I am now torn between whether I want a flashy flash site or just a regular blogsite. I can see advantages of both.
Website: Impress brides with your images and mostly images only
Blogsite: better SEO, more up to date, more personality, can be made to be the only point of entry (like Jessica Claire, Susan Stripling, etc)
I'd love to go for blogsite only, but I am pretty new at this, and have not yet established my name. Would I turn away potential clients? --- I mean, when I was a bride, I was so moved by websites that have great music (sometimes probably stolen music, but what did I know back then? :P) and great images. A blogsite can never do that for me.
Create the blogsite and post it up for critique. Find out what you need to add, what might be missing, and then consider if you still want a flash web site along with it. As you said, if you want music it's going to be an additional cost or effort (to gain artist permission).
I should mention that a blogsite (which I'm working on right now!) will allow music as well, can be a flash blogsite and can offer the same galleries that a website offers...which is why it's called a blogsite! I dwelled on this for a long time and the selling point for a blogsite for me was that I would only have to update ONE site instead of two. My blogsite will also offer client mini sites for proofing, as well as a shopping cart for purchasing! :o)
souljourney wrote:
I should mention that a blogsite (which I'm working on right now!) will allow music as well, can be a flash blogsite and can offer the same galleries that a website offers...which is why it's called a blogsite! I dwelled on this for a long time and the selling point for a blogsite for me was that I would only have to update ONE site instead of two. My blogsite will also offer client mini sites for proofing, as well as a shopping cart for purchasing! :o)
Can I ask who are you using? Portfoliositez offers a blogsite template like that.
That's exactly who I'm using! :o) I am on a children's photography board and the PS staff is on there, too. Everyone raves about them...I've not heard a bad thing yet. I have a friend who does web stuff for a living and was going to create a blogsite for me but a)he couldn't take enough time away from partying in his spare time to get things done in a timely manner and b)I realized that what we were trying to develop was out there already. So far it's been so easy to use. I'll let you see it when we're done setting it up!
I use Portfoliositez. Best customer service I've encountered. Doesn't matter what time of the day (or night), if you send in a trouble ticket or have a dumb question/operator error/etc. they always get back to you quickly.
The only drawback I see is the shopping cart system....did not work for me at all. I went back to Zenfolio for proofing and print orders. Works great and saves me lots of time.
My blogsite will also offer client mini sites for proofing, as well as a shopping cart for purchasing! :o) 
So far it's been so easy to use. I'll let you see it when we're done setting it up!