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How I Got My First Luxury Wedding Without Knowing Anyone in the Industry
The first time I walked through the doors of the Ritz for a wedding, it was as the lead photographer. I was alone in the bride’s suite, camera in hand, at a point in my career when I still didn’t know a single person in this industry. No colleague I was close to had introduced me. I hadn’t been welcomed into some circle that recommends its own. The bride and groom had called me directly, on the recommendation of a wedding planner I’d crossed paths with a year earlier, on a wedding where I was only the second shooter.
Starting With No Connections in the Industry
When I started, I had no contacts in this industry. No photographer to introduce me, no wedding planner who already knew my work, no circle to lean on. What I had was volume. In my first years, I was shooting around fifty weddings a year. I kept training alongside that, and I regularly did styled inspiration shoots just to build my portfolio. That repeated work, not a single meeting or a stroke of luck, is what laid the foundation for everything that followed.
Applying on Facebook to Second Shoot for Oliver Fly
One of the ways I pushed forward during that period was answering second-shooter calls that other photographers posted, Facebook groups especially. That’s how I applied to second shoot for Oliver Fly on one of his weddings. I got the job. Then he called me back, more than once.
I can say today that I was a good second shooter. I always put the lead photographer’s interests ahead of my own on those days, because in the end, that’s what serves the couple too. It’s close to the question I come back to whenever someone asks me whether you really need a second shooter: it depends entirely on who that person is actually serving once they’re on the ground. Being that kind of second, reliable and unobtrusive, got me called back again and again by the same photographers. At one point in my career, that made up a real share of my income.
The Wedding Planner I Crossed Paths With Again at the Ritz
It was on one of those weddings, while second shooting for Oliver Fly, that I crossed paths with an assistant wedding planner. At the time, she was just an assistant. I didn’t see her again right away, and that day, I never thought this meeting would matter.
A year later, I had already photographed more than a hundred and fifty weddings. That same person had become a lead wedding planner, and she was the one in charge of a wedding at the Ritz. She’s the one who recommended me directly to the bride and groom, this time as the lead photographer, not as a second.
I didn’t know, the day I was second shooting that wedding with Oliver Fly, that it would matter a year later. But it clearly did.
What Actually Made the Difference
Looking back, I don’t think the wedding planner’s recommendation, on its own, is what got me that wedding. The couple wouldn’t have chosen me on that recommendation alone if my portfolio hadn’t held up. The inspiration shoots I’d kept doing from the start, and the care I’d put into my portfolio, my Instagram, and my website, mattered just as much as the recommendation itself in landing that booking.
That same consistency, already in place before this wedding, is what kept bringing me direct inquiries from higher-end clients afterward. I didn’t need to answer second-shooter calls on Facebook anymore. Couples were finding me directly.
Questions I Get Asked a Lot
Do you need industry connections to book a luxury wedding?
No, not in my case. I had no connections when I started. What mattered was the volume of weddings I’d shot, ongoing training, and regular inspiration shoots to build my portfolio before I even had a client in front of me.
How did you get your first jobs as a second shooter?
By answering calls other photographers posted, Facebook groups especially. That’s how I started second shooting for Oliver Fly, who then called me back several times.
Did the wedding planner get you this wedding on her own?
She recommended me directly to the couple, yes. But that recommendation wouldn’t have been enough on its own. It came after years of volume and work on my portfolio, my Instagram, and my website. Without that work, I don’t think the recommendation alone would have been enough to get the couple to sign.
What I’d Do Differently
If I started over, I wouldn’t try to shortcut the path. I’d do things in the same order again: build volume, keep training, keep doing inspiration shoots for the portfolio. That groundwork, invisible for a long time, ended up mattering just as much as a direct recommendation.
Shooting weddings solo?
If you want to go further in structuring your client and planner communications, download The Pre-Wedding Checklist for free.
It is an 11-page PDF guide containing every logistical detail to confirm with your couples months before the wedding day, in chronological order: what to ask, when to ask it, and how to handle responses so you are never caught off guard on the wedding morning.