If you want to make the leap from photographer to wedding photographer, you need to have solid systems and softwares in place! Here are links to my trusted softwares & systems that my business can’t operate without!

• CRM: HoneyBook

HoneyBook is how I manage all of my client inquiries, scheduling, contracts, invoices, questionnaires, timelines, workflows and emails! It’s a one stop shop and super easy to use. The link above is for 50% off your first year of HoneyBook!

• Importing & culling: PhotoMechanic

As soon as I finish shooting a wedding or engagement session, I pull all of the images from my memory cards into PhotoMechanic. From here, I import all of the RAWs to an external hard drive as well as a back up external hard drive. Then, the images are backed up to Dropbox (aka the cloud!). I leave the images on the memory cards (I also shoot with dual cards, so I even have a back up card) until the gallery is delivered to my clients. My images live in 5 different places! You can never be too safe with someone’s photos!

After the photos are backed up, I pull up PhotoMechanic again to cull. I choose the photos that are the best that will be edited and delivered to my client. When I first started, I used Lightroom to cull, but using PhotoMechanic is by far faster and so much easier! PhotoMechanic is build to read RAW files quickly, there’s never any buffer time like there is with Lightroom.

• Editing: Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop

When it’s time to edit, I always create a new catalog in Lightroom and import the images that I culled in PhotoMechanic. I love being able to edit in Lightroom while keeping all of the photos organized and sorted into catalogs. If a photo needs a lot of retouching or an object removed from the background, I’ll pull that one image into Photoshop (command e) and then back into Lightroom (command s).

• Gallery delivery service & print shop: CloudSpot

After I’ve edited all of the images for a session or wedding, I export them and upload them to CloudSpot. This is the gallery delivery service that I use to deliver photos to my clients. It’s super easy to use for me and for my clients. They can download the photos, mark their favorites and order prints directly from the print shop!

What systems do you use and love? Drop any questions for me below!!