A View With a Room

Picture this.

You’re standing on a hillside in a small Caribbean village. The air is warm. The aroma of flowers intoxicating. The ocean sparkles in the distance.

You’re there taking photographs. And you’re getting paid for it.

Such is the nature of destination wedding photography, a growing niche in the wedding industry and one that is helping a trio of West Michigan photographers combine their love of travel with a career.

Jonathan Thrasher, who operates Jonathan Thrasher Photography, and Ben and Laura Harrison, proprietors of Ben Harrison Photography, have been in the destination photography industry for just a few years yet all three are committed to what appears to be a long-term opportunity.

Have Lens, Will Travel
By its purest definition destination wedding photography encompasses more than simply traveling outside of one’s home base for a shoot. It defines a total travel experience in which an entire wedding party and invited guests spend up to a week on location. The photographer chronicles experiences beyond the ceremony, creating a photo journal of the event.

For Thrasher, a West Michigan native, destination wedding photography became an acquired taste. His photographic journey began with his father’s old Kodak Disc camera, shooting mostly landscapes and fine art photography. After high school, travel with a youth mission led to visits in a number of exotic locales as well as a four-year stint living in Hawaii. He later worked with a commercial photographer in Tennessee before returning to West Michigan in 2003.

His eye was still on fine art when a friend asked him to shoot a wedding in Vancouver, British Columbia. Thrasher reluctantly agreed. “I’d never consider wedding photography,” he admitted. “Too much pressure, too little freedom.” To his surprise, Thrasher enjoyed the experience and when he opened his own studio in East Grand Rapids, destination photography became an option.

Since then, Thrasher has traveled to Mexico, Greece, Cancun, St. Lucia, and finds the experience rewarding beyond its financial payback.

“I’m there to tell a story,” he explains. “I’m not just shooting the same setting over and over. That means I’m also able to see new things at each location, things a local photographer might miss or ignore.”

The Harrisons — Ben, 27, and Laura, 26 — are a husband and wife team who came to West Michigan with different career ideas. The pair met at Taylor University in Indiana. Laura was a communications major with thoughts of becoming an event planner, and Ben was working towards a master’s degree in fine arts, which he expected to complete at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids. While both enjoyed photography, it was a secondary element of their careers. Like Thrasher, they were invited to shoot weddings for friends. They came to enjoy the experience, specially the travel, and it wasn’t long before they started looking for ways to combine the two.

“We thought it would be a longer process than it was,” Laura acknowledged. “The photography was supposed to be a side business while Ben was getting his master’s. But we’re both go-getters and this just kind of took off.”

Ben earned his degree but the couple continued with their photography business and have maintained a busy schedule since their first assignment. They’ve worked in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas, as well as locations in major U.S. cities, such as Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

Relax and Smile
Thrasher and the Harrisons agree that the attitude and approach to destination weddings is different, and in many ways more appealing, than conventional wedding photography.

“You have only family and your closest friends,” Thrasher explained. “Everyone is more relaxed — they’re already on vacation — and there are things you don’t need to worry about. Flowers, decorations are already there.”

For the Harrisons, the sense of spontaneity is a key element for everyone.

“Most resorts will have an area photographer they use,’ Ben explained. “They are usually more expensive and very limited in what they’ll do. We look for details that make the experience, those details that people will want to remember.”

The trio works to ensure the quality of their work by limiting the number of dates they work. Thrasher says a number of commercial wedding photographers work to optimize income by doubling and tripling up on dates. Thrasher schedules far less dates per year and makes up some of his income shooting additional photos for the resorts. The Harrisons also keep a trim schedule, looking for maybe 20 wedding dates a season, and less than that at remote sites as they believe fewer dates allows for more time with customers.

Business Gaining Focus
The destination wedding industry has grown markedly in recent years, inspiring publications and web sites dedicated exclusively to destination weddings. Offerings such as Destination I Do Magazine and Destination Weddings & Honeymoons provide travel and planning tips as well as advertising and promotion opportunities for photographers.

Planning, says Thrasher, is especially important when evaluating a photographer.

“It really helps if you have someone with travel experience,” he explained. “Someone who understands what you need to bring, what restrictions there may be, what fees you might have to consider when entering or leaving a country.”

Destination wedding photography alone does not sustain Thrasher or the Harrisons. Each takes on other  work, including senior photos, corporate gatherings, and family portraits.

For the record, all three begin with a base rate between $3500 and $5500. Laura Harrison suggests that a typical destination wedding photography package for a Caribbean wedding would cost roughly $5500 to $7500. This includes the couples’ photography rate, travel for two and lodging for four nights. Jonathan Thrasher estimates typical customer expenses run between $6000 and $10,000 per shoot, depending on the venue.

While the money, in many cases, does not appear to be significantly greater than conventional wedding work there are many tangential benefits. Thrasher adds to his considerable personal portfolio if he has post-event time to spend on his own, and he gets to see places he would not otherwise have time to visit.. Ben and Laura add that the business fills their need to take on new adventures.

“If you are passionate about something, you just go for it,” Ben says.

But like any good business person one must also be practical. Ben Harrison suggests that depending on work from West Michigan alone can be risky.

“It’s a short season here but business is more consistent near the equator,” he says.

And he smiles when he says it.