Covid 19 and my thoughts

Hi – We are Mick and Ash from MIKI Studios, an award-winning and destination wedding photographer from London, UK. We capture the wedding on photo and film together within the same studio. We thought we would take some time to write down our thoughts about the industry and the impact of COVID 19.

COVID 19 is hitting everyone young and old, across every industry which is totally unprecedented. Most crises don’t impact in the way COVID 19 has across the World. That means we are truly ‘all in this together’. Right from the outset, our couples are being impacted as much (or even more) in most cases than us. Meaning everyone seems to be really supportive, considerate and helpful to each other. We are not going into conversations on the attack or defence. We have been totally open with our couples and we believe we have gone above and beyond to make the whole situation as easy as possible for everyone. 95% of all our communication has been over the phone and not behind email. Every one of our couples has appreciated that we have taken the lead on open and honest communication.

This is a very dramatic short term hit, there is no doubt about it. However, the probability is the economy and the wedding industry will bounce back pretty quickly (12 months or so), the same amount of people will still get married and still want the part of their lives! We will lose great companies in the industry along the way which is very unfortunate and sad, but those that survive will be stronger and more resilient. Things that will change in the short term is companies trying to protect themselves from being in this situation again, whether that’s larger deposits or requesting full payment earlier but in the medium term, we will probably all start to forget what this felt like and the pendulum will swing back to a more ‘normal’ position.

This is the time to get your house (or business) in order. Whether that is accounting, branding, website, SEO etc. This is not the time to take your foot off the gas and sit and mope about how the government should or shouldn’t have down things differently. Businesses that use this time to get an advantage on their competitors no matter how small will come out of this situation better and more prepared to hit the ground running. For us, we are still working as hard, if not harder than ever. We are focusing on the things we can impact like on the back end of the website, branding and improving the areas of the business most people won’t see (other than our couples) on making our couples experience the best we can. SEO is a long game so the benefits won’t be seen for months to come but it’s like planting seeds, you cant expect crops to grow if you don’t plant them and water them frequently.