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The Wedding Artists Community is a place where wedding artists can come together and share their experiences as much as learn with and from each other.
Hi everyone, you're listening to The Wack Podcast, a community of wedding artists. I'm Rui and this is where people who actually do this work for a living talk about how it really works. No scripts, no polish for the sake of polish, just honest conversation about the craft, business and everything around it. This show is powered by Dreambooks Pro, one of the best album suppliers in Europe. The albums you hand to a couple are the thing they keep for the rest of their lives and Dreambooks Pro is who I trust to get that right. So let's get into it. Before we start, a quick word on what this is, because it's a little different from the usual episode. Normally on this show I'm sitting across a guest, today there's no guest, it's just me and that's on purpose. There are a few subjects in this industry that I keep getting asked about and others that just make me think, so I thought this would be a good format to share my two cents. So I'm trying something new. I've taken the questions people actually bring to me and the ones I see argued about online and I'm going to answer them one by one. I'm not reading from the scripts and I'm not pretending to have every answer wrapped in a bow. Some of this is just my opinion, some of it's going to be uncomfortable, some of it you probably disagree with, that's fine. I'd rather give you my real version or my opinion, a bit unpolished, than a perfectly edited take that says nothing. Consider this the first of a few solo episodes. If you like the format, tell me. If you hate it, tell me anyway. Now let's get to the questions. Let's start with probably one of the main topics from the last few months, probably around a year or so, which is about transparency and hidden pricing. The question goes like this. Why is it so hard to find out what anything costs in this industry? I've asked five vendors for a quote and none of them had prices on their site. It feels like I have to prove I deserve a proposal before I'm allowed to know the number. Yeah, that's a hard one. That's a difficult one. I can understand as a vendor why you might not want to have your prices on your website, and I even can understand why you wouldn't send your proposal directly in a PDF to whomever is asking you from an email or a proposal or an inquiry. I can understand that. But the main goal here is brides and couples in general are feeling like they have to audition to have a vendor, to have a conversation about pricing. And if this is the feeling they're getting, it's not cool. And I understand their frustration, but I also understand the vendor point of view. In my own case, I don't send out PDFs at the first email inquiry. I have done it for a long time. I don't see any problem with it. My answer and my goal to this is I don't want you to see me as just a pricing list. I don't make prices on... Let me put it another way. I'm not auditioning my couples. As far as I can, as much as I can, I try to adapt my proposals to their needs. But it always starts from a standard, most common package, and then I make it personalized for them. But the problem here is transparency, and couples are feeling that they really need to work to have a quote. And this is kind of becoming like an abstract rant, but I think the problem here is how you communicate things. I think the problem is how you communicate why are you doing, why you are doing what you're doing. And I think that if you want your couples and your inquiries to work a little bit more and just value more the work you do, I agree with that. I think that's a good strategy, and that's the strategy I am doing right now and I am adopting. But I also think about the possibility of having prices on websites, on my website in this case. I have not yet reached a conclusion. I'm not doing it at this moment, but I am thinking about it. The place, the time that we are in, the new generations coming, what they are used to in all their business days, all the business they do during their days and their lives. Things are getting different, and I think we need to adapt. I don't have a clear idea of what that will be, especially with AI coming in hard on our day-to-day business and strategies and conversations. But I am thinking about it. So, this is a hard question, probably not with a single straight answer, but let me just say I understand the frustration from the couples. I think we as vendors should do a bit more. We should communicate a bit better why we do things. If we don't send the PDF right away, I think we should tell them why. And I don't think we should be auditioning our couples. That's just me. For the second question, when a vendor recommends another vendor, is that because they're generally the best fit for me or because there's commission changing hands? As a couple, how am I supposed to tell the difference? This is a big one. This is a big one. This is a difficult one, and I think this is a big problem. And let me be clear, personally, I don't have anything against commissions. I have paid commissions to colleagues, wedding planners that recommend our work. I don't have anything against it. It's not the majority of the times. Most wedding planners I work with don't ask for commission, but I have done it and I have no problem with it. But once you put yourselves on the shoes of the couple, if they know there's commission involved, if the industry and the publications and the media dedicated to the wedding industry, if this information, if all of this is now common knowledge for the bride and groom, how can they tell if the recommendation is a good one, is a recommendation through fit or just the one that pays the better commission? Honestly, I don't have an answer. I see the concern. I also think it's a concern because I think and I feel that the wedding industry is becoming too closed with really small fixed teams and partnerships. I understand. Once you like to work with someone, you probably will keep working with that team as much as you can, as long as you can. I understand that. But there is also the other side and that is why we never decided to have a video team in-house because I want to be able to work with different video teams. That was a decision we made a long time ago, years ago, not ever to have a videographer or a partner that we work all the time because I want to collaborate. I want to be creative with different people. I want to learn with different colleagues. And I think in the state that the industry is right now, everyone is getting a little too comfortable and a little too closed on their own ecosystems. And I think that is not the path to growth. I don't really think it is. But coming back to the perspective of the brides and grooms, I don't think there's enough transparency. I don't think they will ever know if the recommendation they are receiving is one made by talent alone and fitness alone and personality alone. I think most recommendations, I would say probably the majority of them are made by fitness to the planner or the vendor or the coordinator who are giving the recommendation. I think most often they're not. The recommendations are made by those... The recommendations are made for the people they want to work with. Obviously, the good ones will always have the couple's needs in mind. I don't think that's the main purpose of the recommendation. And obviously, I'm not speaking about anyone or anything. This is just the sense, the feeling I get over the last few years in the industry. And this is a big one. This is a difficult one. Quick pause on the episode. Just to remind you that this episode is powered by Dreambooks Pro. Here's what I actually want you to know about them. They're a big company, one of the best album suppliers in Europe, but they run like a small one. So when I deal with them, personally, it's warm. And the first instance is always to help. That's rare. The other thing is about what they give back. They put real time and effort into this community through events like ShootFast and a lot of other initiatives that exist to make us better at what we do. They're based in Portugal, but they're strong in Brazil and in the United States too. So wherever you're listening from, you're probably closer than what you think. If you're delivering albums to your clients, go look at what they do. Tell them who sent you with a hug. Now, let's get back to the episode. Let's go to the third one, which is also a very difficult one, and the one that I'm particularly sensitive with. Egos. I read this somewhere, I don't really remember when, but the question goes like this. Some people say a lot of weddings today are built more for the vendor's Instagram than for the couple's. Do you agree? You're on the inside. Is it really like that? Or is it that exaggerated? No, this is not an exaggeration. This is completely the state that we're in. Wedding vendors, wedding professionals now think they are rock stars, or they think they're too interesting, and we all think that we need to show ourselves working and doing whatever we do to get attention. And I know the algorithms probably like when I do this, but this is one of the things that really pisses me off. I really hate it. I really, I get really frustrated and when, not really frustrated, I feel frustrated when I feel I have to record myself in a wedding or in a shoot or when I'm working for someone, else that is paying me to do a job, to do work for them, to capture, to whatever I'm doing for them. And I need to record myself doing it to make myself relevant to the market. I think this is really stupid. I think this is really an egocentric way of seeing things. I hate it. I really hate it. But some people love it. And some people like to feel the star, even if we're not, and we are not. We are there to capture. In my case, as a photographer, I'm there to capture someone else's day, someone else's emotions. I'm there to build their legacy, to build the memories they will pass on to the next generation. And I really feel strongly about that. I don't have any problems with the content creation side of things. I don't have any problem with content creators. I'm actually scheduling an episode with the one I recently met. This is not a problem of the people or the job. This is a problem of the job in some cases. I think when content creation on the wedding day, during the phases in where guests are with us, if we are working with them, I think it's, sorry guys, I think this is stupid. Our job is to make beautiful images and to treat our couples like the most important thing in our day at that time. We need to make them feel as special as we can, not record ourselves doing that. I think this is a meta-stupidity. Next one, creative ambition versus taking over. Where is the line between a professional with a strong creative vision and one who's just using my wedding as a canvas for their own signature? Well, I think this is kind of related to the previous one, don't you think? Not only we are recording ourselves shooting or working in somebody else's day and special day, but we need them to fit our needs of portfolio, then we adapt ourselves to making what they need. This is really a question, I think, in my opinion, this is a question of not creation, not creativity, but to humility. I think if you're humble enough, you will do whatever you need to make your couple comfortable on the day. You will do the best service you can as much and as long as you can, and the goal is every time to make all this the best you can. If it comes to that and their wedding, the images you created for them or whatever work you created for them, if then you have a great portfolio doing that, awesome. Use it. If the client lets you, obviously. But one is result from the other, not the main purpose, not the main goal. That's my point. I don't want to bore you to death. So I think five questions in around 25 minutes of episode. It's more than enough, but let me know what you think and I'm always curious to adapt and create new things. So let's go to the final fifth and final one. And let's end big. Let's end with a really big bang. The Vogue article, price versus value. There was an article on Vogue weddings at the time of this recording. It happened probably a couple of weeks ago, but I'm talking about June, 2026. The article was in a nutshell, was Vogue trying to tell us that you don't need to have a million dollar wedding to be featured on their magazine and on their platforms. And they showed some rough budgets alongside some pictures. Interesting. Some of them were from Portuguese venues, very beautiful ones. So that's always great for the country and for our market, but that's not the important part here. The important part is that I actually didn't work in any of those weddings, but I saw reactions to people who did work on them and some of the people that worked on the weddings that were captured on those images that were shared. And one thing was the main thing is those images were not at all related to the budgets they were talking. I don't really remember the exact numbers, but I remember more or less two of them. One of the weddings was around $40,000, I believe. I believe the article was dollars, but this is kind of irrelevant. And the other one was around $100,000 also. But the information that were shared after the article is that the weddings that were portrayed on those images were nothing like that budget. They were a lot more expensive. And what's the problem with this? Simple. They were once more doing the opposite of Vogue and other publications should do. They are turning the industry once more opaque and less transparent. You should, the article is a good idea. I just think it was really poorly made. And this becomes even a bigger problem because once more couples see one thing and they see, well, I have $60,000. I can have a wedding like this at this venue. And then when they inquire to the venue, the venue says, no, for the venue, all is X amount for the catering, this photo and view that. Once you recreate those supposed, those theoretical budgets, you see they are not true. And obviously you will probably think that the vendors are trying to rip you off. Not that the article was misleading. They will probably don't think that they will most likely think that vendors are trying to fool you. They are trying to rip you off and charge you more than they're supposed to. And that's not mainly and always the case. Some cases are some as in whatever professional in whatever industry, there's always people that are not that truthful. Us as vendors, we will suffer with this. We will suffer from these kinds of publications for these kinds of articles that are continue to be misleading, especially from Vogue in this case, which is probably in my opinion, the best and worst thing that happened to weddings in a long time. Yes, they brought some interesting, they brought some interesting ideas. They brought some freshness to the industry. They brought some fashion zing to everything, but they brought a lot of bad things. They brought some comparison. They brought some egos and some opacity to the industry that did not need anymore. So I really was frustrated with the article. I see that a lot of international colleagues of mine were also and I had to talk about it and I think that we all should work on the transparency of the wedding industry. We are not going in a great direction right now. I don't think we are going in a great path. This question also kind of relates to the first one. And this is exactly why I'm thinking about having prices on the websites. As much as that might work in some ways that I don't, at least no one can say, no one will be able to say that we are not transparent, that our prices are not fair to everyone. And although they are adapted to each case when it's needed. But I think personally, really at my heart, I think that transparency and good communication is probably the best tools that we have on our toolkit to be trusted by our couples. And this article is one of the most recent things that made me really think about that. This is just me. So this is all for today. I hope you liked it. And let me know how you feel about this format. Am I blabbing too much? Am I being completely incoherent? Yeah, just let me know. That's where I'll leave it for today. If something here made you think or made you disagree, that's the point. Send it to someone in the industry that needs to hear it. If you're getting value from these conversations, the best thing you can do is to follow the show and leave a review. It's how other professionals find us. You'll find everything at thewhackpodcast.com. And I'm on Instagram at thewhackpodcast. Thanks again to Dreambooks Pro for supporting this episode. I'm Rui and I'll see you on the next one.