We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tara Arseven. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tara below.
Tara, appreciate you joining us today. One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
Oh my… I’m not sure if the wedding industry is ready to hear this story – but once, I had to take over an entire wedding because the wedding planner sucked and almost ruined the couples evening.
Long story short, I once helped this newbie wedding planner based in DFW – and she was asking for someone to help her with flyers for an open house she was attending THE NEXT DAY. Me being me, I helped her all night, until 1-2 am or so. I delivered her the design and that was it. Not a proper thank you, nothing. A few months later, out of nowhere, she decided it was a good idea to try and smear her drama on me – and she came to me asking if anyone was talking behind her back in so and so facebook wedding group. I told her no – but then it also rubbed me the wrong way, so I blocked her.
A few years later, she reached out to me out of nowhere, messaging me through my FB business page, asking if I had blocked her or something. I’m a very direct, confrontational, and open person. If I love someone, they will know (and everyone else), if I don’t like someone they will also know along with everyone else. I told her “yes, I blocked you. And now if you can leave me alone, that’ll be great.” she insisted on the subject asking me why I blocked her without her knowing (because you know, you need one’s permission to block them :P ) so I told her in details how rude she was for not even properly thanking me for doing her a free favor which would have cost her good money and then how weird it was for her to reach out to me a while after to ask about her drama… So I told her again to leave me alone.
A day or two later, she emailed me with an attitude, telling me that a couple I was already booked with booked her as their planner and she was very excited to be working “very closely with them”. I told her “great, mind your own business and don’t try to interfere with mine. I’ll let you know when I have my photography timeline.” Of course, that didn’t work out that way and she kept pushing my limits to the point, at last, I had to get the mother of the bride involved – and during that meeting I found out the newbie wedding planner had lied to the family telling them that we are very close friends, convincing them to book her. I had to show the family messages and emails from her, how rude and unprofessional she was, and how she was trying to push me around. Mind you I’ve been working weddings for almost 15 years now and this chick was barely a year or two in the business….
Somehow I managed to keep my cool until the wedding and with the help of the mother of the bride, the planner calmed herself and left me “partially” alone too… But on the wedding day… Oh my goodness – she almost f*cked up.
She didn’t even show up herself on the day of, and sent a high school senior as her “associate”. Because you know – someone with zero experience definitely can run the show. SMH!!!
The first problem, she didn’t give the hair and make-up team the correct start time and location – so the bride ended up getting ready later than the time she needed to start, and the make-up artist waited for her at the venue for over an hour… This pushed us back with the family photos. On top of that, for whatever reason, the planner decided it was a great idea to do the ceremony almost when it was dark, for this couple that DIDN’T want to see each other before the ceremony. So despite the fact how I gave her the photography timeline, she still did what she wanted to do – AKA ruined everything that had to be done pre-ceremony.
Somehow we finished the ceremony, finished the rest of the family photos that were supposed to be done before the ceremony, and got ourselves to the reception around 8 pm without being able to do any newlywed portraits because the sun was gone and it was pitch dark outside.
During the reception, when usually dinner is served almost immediately after the couples enter – but this one took forever and the salads weren’t served until 9:30 pm. When I asked the kitchen staff they told me that “that’s how the planner wanted it”. The send-off was set for 10:30 pm and I started to wonder “when is my couple going to eat, when are they going to do their first dance and parents’ dances, when are they going to cut the cake, and when are they going to have some fun”… There was no way we could squeeze all that into one hour along with the time to eat dinner.
After quickly inhaling my food, I talked with the videographers who we ate with, asked them if they were ok with extending our coverage by an additional hour – they were game. I then went and asked the DJ the same thing, he too was already in and told me he would stay as long as he needed to free of charge. Then I finally went to the venue people and found out my couple actually had the venue until midnight – so that was a relief! If we pushed the exit to 11 PM, we’d be just fine. I once more made my rounds with my vendor friends, got the second approval from them, and made my way to the parents’ table and explained to them the situation, and that they didn’t have to worry about paying us extra because of the planner’s fault.
All was good until the father of the bride called the rental car company just to find out the planner never followed up with them and confirmed the car’s arrival time at the venue. So they had to find an Uber instead.
The rest of the night went great, and the couple had an amazing time. Their family and friends sent them off with the best positive vibes and we as the vendor team started to break down and pack up. Just as I was ALMOST done loading my gear to the car, my couple came back, the bride was bawling in tears, barely able to talk… When I finally calmed her down and asked, she told me that her entire medicine bag was missing along with her passport and cash – which was supposed to be with them for their abroad honeymoon departure from the airport. Of course, I dropped everything and we all started looking for her belongings. It was nowhere to be found. During this entire time, the “associate planner” was clueless about what to do. Usually, it’s part of the planners’ duty to make sure the couple has all their belongings together before they depart but of course, can’t expect that from a high school student.
While everyone was frantically looking for the bride’s belongings, the Uber driver was getting really grouchy – at last, we had to send him and I told the parents of the bride that I’ll drop them off at their hotel as it was already on my way to my studio.
FINALLY, the belongings came out of the building where the bride got ready, that was on the opposite side of the village… So finally we packed their stuff in my tiny Kia Soul I was driving at the time, and we got on our way to their hotel. Me being my mama bear self, I walked them all the way to the reception, waited for them to check-in, gave them a goodnight hug, and then told the reception what time to wake them up and get them to the airport for their flight at x time in the morning. After making sure all was set, I texted both sets of parents “Kids are checked in their room, all their belongings are with them, I also set a wake-up call with the reception to wake them up in the morning – y’all can go to sleep and I shall do the same. Goodnight!”
Oh, y’all think that’s it? Of course not. After all the bs that planner put me through and how she almost ruined my couple’s day – she then proceeded to screenshot one of the sneak peeks I shared online, remove my logo, and share it on her Instagram. Me being me, I sent her a nice email and reminded her of copyrights and how I can have my attorney take care of her… She responded to me that she had permission from the couple with her contract – so I had to send her links to copyright laws and finalize it all with “You want to play? Let’s play. Keep doing what you’re doing and keep disrespecting me. I can assure you, my attorney will take all the way to the pants you currently have on you in court if you don’t stop this behavior at once.”
She FINALLY got the message and learned I’m not the one to mess with… I now literally have a banned vendors list that I will absolutely not work and I make sure to convey it all with the couples before I book them. There’s no amount of Prozac that can help me cope with people who do the sloppiest job possible and don’t care for the damage they make… And my therapist is honestly happier that now I prevent any interaction with these kinds of people – she now only listens to my romantic life problems :P
It was all so frustrating and the amount of anxiety I had was unbearable. If it wasn’t my couple that was going to be left in the middle, my first reactions would have been way different to that planner and would have kept her away sooner – but I was just trying to keep my cool and keep somewhat of peace. Although I’m not going to lie, at the end of the day it felt amazing to be capable of fixing what someone else messed up and still be able to make sure my couple had a wonderful time.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Ouf! I literally didn’t have it in my mind to become a photographer – but I’m a stubborn woman and this famous photographer dude back in Turkiye told me I didn’t have a single bone in my body to become a photographer. So I told him “hold my wine, and watch” haha! Seriously! I didn’t even want to do weddings and I was happy doing my dark, creepy, fine art studio work. Then one day one of my friends came to ask me if I would photograph her brother’s wedding portraits – I seriously thought she fell and hit her head or something. I asked “Are you sure? You know my work and how bloody, dark, and scary it all is. How can I even do wedding photos? Does your brother want creepy dark photos?”
But somehow I did it, the couple loved it and then the wedding inquiries just kept coming! I still don’t know how and why this happened – perhaps it was supposed to? Fast forward almost 15 years later, here I am, at the other corner of the world already rocking the Dallas market and becoming well-known pretty fast. No lies – my attention seeker Leo side loves it!! :P
Currently, I offer all kinds of photography services that include amazing humans and furkids. My only rule is, my clients need to be on the same frequency with me when it comes to my values about equality and love for all – and they must be ok with me dropping occasional f-bombs :v I only don’t offer posed newborn photos and business headshots for very very serious corporate companies who lack the enthusiasm. Otherwise, I’m in – let’s have some fun! :)
I am so proud of myself that despite how many photographers in the area told me that I was going to scare people away and lose clients/money because I’m VERY loud about my politics, values, and the way I see the world and that I’m not scared of being myself in front of anyone and everyone. I’m glad I got even more stubborn to keep my stance because it not only benefited me and got me some amazing clients who value me, my views as well as my work – but also started a whole new wave in the wedding industry here in DFW, now all photographers are being loud about what they stand for haha! :)
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Of course, the way I treat my clients and how happy every single human I’ve worked is. Also, my brutally honest personality, which also reads “this chick doesn’t take any BS”. Some (ok, ok – let’s say most!) photographers don’t like me in the area and some other vendors think I’m just “too much” but I never ever once had any complaints from my actual target audience – AKA my clients. I got heavily judged when I was just new to the area but now that I’ve been here for over 7 years, people in the industry are also starting to get to know me. They’re starting to understand I’m only scary if you mess with someone because they’re a different color, they believe in another religion, their love looks different, or simply because they are not the same as them. Because I’m not shy to expose those people and make sure people from 5 states over know about how blah they are, I feel like this kind of stopped them from bullying others – at least that’s what I hope!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Being my authentic self and not faking anything. I also don’t try to oversell to people. If I believe my client doesn’t need X product – I say so and try to steer them for either saving that money or spending on something else that’s going to benefit them more.
I must say, people think being super honest is bad for business but I can assure you with my almost 15 years of business experience in 2 countries and 100’s of cities I worked – being honest about who you are, what you do, what you offer and what you DON’T offer is the key to gathering your target clientele and grow your business. I’ve only lived in Dallas since 2015 and I didn’t know a single human being when I moved here. Looking at most of the local photographers who have lived here all their lives, you’d think I lived here as long as they did. I did not. All I did was be stubborn about being my true self and not listen to those who advised me to be the opposite.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://taraarseven.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tararseven/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TaraArseven
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tara-arseven-photography-dallas