Mary Sledd’s Blog | Austin Wedding Photography and Stuff

I love you too!!! Thank you so much for having us at your wedding! We had a wonderful time. See y’all soon.

Just got back from a week in Florida with Scott’s family. We boogie boarded in the ocean, rode bikes, ate rich foods, and attended his sisters wedding. It was nice to get away from Austin and have time to think. I even did some work on my tan. Tanning is an uphill battle for me.

Being away from the office gave me time to think about what I want to do with my career. I was on the editorial/commercial path and then I caught the wedding bug. The other work I was doing before was far more glamorous, but the pay cycle was killer! Weddings are easy for me. Stressful situations tend to have little effect on me. It’s like I always say — if the cat isn’t on fire everything is ok. And to date there have been zero charred cats as a direct results of my bridezillas.

What am I going to do with myself? Short term - I want to spend the next 18 months doing as many weddings as I can. I want to sharpen my teeth working with my gear and save lots of cash. I just dumped $5k into wedding advertising. I’ve got a full page in “the” austin wedding magazine, a booth at “the” wedding show and I’m advertising on a blog for austin ladies who love to shop. The hope is I can fill my calender up fast. I want to grow my business, but I want to pay with cash instead of going into dept. I’ve made it this far without breaking the bank. It surely slows things down.

After the weddings - I want to make art and do high end editorial work. A few fancy weddings thrown in for good measure would be nice.

Next step - Commercial space. I’ve been working from my old house and the commute/having my bro here is driving me nuts!!! I want a safe place to keep my gear, enough room to build art pieces, a place to meet with clients and maybe a little area for shooting. 600 feet would be ideal. More if I was splitting it with another photographer or artist. Having a place for sign-age would be A+. I’m thinking vintage neon.

Beyond that - I need a digi hassy back. It would make it possible for me to make HUGE prints and it would be great for getting those extra high end weddings. I’d like to use the back with an H2 system and get a 4×5 camera. (they work with both). Maybe I should start saving a percentage of each wedding to pay for one of these puppies! The price has come down some, but I don’t see them ever being really affordable. Oh how I love fancy camera stuff. Oh oh oh oh.

Ok. I’m going to get back to work. Enough dreaming for one day.

NPR did a story about Trash the Dress. This story is only about … 2 years late.

Went to ski shores with the gang. It was fun. I’m starting to like spending quaility time in the sun with my lover and his friends. Never thought it would come to this. Just for the record - I didn’t eat this burger. I had some cheese and crackers.

Sold another copy of It’s Up To You this week. This one was 30″x40″ and framed in a steel frame. I was very pleased with how the work looked complete. There were a number of unexpected complications in the fabrication of such a large frame. It took a few tries to make the work stable. Oddly enough the answer was using smaller screws and smaller wood pieces. Ah the joys of trying something new. Hopefully the collector will let me take a photo of the piece in it’s new home when it finds a place on the wall.