it’s the most common question i get asked. so…if you are a wedding photographer….what do you DO all day? what do you do in the winter? i can understand from the outside, it can seem like a pretty sweet lifestyle. the second that last song is played at my last wedding of the year, i am pretty much on vacation until april, right? i can only imagine a schedule were that were true. the truth is, though what is nice about the winter is that i finally get my weekends back, the reality is that i am still working a normal 40, 50, 60, sometime 70+ hr/week schedule every week.

so…if there are no weddings to shoot…what do i do?

the winter is actually one of my favorite times of the year. it’s when i get to start fresh, impliment new ideas, and fine tune the old ones. it’s a time to figure out what worked well last season, and what needs improvement. i get to update my website, blog and marketing. it’s a chance to start working on all the things that fell to the bottom of the priority list when my bride and groom’s weddings came first. i am still extremely involved with weddings during the winter….because this is when i start working with my 2013 bride and grooms on planning their engagement sessions, timelines, and details. it is when i start finalizing album designs for 2012 couples and sending out bulk shipment orders. i submit weddings for publication to magazines and blogs. and sadly, this is when i do all the back-end work…the boring stuff. i re-evaluate my taxes, income, CPA, booking figures, insurance policies, quickbook reports, and budgets. so though my schedule is much more flexible in the winter (which i am so thankful for), i don’t get to just stop working for a few months.

throughout the year, everytime there is something to do, an idea to impliment, a company to contact, a form to update, a vendor to follow up with…etc…it gets added to a Master List. That Master List then gets re-cattegorized into smaller, more managable lists that I get done in the off season. Most days, if I get 3 things crossed off this list, then it is a very good day!

i tweeted the other day that i could use a crafts closet. i think perhaps what really i need is a wharehouse to store all my boxes and packaging! you should have seen what our guest bedroom before everything was in boxes :)