Time to take the plunge!
Now university was over , like many of my fellow graduates, I was really stuck and confused at what to do next. I felt like I had been on a stressful, mad, emotional roller coaster and was thrown out at the other end in to the real world and I needed to find a job. I managed to avoid this issue for a while as I had to move house!
Ok so I have briefly mentioned Eddie previously but its probably about time that he got a formal introduction. This is Eddie, regally eating a cream cheese bagel.
Eddie is the reason why I was moving house, that and our tenancy was up on our student digs. Eddie and I have been together for 5 years, I met Eddie when we worked at Waitrose together in Birmingham, after a year of being in different cities and spending most weekends on the M1, Eddie moved to Nottingham as I started my second year of University, to be closer to me (plus he found a better job there.)
We didn’t live together at uni, mainly because if you have a 9-5 living with students is a nightmare! (Up making noise at all hours.) But when he got a call just a week after I finished University offering him a great job in Cheshire I was more than happy to move cities for him after all I didn’t have job yet. We now live together in Cheshire, in a lovely flat. We definitely didn’t rush into living together we had been together 4 years before we did, it has made it all the more special now and we get on really well.
Even with a full time job Eddie regularly helps me out with weddings he is a very good second shooter and is fab at wedding fayres.
So while packing all mine and Eddies belongings into a Van in Nottingham, my parents where also moving, they where moving from Birmingham to a beautiful house in rural Hereford. I was really excited for them to move, the new house was amazing and a completely different way of life. It was a bit of a mad month, at one point I had belongings in 4 houses, Cheshire, Nottingham, Birmingham and Hereford! But before we knew it both my parents and I where all moved and settled in to our new homes.
The Big Decision
So now we were all moved in the little matter of getting a job, I had a look around and applied for what seemed like hundreds of random jobs, but there really wasn’t any jobs for a photography graduate. So after a long hard think I decided to take the scary plunge in to self employment and taking my wedding photography full time!
The first thing I did was to quickly rebrand, and give my website a big makeover. I changed hosts and logos, and started ordering business cards. I originally ordered my business cards from Vistaprint. However I wasn’t happy with the quality, I take pride in all my products, right down to my business cards. As a photographer print quality is something I take very seriously and I felt that a poor business card reflected badly of me, so they all went in the recycling and I ordered more through MOO.com. I can not recommend them enough! I had a slight issue with an image and they sorted out the issue and sent me replacements all the space of 3 emails. I have lots of 10% off codes for new customers in my big pack of cards if you would like one let me know.
Me website.
My business cards.
The next step I took was to get my portfolio sorted and order sample albums to show at wedding fayres. It took a surprisingly large amount of time to do this. I take great care in crating albums I think the skill, time and care taken in creating them can go largely unnoticed. I already had a few albums but I also ordered some beautiful Italian leather sample albums to go with them.
The Story Book
The Italian Leather Story Book
I now felt prepared to book and attend wedding fayres. See how I did on my next post tomorrow.
* All photography is by unless stated. (C) Lucy Greenhill