Blog Appétit

Hold on one sec, let me finish my glass of champagne and tell my personal photographer he can go home for the day so I can finish my blog post while I eat caviar in my robe I was gifted.

haha don’t we all wish that was true?

I have to laugh because one of the funniest things about blogging is the way it is viewed from the outside. There are so many times I get together with other bloggers and we laugh at photos where we know that the cake was lopsided and someone’s hand was holding it up for the photo and had to be cropped out later or we didn’t get a chance to put on makeup for the shoot so we kept our sunglasses on to look like we actually got dressed up. Or how we were doing a recipe shoot and the food looks hot and fresh out of the oven but we know it’s ice cold and if we didn’t hurry up it was going to start looking soggy.

I think the most common misconception about blogging is that everything looks so perfect and put together from the outside perspective but in reality it’s more of a mad house on the other side of the lens. Behind the scenes of photo shoots usually look like a tornado ran through the space and when writing posts, I’m usually in sweatpants laying in bed with one eye open because I can’t stay awake any longer.

Blogging is definitely something I encourage everyone to do as I absolutely love having it as a creative outlet and networking opportunity to meet some incredible people, but it’s also something that I like to be completely candid on and share that’s it’s not all champagne and cupcake eating behind the scenes.

When starting the blog there were many misconceptions I quickly learned weren’t what they seemed to be from an outsiders perspective and I’m sharing a few below to give you the inside scoop of the not so perfect behind the scenes of blogging.

1.We’re always drinking champagne and partying. Cheers to late nights, under eye bags and many all nighters spent re-writing posts for the 3rd time. In a dream world I would have a budget for party throwing and a big studio to throw endless parties to celebrate all the hard work and late night bloggers put in to produce their content. The reality is though, 99% of the time I do a post where champagne is featured I end up throwing it out after the shoot because it was 7am on a Monday morning before work and I needed to squeeze in a quick photo shoot. Maybe one day I’ll throw those champagne parties though;)

2. Blogging is so easy, I could do it with my eyes closed. You can? Wait share your tricks! By all means, I’m not saying we are saving lives over here or anything but there is definitely a lot more that goes into blogging than just a quick snap or two of a photo and a little write up of what we did over the weekend. I get asked often how long it takes to do a post and while there is no routine time, I would say on average about 5 hours including photo editing, writing, sharing on social outlets and let’s not forget the hours we spent on the photoshoot: finding the perfect backdrop, staging the photos, styling the outfit, getting myself ready, etc. It’s definitely a second full time job, but one that I highly encourage everyone to do as it can open up so many windows of opportunity!

3. We have everything planned out in a timely manner. I would put LOL here because this one literally makes me laugh out loud. I wish I could say I have my posts pre-written and scheduled out weeks in advance but the reality is most of my posts are totally in the moment or the night before they go live. Some day I’ll be super productive and get to write them all out in advance…or at least that’s the goal

4. We’re always photo ready and know how to get the perfect shot. “Let’s do it one more, but this time I’m going to hide the side of my hair that has gone flat already.” My famous words from this photo shoot above after trying to get this shot probably 10 times. The reality is, most shoots are planned out to allow myself time to get ready and style my outfit because if you caught me on a Sunday morning going to grab coffee you can bet you’ll find me in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie looking like I just rolled out of bed. Don’t get me wrong, I love dressing up but I also love my lazy weekends after a long week at the office.

5. We’re always posting in the moment. Posting in the moment is so 2015. Ok, just kidding but trying to post in the moment makes it kind of hard to live in the moment (something I’ve been working on more this year). Many bloggers will admit that only about 25-35% of their photos posted are actually in the moment. Sometimes we do something cool over the weekend but are busy enjoying the time with friends and family that we don’t get around to posting it but it was a great shot so we can totally flip it to a post for Monday and how we wish it was still the weekend.

6. We know the blogging secrets. This one is my all time favorite. When first starting my blog, I felt like everyone knew this secret about how to run a successful blog or get your blog noticed that I didn’t know. Like there was this group and once you hit a certain amount of page views, everyone would share the secret with you. Well, the reality is there is no secret. There’s actually many articles where bloggers share everything they learned and are graciously open with how they got to where they are today; hard work and determination. Because at the end of the day, that’s the real secret: work hard and it will pay off!

Ever thought about starting a blog? What’s your outside view of the blogging world?