Prettym1k3 Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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p.3 #19 · p.3 #19 · Is the economy picking up and photogs are dropping out? | |
DavidCZ wrote:
Because most weddings are weekends, they will take lots of family time. Husband and wife team are good and can still enjoy working together. But when there are kids, it will be another story. It could be especially tough for husband and wife team.
One has to balance the life and work very well as wedding photographers.
Hey David,
I know you're in the SJ area, so I can speak to people in our area.
It sucks. I pull 40 hours a week at my day job. With commuting, I'm gone from 7:30am until approximately 6pm every day. My wife works too, so same thing. Then, at least this year, we have about 15 weddings on the books. I told my wife I may take on 1 more, but that's about my limit, I think.
This year, I'm only second shooting twice for friends. I simply can't take on more than that, which sucks, as I love helping other people. But with the mid-night editing, weekend shooting, and the 40 hrs. at my day job, it sucks.
Oh, the reason why I wanted to mention this, is we have a kid. Just one right now. He's almost 2. But without both my parents and my wife's parents living in the area, we'd be hosed. It's expensive to live here, childcare is insanely expensive, and the lack of free time makes it really, really rough. But we survive.
I can tell you this: My wife and I never, EVER tire of spending time with our son. All of our friends who have a stay at home parents, or whatever, are always trying to escape. We get home from work, and if there's no client meetings, editing, Skype meetings, phone calls, etc., we plop on the floor and just laugh for hours with our son. So there is that. This year has been an exercise in looking on the bright side of things.
A little more on topic, I've seen my bookings go up, with less questioning as to my pricing and less request for discounts. Which is really, really nice.
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