Tomorrow marks my first “regular season” wedding of 2016 and I couldn’t be more excited! This will be my SIXTH season as a wedding photographer and my fifth doing it full time. It’s crazy to think about how fast the time has gone by since I started my business. It feels like it was just yesterday I was buying my first camera and hoping I’d be able to eventually leave my day job!

Since the start of a new season is upon us, I’ve been using this week to get prepared to get back into the swing of things and thought it could be helpful to share what I’ve done to help others who are in the same boat! In my opinion, starting up after off season is kind of like starting back to school after the Fall. You’ve got to start out prepared if you want to have a good year, right?

In that spirit, here are some of the things I did this week to prep for the start of busy season!

Buy new CF cards
It’s always a good practice to cycle your CF cards and it makes it easy to remember to do so if you time buying new ones for the start of a new wedding season. I just purchased 6 new cards to add to my rotation! Read more here about how I care for my CF cards!

Have equipment serviced
I seem to always wait until the last minute to do this, but if you’re preparing for your first wedding of the season, it’s the perfect time for having your equipment maintained. If you’re a Canon shooter like me, consider joining CPS because you get free clean and checks of several items as well as free rush shipping and a discount on repair costs if you’re at least a Gold member.

Replenish supplies
I, like a lot of people, keep certain wedding day “necessities” in my bag (gum, mints, floss, bug spray, etc) but after a long off season, some of the things may have expired, or gotten lost. A Target run will solve that!

Do some spring cleaning
Cleaning up our apartment is always on my pre-wedding checklist because 1. I love nothing more than coming home to a clean house when I’m exhausted after a long wedding day. And 2. I know I won’t have as much time to worry about cleaning things up the next week, so it’s good to at least START with a clean slate.

Give your computer a tune up
Since you’ll be using your computer a lot more for editing now, it’s a great idea to give your machine a refresh! Take some time to clean up your hard drive and delete anything you don’t need and update all of the apps and programs you use that may need it. This way you’ll be ready to roll with your post processing workflow!

Get your car’s oil changed & fill up your tank
Self explanatory, right? This is something I try to do ahead of time (especially the gas thing!) because there’s nothing more annoying than starting out on a 3 hour drive to a wedding and you’ve already got to stop for gas. So frustrating!!

What’s on your pre wedding season to do list?? Good luck to everyone else who’s got a wedding tomorrow!