Day in the life of
Destination Wedding Photographer – Renate van Dijk
I’m a destination wedding photographer.
Although most people think it’s mostly about shooting and travelling, that’s really only 10 to 15 weekends per year. In reality, I spend most of my time behind my desk, answering emails, updating my website, busy with marketing and networking. But most of all, editing takes a lot of time. No matter how well I shoot in camera, I want to give my clients the absolute best I can deliver. So all my photos go to my editor first and then I’ll go over and tweak each and every photo until I think it’s perfect.
Pros
The pros of my job are many: I get to work with happy people, having fun in beautiful places and I get to capture peoples future memories. It’s not as glamorous as people make it out to be, but that doesn’t keep people from being impressed by the job title. I get to work with lots of different nationalities and learn about their cultural differences and traditions.
Cons
The cons however make many photographers choose not to shoot destination weddings at all: the hours are long (often an entire weekend), travel adds another level of stress to the already stressful job of capturing a wedding. In summer I hardly see my friends and family as there are many consecutive weeks in which I’m away for 4 days, then have 1 day to backup and make a preview, 1 day to sleep a lot to recharge myself and 1 day to pack and prep for the next wedding which is also quite exhausting, actually.
For most photographers it has proofed to be a job that isn’t pandemic proof as both travel and weddings aren’t allowed in a lot of countries and many photographers idolise destination work and therefore charge much too little and/or don’t ask for a solid retainer (so they don’t build a buffer or savings).
People also tend to think it’s a super glamorous job, but they forget that creating glamorous footage takes a lot of work. So I’m usually a makeup less, sweaty mess, powering through on ibuprofen on a wedding day.
Although it’s hard work (imagine working 16 hour days, running around in the blistering sun and carrying heavy gear around all day) and I rarely see more of a destination than the surrounding area of the venue, I love this job! And I actually miss a couple in every vacation photo of a landscape or picturesque street I take every time!
