I can’t believe it is already a week into November because that means that our season is wrapping up! Where has the time gone?!
As usual at this time of year – I’m doing the off season scramble! You know – where you’re shooting constantly in order to get everybody’s holiday card photos and engagement sessions done before we go into the deep freeze here in Chicago. Which means I have about a million photos to go through and attempt to get back to everybody ASAP so they have everything in time for the holidays!
I feel like it is a race against the clock this past month and I am not winning! haha. We have a handful of sessions left in the next couple of weeks so things won’t quiet down here for a bit, which means anything that isn’t required to be done RIGHT NOW (like shooting/editing) is getting pushed to the back burner (i.e. my Off Season To-Do List)!
I have a bunch of projects I’ve been meaning to do for… oh… a year now, but I keep pushing them off because our current clients are obviously more pressing. And so began the Off-Season To-Do List.
Here’s a little sample of what it looks like so far! (Including some things I was so terrible about last off-season that they are STILL on the list!!)
1. Rebranding!!! I’m super excited to be giving our brand a face lift this off season! I feel like we’ve grown (and grown up) so much in the past three years since our original rebranding that we don’t quite fit our current look anymore. I’m excited to make some adjustments to bring our brand to current day and to better represent who we are now! 🙂 This of course includes a million things like… updated colors, logo, website, blog, print materials, contracts, investment guides, and something we plan to knock off our to-do list this weekend – new photos of me, some solo shots of James (finally! yay!), Chloe and us, and the two of us together! I’m excited to have current photos that better show our little family and where we are/what we look like now! (It’s hard to believe when we rebranded originally Phoenix was still with us. 🙁 I cannot believe that was almost 3 years ago already. Wow.)
Here’s a sneak peek at my branding Pinterest board. (You can see the full board HERE if you’re curious!)
2. Our Wedding Album! Okay you guys… seriously I was supposed to do this last year, and totally let it slip through my fingers. But I promise to stop being the cobbler with no shoes THIS YEAR! Our 5-year wedding anniversary is just around the corner and we WILL have a wedding album by then! Seriously!
3. Client Info Book. Also something I was supposed to do last year… I wanted to make an info book to give clients when they book with all sorts of tips to help their experience with us go as smoothly as possible! I even had a former bride who is a graphic designer help me get this started, but I was in the middle of busy season and so again – this just got totally overlooked.
4. Wedding Day Work. James and I have talked all year about going over our wedding day process to figure out how to make sure things go off without a hitch, and to iron out some things that tend to come up over and over again on wedding days. This means time for the two of us to just sit down and see how we can make this go EVEN BETTER than it currently does, which will in turn make our photos and client experience even better! I can’t wait to hear J’s thoughts and get this going!
5. My Beautiful Site. Again, something I was supposed to do last year, and even showed a sneak peek to you guys (like I was going to finish it! ha!) and totally let it slip through the cracks. And now that we’re doing a total branding overhaul – obviously this will start over with that as well. This year I WILL get it done (ASAP) because I’d love to have it launch in time to run a Valentine’s Day special! And since our wedding season ends a month earlier than it did last year – I think there’s hope! I hope! haha
6. Prep for & Host my Advanced Workshop. I have the outline for the workshop from past years, but plan to add a lot of content and go much more into depth with everything I speak about since now the workshop is TWO DAYS! Yay!! I’ll have so much more time to thoroughly cover everything and then spend the second day really digging into shooting the styled shoot, and teaching all that comes with that! I’m super excited about this and plan to actually get professionally printed hand-outs to go with the entire workshop after hearing from feedback from past attendees. Of course that means I need to actually design a hand-out and get it printed! So add that to the list! 😉
That being said – just a reminder that TODAY IS THE LAST DAY to get the Early Bird discount for the Advanced Workshop! There are only a limited number of seats available since this is a super intimate workshop with lots of one-on-one attention – so make sure to get your seat before it is sold out! Read more about the workshop & register online HERE.
So that’s it! There are more little bits I plan to do this off season of course (like paint the window trim in the office, start painting my nails again, read more books, maybe workout occasionally? haha… and submit a whole lot of weddings to blogs), but for now I think this main list will be pleeeeenty to do along with the year-end budget and taxes! 😉
This is our first weekend in 9 weeks without a wedding so it is going to be weird!! I’m still busy with other sessions (an engagement and a Beautiful session – yay!), but it is still strange to not have a wedding! I guess I’ll get used to that being the norm eventually – but for now it is still an odd feelings! haha. Anyway – have a fabulous weekend you guys! I’ll see you back here on Monday!! XOXO!
