Today was the first day of my fundraiser- Portraits to Raise Autism Awareness! For those of you who don’t know, I am on the Board of Directors of the Autism Society of Maine and I wanted to try to raise awareness through photography! Autism occurs in 1 out of every 150 births in the United States, and that number is on the rise by 10-17% every year. Organizations like the Autism Society of Maine provide information and support to families affected by autism. For the months of May and June, I will be offering $50 portrait sessions (any kind- senior, family, children, bridal, you name it!), 100% of which will be donated to the Autism Society of Maine. Over the next two months I will be adding photographs and information pertaining to this fundraiser, so stay tuned! For more information or to schedule a session, please email (info@michelleturnerphotography.com) or call the studio (207-623-8703). Two of my good friends, Nadra Edgerley and Sharyn Peavey are also involved in the fundraiser!

I photographed 14 destination weddings last year, 12 of which were international weddings. We traveled all over the country to beautiful places like Colorado, Nevada and Montana, and we also go to visit a lot of fantastic places worldwide like Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico.

The number one question I am asked by other photographers is how I book destination weddings. First, you need to have a good website, because usually this is the first point of contact from a destination bride. Second, you need to have a lot of samples that you can show her independent of the website. As soon as a bride contacts us, we send her links to several wedding slideshows and a link to a complete wedding if she wants to see one. If a destination bride wants to see albums, be prepared to send an album to her for a few days.

But how do they find us? Well, there is no magic button to make it happen- it is really important that you get your FIRST destination wedding to get the ball rolling. Ask your current brides if they know anyone getting married out of the country, and if they do, ask for a referral. Keep you ear to the ground. Sometimes you may need to offer that first destination bride a good deal- whatever you can do to get that first destination wedding. After all, destination brides are going to want to see what kind of destination wedding images you can take- what you may do with a venue that you have never been to before.

After you photograph that first wedding, it gets easier from there. If you did a fabulous job, the couple will give you referrals (and usually destination brides know other destination brides). The venue may refer you. And your blog visitors will see that you do destination weddings. We really love photographing destination weddings, and I think that our clients really respond to that. The couples that hire us usually share our enthusiasm for creating beautiful images- they are willing to give us total creative license.

Anyway, I wanted to share some of our favorite destination wedding images from this past year:

I just wanted to reiterate what a wonderful time I had photographing the wedding of Amelia and Brian. This was a destination wedding photography gig- they chose beautiful Puerto Vallarta as the location for their wedding. The slideshow encompasses both shoots- the wedding day and the post shoot- see it here.