Case study · 90-day engagement
A Nashville wedding photographer with 9 years of experience was averaging 18 weddings per year at $3,200. Most couples found him by Instagram-scrolling after they had already shortlisted 4 photographers. He was always the 7th or 8th portfolio they reviewed. By that point, they had emotional attachments to 2 other photographers. He kept losing on the same playing field. The fix was to be the first portfolio, not the eighth.
The challenge
The photographer came in through a referral from a Nashville wedding planner we work with. He needed to stop competing on Instagram and start being chosen earlier in the planning cycle.
We pulled his data:
The fix was to be present at the moment a couple was Pinterest-shopping (Meta venue retargeting), and to be the easiest to book once they were ready (clear pricing + booking calendar).
The plan
Pulled 120 of his best wedding photos from the last 4 years and edited them into a 90-second highlight reel. Uploaded to The Knot + WeddingWire. Recovered the duplicate WeddingWire listing through their merge process and consolidated 14 reviews. Wrote bios that led with "9 years, 250+ Nashville weddings, average rating 4.9, average ticket $5,400" — the average-ticket line filtered out tire-kickers. By week 5 he ranked top-12 in both directories.
Built custom audiences targeting people who visited the websites of the top 18 Nashville-area wedding venues in the last 90 days (using Meta's lookalike + interest stack). Ran two creative angles: "Booked your venue at [Venue]? Lock your photographer too" and a 60-second portfolio walkthrough video. CTR averaged 2.6%. Most leads came from venues he had already photographed at — those couples could see their venue in his portfolio.
Built /package-builder where couples could pick wedding date, venue, hours of coverage, and add-ons (engagement session, second shooter, drone, photo booth). The page generated a personalized package quote and locked the date with a $500 deposit. Take rate on deposits was 28% — better than industry standard for portrait/wedding bookings.
Built /for-wedding-planners with a streamlined vendor portal, fast-quote turnaround for planner-referred couples, and a small referral commission. Reached out to 22 Nashville planners. 11 added him to their preferred-vendor list within 6 weeks. Planner referrals became 33% of his book by month 3.
AI tools we used
We do not pretend the work happens by hand. Three of our internal tools are the reason this engagement moved as fast as it did. Each of them replaces what used to be days of human time.
Custom AI we built that grades every search term on commercial intent, urgency, and local match in under a second. Replaces a half-day human audit.
Takes one bad search term and proposes the related variants we should also negate before they show up. Found 87 negatives nobody had thought of.
Crawls the site and fires every conversion event in a sandbox so you can see what is actually being recorded vs what should be. Caught the duplicate form fire in 4 minutes.
The execution
| Week | What we shipped | What moved |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | The Knot + WeddingWire profiles rebuilt, 120 photos + highlight reel uploaded | First Knot inquiry day 5 |
| Week 3 | WeddingWire merge resolved, 14 old reviews consolidated | Profile rank jumps from page 2 to page 1 |
| Week 4 | Venue-retargeting Meta ads live, /package-builder shipped | First $500 deposit locked day 11 of week 4 |
| Week 6 | /for-wedding-planners page live, outreach starts | 3 planners added him to preferred-vendor list by week 8 |
| Week 10 | 22 weddings booked through 2026 (vs 8 prior year same window), avg ticket $4,800 | First $7,200 booking through package-builder add-ons |
| Week 12 | Final review | Calendar 9 months out, retainer continues |
The numbers
The mix that produced the new run rate:
52 weddings × $5,400 average ticket = $280,800/yr in revenue, up from $57,600. The retainer cost $7,188 over the year. The photographer is now turning away 1 in 4 inquiries.
I was the 8th photographer they found. Now I am the 1st. Same portfolio, same skills. Mark put me in front of couples 60 days earlier in their planning. By the time they were comparing photographers, they had already saved my work for weeks.
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