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As a wedding photographer, creating valuable relationships with your local vendors is a way to ensure that you have a trusted group of professionals that will help you grow your business. Vendors are a large part of the wedding day – from the florist to the baker to the coordinator, each vendor plays such an important role, and these are all people you can develop long-term relationships with.

Sharing images with vendors immediately after the wedding day is also an important part of creating a seamless working relationship. Not only can your vendors share your images with potential clients, they will continue to be an active referral source. The better your relationship with your vendors, the easier it will be for you to work together to help one another gain more clients. To help you get started creating meaningful connections, we’ve put together 4 ways for you to effectively share images with vendors.

1. Share Your Digital Files

As a photographer, your professional images are very valuable to vendors. On the wedding day, vendors may be able to take images of their work on their smartphones, but having access to your stunning images is crucial! After the wedding, make it part of your post-shoot workflow to send images to each vendor that you worked with. Just like there are several photo editing companies to use for color correction, there are several options when it comes to hosting and sharing your photos with vendors online.

Related: Top 5 Tips for Vendor Referrals

One option is LulaWed, a resource for photographers and vendors where they can work together to share images without needing to communicate through multiple threads and forums. Keeping all of your images organized in one spot will save you and the vendor time, because it is simple for you to upload images and easy for the vendor to download the photos they wish to use.

2. Create an Album for your Vendors

When you work closely with your vendors on the wedding day, you have the ability to take unique pictures of them doing what they do best – whether that is decorating the venue, providing flowers, or styling the bride and groom, vendors are crucial to the wedding day’s success. As a gesture to show that you are dedicated to the relationship, offer to shoot the vendor in action during the wedding day so that they can use the images to promote their business.

You can then create a small album of the images you took from the event. An album can be useful to your vendors, as it can be a marketing tool that potential clients will see when they meet with that particular vendor. For simple and quick album design, you can utilize Align Album Design to help design beautiful albums that you can share with your vendors!

3. Post Highlights on Your Blog

Since your blog is one of the most effective ways for you to share information with your clients, posting the highlights from the wedding day will ensure that your vendors are showcased in a positive light. You can feature each vendor, a bit about what they do as a business, and include an image of them working during that particular wedding. Not only will this create interest in your vendors from your clients, it is an effective way for vendors to receive images from you after the wedding day. Taking the time to mention vendors on your blog may result in more potential clients reaching out to read your content. The more you can reach out to new audiences, the more likely it is that you will attract clients to book more weddings!

Tip: Encourage vendors to share your images on their blog or social media sites to ensure that your images are inviting potential clients to book you!

Related: 6 Tips for Better Networking Connections

4. Coordinate a Viewing Party

After the wedding is done and you have finished adding your Signature Style to images, you may invite your clients over for a viewing party to view the images from their special day. Make it a point to also include the vendors you worked with at these get-togethers! Not only is this a great way for you to personally share the images with vendors you worked with, but they also get the benefit of seeing the couples’ reaction to the images (and you can continue to nurture and grow your relationship with each vendor there!). They will feel honored that you chose to include them at the exclusive viewing party and will be excited each time they get to work with you.

With any method that you choose to deliver images to vendors, remember that one of the reasons for sharing images is to build trust in the relationship you have with them. When you shoot the work of other vendors during the wedding day, you are promoting their business through unique and beautiful images. Make it simple for vendors to receive images from you, because without a system in place to share images, there may be confusion or frustration, and you could lose the bond you created with a particular vendor. To learn more ways for you to grow your business with vendors, access our How to Grow Your Wedding Photography Business Guide: 2015 Updated Edition!