Wedding Blog Submissions – Pay to Play?

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We live in an online world. Wedding blog submissions are a crucial part of our industry’s business. But what is the best way to go about getting your work published? Do we really have to pay to play these days? It seems most wedding publications are now only accepting submissions from vendors on their paid directory, or to pay a submission fee to even get your work looked at. Are there other ways around it all? Is this the best route? Is it worth it to be published in print? Does that hold more “value” than an online publication? What is even the point of it all!? What is the importance of being published anyway!?

It can be very overwhelming and sometimes seem defeating and pointless. Hopefully I can help you understand different ways to get your work published, and which way might be best for what you want to showcase.

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Why submit to Wedding Blogs?

The top reasons for wanting to be featured on a wedding blog would be;

1. Notoriety
2. Backlinks
3. Advertising purposes

But which of these holds the most value for you? Hint, if you’re any bit knowledgeable in SEO, I’d say number 2 could possibly be the most important!

Notoriety is always important. When couples are searching for their wedding vendors, they of course will be impressed seeing all the different publications that you have been “Featured In” on your website. They might tell their friends and family, “Hey! My wedding photographer that I just booked has been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings and Vogue!”. Everyone would be impressed with that!

Being seen in these big name blogs and magazines also is great advertising for you. If a couple picks up a Rocky Mountain Bride magazine off the shelves and is flipping through and sees a real wedding at their dream venue in the mountains, they might be looking at the names of the different vendors that worked on that wedding and email to inquire.

Backlinks though, are way underrated! Search engines like Google and Pinterest are constantly vetting sites that have great backlinks. But what makes a backlink “great”? Authority! Both quantity and quality will work in your favor when it comes to external sites linking back to your own. Of course, they need to be relevant. If a cooking blog repurposes one of your images and backlinks you to your wedding page, Google doesn’t see that as very “relevant”. But if Green Wedding Shoes, a popular wedding blog, features a wedding with your work and backlinks you, that is extremely relevant to your wedding content! Search engines do also favor domain authority. Some wedding publication sites have a “stronger” domain authority than others. This could be due to the age and the popularity of the site. A backlink from a major blog like Style Me Pretty might hold stronger than a smaller regional blog.

Also, once you DO get featured on a blog, it is important to also link that feature on your OWN website too! Search engines do love a very connected web of internal and external links. You can see how I did that on Vicky and Charles’s Ten Mile Station wedding with their feature on Green Wedding Shoes!

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How to submit to Wedding Publications

Wedding blog submissions can be stressful. There are quite a few ways to get published;

1. Organically
2. PR teams
3. Data Bases of Wedding Publications
4. They reach out to you!

To organically submit your work to a publication of your choice might be the hardest route- (depending on where you are submitting!) If you are aiming for a high domain authority blog, it is important to know how selective they can be. Even if the wedding you are submitting is the best work you have done, or the best of your season, be very prepared to have it rejected. In reality, most of these blogs have hundreds of submissions to go through each week. They are looking for highly specific content. They will prioritize content that;

• is trendy
• features diversity
• is the wedding of someone famous or influential

If you think your wedding or content would be a good fit for them, then a lot of blogs will have a “submit wedding” area on their website. It helps to give detail heavy keywords in the description, or sometimes words directly from the couple or planner themselves. These submissions are usually 50-150 web sized images, favoring vertical detail shots for online sharing!

PR teams are another route to get your worked featured. Companies like Be Inspired specialize in taking a look at your work, and figuring out the best fit for it, whether it be online, in print, or featured on social media accounts. They have the insider connections to editors and sought after publications to help get an extra nudge into the scene.

A wider net casting of getting featured is signing up for programs like Two Bright Lights. They have a database of publications where you can batch send content and see if anyone bites! Of course, a lot of these publications will be regional or non-exclusive, meaning the domain authority might not be as strong as others.

Lastly, if the content is strong enough, or is getting enough attention, some publications might even reach out to YOU to feature your work! This is rare, but so special if it does happen to you! And it is great to keep those editor connections once you have them. I once was asked by Martha Stewart Weddings to use one image of mine for a post they were making- and I got a great backlink from that! Woo!

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Pay to Play features? Are they worth it?

One of the biggest controversies in the wedding blog submissions world is the debate of the “pay-to-play” method of getting published. Is it fair? Is it worth it? The answer is…. that it can be complicated.

A lot of blogs and publications are now only accepting wedding submissions from vendors that are signed up and paying to be on their directory. This might not seem fair. You could have an EXTREMELY worthy wedding with the newest trends and fashion in a completely new venue, yet it won’t be accepted unless you pay. Of course, as previously mentioned, backlinks can be gold, so in some cases it IS worth it to pay to be on a directory. Being listed on a websites directory is another way to get a great backlink- even if your work isn’t “featured” on the site yet. One way they entice you to join the directory, other than the backlink, is that they will prioritize your submissions to be featured. Unfortunately, I have heard from some PR teams that this isn’t even the case anymore though, even though it is a promise they make.

Then there are the disputed “advertorials“. Some VERY large publication names are accepting a paid advertising spot in their editorial print magazine. The cost is high for a tiny tiny blurb of your name on a random page somewhere in the magazine? The benefit? Notoriety! But no backlink. You get to say that you were featured in xyz magaine. While yes, you technically were, you paid for that advertising spot.

This method has become very popular as photographers and vendors alike were then slapping the popular logo over their images to make it seem like their work was picked to be published in a high end wedding magazine. It almost seemed like a con to a lot of wedding couples looking for their vendors. There are now lawsuits going around for one magazine in particular that you can not put their logo on your own work anymore, as it started to cheapen the magazine’s brand. (It rhymes with Shmogue).

So I do not think it would be particularly worth it to pay to play in this scenario! But to have your name on certain directories that you see your work aligned with, would be a great opportunity for backlinks.

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Where to submit your work

So now that you have a bit more info on the behind the scenes workings of submitting weddings, where is the best place to submit your work!?

First, think if you want to submit for online, in print, or for social media accounts. The benefits for online blogs is as mentioned before, backlinks. The benefit for getting featured in print is notoreity! How cool to have something tangible to show off to future couples. You can keep it in your office, or take a fun reel of it to show on social media. And speaking of social media, there are also some accounts that specifically showcase on their feed and tag you and the vendors- a great way to be seen by couples searching on their account.

When ready to submit, I’d take a look at the wedding you want to submit, and narrow the gallery down to about 100 images. It should be a mix of couples portraits, detail shots, venue shots, guests, fashion, and all the fun unique vendor details. They do prioritize vertical images for re-pinning to Pinterest!

Once you have your final gallery, I always like to aim high first if I can! (And if I am confident that it might get picked up somewhere grand). But what blogs are best? A good way would be checking the blog’s website domain authority- the higher the score, the better the backlink! If you are allowed to organically submit your content to their site, you’ll need to know all of the vendors info for the submission. The next step, is to have patience. It could take 2-4 weeks for editors to give your their reply.

If you are in a hurry to get this wedding submitted somewhere, then maybe aiming high at first won’t be the best route. You could cast a wide net and submit to a few publications at once, but know that most blogs will have an exclusivity clause, where they want to be the only ones to feature your work. So be aware that if someone replies first they want to feature you, then would have to back out of the other submissions after that.

If you want a sure bet, or if you have very specific content, it might be best to look at smaller blogs that are regional or cater to your target audience! Some blogs can be SO niche! Do a deep search and I’m certain you’ll find one that is great for your submission, and good luck!!

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