Our wedding blog Offbeat Bride gets a LOT of photo submissions from photographers, videographers, wedding planners, and other vendors. We love seeing them and our readers often find their vendors from within our featured weddings on Offbeat Bride. But due to the volume of submissions, we can’t feature all of them. There are just too many!
If you’re a wedding photographer looking to get your work featured on Offbeat Bride or any other wedding blog, here are some tips to give your submission the best chance of standing out and bubbling up to become a feature. [Note: if you’re a couple interested in submitting your wedding, see this instead!]
Know your audience
Offbeat Bride readers run the gamut of diversity and we like to reflect that. Obviously, they’re open to non-traditional weddings, but they also love low-budget weddings, niche-theme weddings (rock ‘n’ roll, holiday-themed, punk, goth, geeky, Renaissance, etc.), elopements and small weddings, older couples, LGBTQ, and more. Take advantage of that audience by sharing with us those weddings that traditional magazines and blogs might not publish. Get to know what kinds of weddings we choose by browsing our Real Weddings and Wedding Porn sections.
Make sure your couple wants to be featured
Once in a while we get an email from a very upset couple who didn’t know their photographer was submitting their wedding would be made public on a wedding blog. Make sure you don’t take your couples by surprise — always let them know when you’re submitting their wedding photos to a blog. Even if you technically own the rights to the images, it’s the respectful thing to do.
Don’t submit to multiple blogs or magazines
Many blogs won’t feature a wedding that has been featured elsewhere first. Make sure your couple or their other vendors haven’t submitted elsewhere, too. Once you’ve submitted to one blog, give them some time to get back to you before submitting elsewhere. If you decide to submit to another blog, let us know so we don’t step on their toes.
Include other vendors and their URLs for inclusion in the feature
We love giving credit to the other vendors (florists, officiants, planners, venues, etc.) who made the day possible. Please include them with their correct business name and preferred URL, or ask the couple to submit a list. Please also include their Instagram handle since we publish there, too!
Know what style of shoots are accepted
The quickest way to get declined is to submit something we’ve explicitly said we’re NOT accepting. We post very clear information about what kinds of shoots we don’t publish. We’re also place a very high priority on diversity in ethnicity, body size, older couples, LGBTQ couples, etc. With any blog, do your research and read guidelines carefully.
Be prepared to wait a bit
We usually have a long queue of weddings waiting to be featured, so realize that it may be a couple months or more before you’ll see the feature on the site. We’ll give you a target post date, and if it’s too long to wait, just let us know you’ll be submitting elsewhere. Also, remember that the quickest way to get us to feature your work is to snag one of a sponsored post!
Image tips
- Include a few great shots of the couple, and any details that really capture the theme or the more offbeat aspects of the wedding. If it’s a geeky wedding, we want to see their geeky centerpieces and cake. If they have amazing hair and fashion, include full-length shots and close-ups of their details.
- We much prefer shots that do not include a watermark, as they are often distracting and degrade the quality of the photos and their composition. Don’t worry, we’ll credit you at the top and bottom of the feature.
- We prefer photos that aren’t too processed (vintage process, sepia, vignetting, etc.) and love lots of colorful photos. You can include black and white photos, but make sure it’s not the whole set.
- Send only about 50-75 photos. We can’t look at a full set of 500+ due to the volume of submissions. If we need more, we’ll ask. We know it’s cumbersome to cull the set, but it’ll make sure you get your best photos featured.
Inspired? Have something you’d like us to see?
Submit your photos!