going to happen. The photographer will own the copyright not the couple and he'll be wanting to charge you for photos, just as he would the couple, mum, gran and auntie Mabel who all wants copies. And then you may still not be able to use those images in a commerical capacity.

Better just to hire a photographer for an advertising shoot.

Thank you to all who have replied and offered advice, all of which is being considered.

I have to say that I still prefer the option of providing catering for FREE.

I also have to say that I am slightly surprised that no one has spotted the opportunity to actually ASK whether we would be willing to attend their wedding reception free of charge in return for photographs....

We are interested in working in the North West (the North in general is a possibility) between the middle of Sept and end of Dec.

We require professional photographs of us in action on the day (we will provide a link to your photographer's website from our own as a courtesy)

We require that we would be photographed in an appealing location (the "back room of a pub" kind of look is not something we strive for)

You will not be disappointed. We are very professional. We have 6 years experience. We are very well presented.

It will come at absolutely NO COST to yourself.

Hi,

I think free is a good idea. I am a north west bride getting married in November. However, our catering is being done by our venue. Suppose i would have been an ideal candidate really, but everything is being sorted by our venue.

What Greenleaf said....I'd just speak to the photographer.

We usually give the suppliers some shots to use on their sites providing they link it back to us.

If you email me your details, we could maybe pass your details out when we meet our clients. (****@**************.**.** )

HTH X

Unfortuntly you are still missing the point that because of copyright its not down the couple, but the photographer as to wether you can use his photos, and unfortunatly a link isn't worth much to a photographer.

I say all this from experience, my fiance runs an electrical firm that specialises in lighting for clubs / pubs / resturants etc. A lot of it is custom made. In the past we've often asked for photos, but always been told that the copyright lies with the photographer and they can't pass them on. In some cases when we've contacted a photographer who has shot an event at one of the locations, they've said they were shooting for the promoters and they'd have to ask their permission to be able to sell us copies.

We've also made suggestions to add links and also the print their names and contact details in our catalogues, but not one of the quality professional photographers has ever agreed to that. They always want paying. Though the awful amatuer photographers, always seem to jump at the chance

Most of the time we need to hire a photographer ourselves, so as we can get the exact shots we want. Which also makes me think that you probably won't get the shots you want, because the photographer will be there to photograph the wedding, not your product. We always have to use someone and give them details of the exact shots we want.

Sorry to sound negative, but I just don't think you'll get what you want. Much better just to hire someone to get the shots you NEED, and to spend all the time photographing your product.

Sammy.