New! Wooden USB Boxes for Weddings

My DVD packages haven't changed much in the last few years, and to judge from some of my couples coming up this year, a lot of people don't have ready access to dvd readers anyway, so it felt like it was about time for a change!

I'm excited to announce that going forward all weddings will receive their finished photos on a beautiful USB drive in a decorative wooden box. 

I've been delaying this until I could find a really quality product, and I think this is it. The wood is beautiful, the magnetic closures are snappy, and everything is really nicely put together.

Any of my former couples who would like an upgrade? Just drop me a line and I will send you one out at cost.

For now, I'm still going to use DVDs for non-wedding jobs, though that may change depending on feedback.

Couples Choice 2018

I just noticed that I was awarded a Wedding Wire Couples Choice award again this year!

As I think I said last year, these awards are a pretty commercial thing and given out a bit indiscriminately.

That said, it is a reflection of the truly amazingly kind reviews my clients have left me, and for those I am always grateful. It means so much to me that people take the time to share their experiences. They mean more to me than a thousand Wedding Wire awards.

Thank you!

State of the Business - 2017 in Review

It's time again. Every December, I like to take a moment and look back at the year gone by. 

BIGGER AND BIGGER STILL

2017 was Zack Wussow Media's best and busiest year so far. I said the same thing last year and the year before that, which is all very exciting of course! The biggest change was in weddings - more on that to come.

Busy Year

Beside work, this was a huge year for me personally. I got married in April, and bought a house in August! Needless to say, it made for a very exciting and hectic year!

Very Busy Fall

As with the past four years, I spent my weeks September-December taking yearbook photos all over New England, and most weekends at weddings, editing weddings, and booking more weddings. As in previous years, more couple chose to move their weddings into autumn. In September, I had eight!

Which brings us to the exciting bit...

THE NUMBERS

WEDDINGS: 26 (UP 7 FROM 2016/2015/2014)

I felt so busy this year, but it wasn't until recently I actually tallied up all the weddings and just... Wow. That's an extra third more weddings. Which is very exciting! Lots of you lovely people have been passing my name around and it's showing.

It's also an odd position to be in, though, because until people start getting married in the winter, this is close to the max I can realistically do. Something I will have to think about going forward.

My career total now comes to 117 weddings!

ENGAGEMENTS: 8 (SAME AS 2016)

As with last year, the majority of my engagements were sold as part of wedding packages. I'm still really glad that it's becoming a popular option - its great getting to meet and work with couples before the big day, and I really enjoy doing portraits.

OTHER PORTRAITS: 6 (UP 1 FROM 2016)

This includes headshots, maternity photos, and family photos. Headshots are down 1, family photos up 2, and maternity unchanged. 

I've been making an effort to expand this part of the business, especially the maternity side. Unfortunately, I tracked down a lot of maternity folks this fall... and pregnancies take 9 months. So expect to see lots of spring maternity sessions on the blog. Can't wait!

As before, a lot of return customers this year.

CORPORATE GIGS: 6 (DOWN 2 FROM 2016)

This includes product photography and events. Or did, last year, when I did some product photography. It's a field I've never been particular excited about, but worked with some family friends on. This year we dropped it altogether.

Corporate events, meanwhile, are great. Very similar to weddings, but lower stakes and spread more evenly through the year. If memory serves, this year I did exactly the same events as last year, which is great. If they wanted I'd happily book for the next decade!

COMING OF AGE/MISC. EVENTS: 2 (DOWN 3 FROM 2016)

I can't say this section makes me especially happy. I did no coming of age ceremonies this year. That's something I would like to do more of, but I admit I'm at something of a disadvantage. I don't personally come from a culture that celebrates any big coming of age events, so I'm a bit in the dark when it comes to where people find their photographers, what they are looking for, what they expect to pay, etc. We will see where it goes next year.

The misc. events category was, as usual, an odd assortment - one wedding rehearsal (a substitute for package engagement session), and the other a first birthday party. Though perhaps I should count that as a coming of age event!

TOTAL: 48 (UP 3 FROM 2016)

I love how much this number hides the actual change in my workload. Since I traded four little jobs for weddings and then added another three weddings. It was a crazy year. 

OTHER STUFF

I drove about 13,000 miles for work this year, split about 70/30 between my yearbook season and everything else. Because naturally the year I have eight weddings in September is also the year I have mostly out-of-town and out-of-state schools! Luckily, I also bought a new car this year before most of the travel, so I got to travel in the relative luxury of a Subaru Imprezza. (I do genuinely love that car!)

I also flew to Chicago for a wedding, which was an amazing trip and supplants North Carolina as the furthest place I've traveled for a wedding. (If you want me to travel to your wedding, drop me a line, we will make it work!)

My wife, Heather, was my second shooter for eleven(!) weddings this year, up four from last year. It's really fun having her along, and it helps pay our mortgage, which is important me to.

I also read 45 books, and watched 83 movies. If I had to pick the best of those that came out this year, I'd probably recommend Thor: Ragnarok and Turtles All The Way Down by John Green respectively (if you like to get your recommendations from wedding photographers). Also, it appears I neither watched nor read anything about photography or photographers. Oops. 

COMING UP

Next year's looking pretty good so far - I've booked around fourteen weddings, a fair number of engagements and events, and have hopefully lined up a handful of maternity sessions.

January actually has my first wedding, a trip to Florida (pleasure, not business), and the eagerly anticipated moment when I am totally caught up on editing for the first time since mid-August.

I'm sure this spring will bring a fair amount of work on the new house, and Heather and I are trying to, finally, get away for our honeymoon sometime around the one year mark.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I might take a week off as I start to update my portfolio here on the site, but otherwise we'll be back to regular blog posts soon. Hope you had a great holiday season, and a very happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

From myself, my wife Heather, and our mostly tolerant cat Enzo...

Thank you all for another wonderful year. I hope wherever you are, and however you're celebrating this holiday season, you're having as much fun as I did putting together our Christmas cards this year. 

Back next week with the State of the Business!

100!

This, just as a side note, was my 100th wedding as a photographer. That's a lot!

I met Jen and her bridesmaids at The Publick House for hair and makeup, plus a visit to Dylan and the guys across the property as they suited up.

We scurried to get outdoor posed photos done as rain threatened. The grounds were lovely and we got everything done pretty quickly so we could all pile back into the air conditioning.

Luckily, the rain held off not only through photos but through the ceremony as well, which was wonderful.

The reception was a lot of fun with great speeches, good food, and an amazing song one of their friends wrote about them!

Congratulations Jen and Dylan!

Half a Dozen

Oh hey, it's that time of year again! Zack Wussow Media turns six today. It's been an amazing, exciting, and busy year, though only about half of that is due to business. The rest, well...

Hint: That's me.

The coming year promises to be just as interesting, with a bustling fall season and some other big changes coming on the home front.

So just a little note to say, as always, thank you to my amazing customers who make this job a joy and put my name out there, my family and friends who support me, and my wife Heather who's always there for me (and increasingly often assisting me for work). Cheers!

The View From The Other Side

I got married!

It was totally amazing, and about as weird being on the other side of the lens as you'd expect. Though it was great working with one of my second shooters (and a good friend) for our photos.

Heather's dress (which I just barely avoided seeing before the big day) was handmade for her by her friend Myla. I think it came out amazing, and Heather looked amazing (especially with her beautiful hair-do from Ashley Cruz at Eiffel Beauté), but then I may be biased...

We got married at home with a small guest list, a decision that appealed to us a lot but also brought its own problems. Not least of which was the weather - and of course we spent most of the last week with rain in the forecast just to end up with an absolutely perfect, beautiful day.

Our JP, Mary Pugh, was great, and helped us put together a simple, meaningful ceremony tailored to us.

Food was the first thing we settled on - New Haven PIzza Truck. I've shot a couple weddings with these guys and they're great. Appetizers, crazy amount of fresh, brick-oven baked pizza, and gelato and cappuccino for desert. They even made a gluten free pizza just for our one gluten-sensitive guest. And, of course, they let us get a picture with the truck.

We got our cake from Hope at A Little Imagination Cakes. I can't say enough good things about Hope. We met with her without any clear idea what we wanted or needed, and left with a remarkably affordable and totally delicious cake/cupcake combo that fit us perfectly and came out a work of art. The amount of time and detail she put into her work blows my mind. It tasted amazing, too (he typed, while eating leftover cake).

The rest of the day was just spending time with family and friends, laughing and crying over toasts, dancing, and enjoying the day. I won't lie - getting married at home is a lot of work, and we couldn't have done it without help from family and friends in the days leading up. But it was also a real pleasure being in a place that means so much to us, and makes it easy to be flexible on the day. We ended up moving a bunch of our tables and chairs from inside to outside when the weather turned out beautifully, and ended the night with an impromptu bonfire.

Plus we could invite our friends' dogs, which is awesome.

Needless to say, I couldn't be happier. Heather's been my closest friend and partner since we met, and I couldn't imagine my life without her.

Ok. Back to work.

Good News Everyone!

Apparently, I've been awarded the Wedding Wire Couples Choice Award for 2017!

According to their site:

“WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Awards® recipients represent the top five percent of wedding professionals on WeddingWire who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness, and professionalism.”

So that's a cool thing! Ironically, I only learned about this because they called to ask me to pay for better placement on their site (which I refuse to do), and I had always assumed that these awards were another thing you could buy. But apparently not! You just need to have awesome customers who leave positive reviews.

So thank you to everyone who has left a review for me there, I really do appreciate it and it really does help Zack Wussow Media grow!

Now, back to hammering out last minute details for my wedding. Next week I'll be Mr. Heather Wussow!