WILL SHUTTING DOWN STYLE ME PRETTY FORCE THE CREAM TO RISE TO THE TOP?
OMG, are you srsly writing another blog post about Style Me Pretty shutting down!!?? YEP ... I sorta am!! I have more thoughts ... haha ... and it's therapeutic for me to get them out ... even if not a single person reads them! So, here we go!
WE ALL KNOW THE WEDDING INDUSTRY IS OVERSATURATED
So my question is this: will SMP shutting down help with that? Will it force the cream to rise to the top and all the 'wanna be players' to sit one out? Blogs like SMP have helped pave the way for:
ROMANTICIZING THE WEDDING INDUSTRY
They share the 'product' of all the hard work the professionals put in BEFORE the actual day ... and they don't share the UGLY photos ... oh-no ... only 'the pretty' ... therefore making working in the wedding industry look like a real treat topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup!
Working in the wedding industry is work ... yes, it's passion driven, for the most part, but if you don't have talent and drive and creativity ... welp, then you're just another business owner who may be giving other business owners a bad name ... you may remember this blog post I wrote about one person ruining it for the bunch ...
OK, BACK TO MY ORIGINAL QUESTION:
Will closing down Style Me Pretty force the cream to rise to the top in the wedding industry? Now, before you get all: WTF is your problem!? You want small businesses to close down!? No. I want the small businesses who work their asses off to stick around ... the 'cream' of our industry ...
BUT IT'S A F*CKING FACT THAT THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY OF YOU
... Sorry, not sorry. Everyone who loves pictures wants to become a photographer ... everyone who has planned their own wedding wants to become a wedding planner ... and can I just say??:
THERE ARE A LOT OF REALLY BAD PHOTOGRAPHERS AND PLANNERS OUT THERE ...
There are!!! And they are what is helping ruin this industry. They are the ones who undercharge, under deliver, and take jobs away from the original wedding professionals who were around before social media, before you could become a success story overnight, and during the days when Style Me Pretty was the only wedding blog that existed.
WOW, HEATHER, YOU SOUND SO MEAN!!!
Yeah, it's a tough message to hear ... it's a hard one to deliver ... and I'm not saying that new business owners shouldn't be always cropping up in the wedding industry ... growth is necessary to stay alive ... but what happens if a mansion is built on ground without a foundation??
EVENTUALLY IT WILL TOPPLE OVER AND CRUMBLE TO THE GROUND
If the wedding industry keeps shooting out newbies who are fresh off the 'just had my own wedding' feels and throw them right into planning a real wedding for a real bride and they f*ck up royally ... and that happens 500 times a year, because it does and probably more than that ... and those newbies help push the really great (new or experienced) business owners out of business because the 'fresh ones' are pricing SUPER LOW ... well, you can see where I'm going with this.
WHAT'S THE ANSWER?
I have zero clue ... but I do know the industry is shifting from what it was and if we're not all careful it's going to twist and turn into something none of us recognize. When I started out as a planner I worked under the top planners in my area to LEARN how to actually 'be' a planner! I feel like the hard work of LEARNING BEFORE DIVING IN has disappeared from the act of starting a business ... it's just so easy to apply for a business license and then to 'be' whatever it is you plan to be ...
ARE YOU A FRESH FACE TO THIS INDUSTRY WHO IS OFFENDED BY THIS POST?
Totally fair ... I am saying some harsh truths ... and it's possible I'm not even talking about you! The greats in this industry today used to be 'fresh faces' ... now, they had to use different means to make it ... there wasn't a road paved with gold Instagram posts to help them along their way ... but they were new none-the-less ...
What would I do if I were just starting out in this industry and wanted to make sure I was doing it right??
I WOULD 100% TAKE A WORKSHOP OR TWO
... a few ideas that are awesome below:
.... are there more!? Of course ... go search!
Workshops are the 'new advertising' in my opinion ... if you are just starting out you shouldn't spend your money on advertising, you should spend it on a good workshop taught by trusted business owners who have been there and done that.
In closing, we still don't officially know if SMP is closing ... we are all being kept in the dark ... will Abby buy it back and keep it alive and kicking? Will Oath keep the site up and just never post new content? Will it disappear from the internet completely? I guess we will know for sure on April 30th ... but no matter what happens it will be forever changed ... people won't look at it the same again ... and same doesn't mean worse, but you can't make an announcement like that and not have people change their view about something ...
... and if you are reading this and feel like maybe you aren't the 'cream of the industry' and are being forced to have an honest moment with yourself because of this post? It's not too late to learn and apply yourself! I don't want the message of this post to be: if you suck you should quit. I have watched some of my clients from a year ago who were just so-so photographers really apply themselves and WORK and LEARN and now they are blowing me away with their photos ... it can be taught ;)
SO GO! BE THE CREAM!
And have an awesome day :)
XO~ Heather
