Show and Tell: Specialens – The Perfect Tool for Finding Your Wedding Photographer

Today I would like to introduce you to Specialens.  Specialens is an on-line Wedding Photographer Directory, that’s sole aim is to make finding the right wedding photographer a lot easier for you the bride and groom.

The website lets you put in your preferred European country, city, and budget and you let it do the searching for you.
This then brings up a lots of photographers that meet your requirements, with a description of that photographer, price range, portfolio and contact details. The site will also let you save the photographers you like, so compiling a comprehensive list of your favourite photographers

Personally I find the website, well designed, clear, easy to use and full of a good selection of photographers. For the bride and groom it is free to use and a very useful tool when looking to book the right photographer that fits in with both your style and budget.
 Photography can be one of the hardest things to book for your wedding, simply because there is so much choice. Specialens can really help take the confusion out of the process! And make finding your ideal photographer a lot easier!

I have asked Pericles the founder of Specialens a few questions so you can get to know him and the company a bit better.

Can you describe just what it is Specialens is.
Specialens is a fresh and simple way of connecting newly engaged couples with wedding photographers. We are solely focused on helping brides-to-be find their special wedding photographer as fun and relaxed as possible.

When we first had the idea of creating Specialens, the main thing we had in mind was to replace the physical approach of wedding planning into a fun online experience. We tried to incorporate all the questions and criteria a newlywed couple could possible ask or look for while searching for their wedding photographer. Based on those principles we created a number of useful features and tools to help newlyweds find their special photographer easy and fun!

Instructions:
Specialens is very straight forward when it comes to searching for a wedding photographer.

1. Select your city: The most useful option for brides as it helps them find photographers near their city or where they are getting married.

2. Select your budget: Specialens provides a dynamic pricing tool that let’s you play around with different prices. Since it’s dynamic, the results will be refreshed in no time, making it a fun tool.

3. View all the wedding photographers available: Based on their criteria, newlyweds can view all the available wedding photographers with just the necessary information e.g. portfolio, price range, and serving cities.

4. Photographer’s Profile: If you like a particular photographer, you can click on his/her name or main picture and you will be redirected to his/her individual profile. There, you can browse through a more detailed profile with larger pictures, videos, detailed pricing, words from the photographer and contact information.

5. Save and compare them later. Another exciting tool. You can save all your favourite photographers without having to create any account. So, you simply come back anytime and click on ‘My Photographers’ link and there you have them all. Compare and contrast with your family and friends, and give a call to the one who matches your style and budget.

An optional tool is to find wedding photographers willing to travel to your city from abroad. For example, if you are getting married in London you might want to book a French or Italian photographer and vice versa.

What made you start your business?
It all started a year ago while I was living in New York. A friend of mine was getting married abroad {in Cyprus} so she was planning her wedding from miles away. Some planning was easier to be done rather than other. One of the main difficulties was finding her wedding photographer. Not so much as to find a wedding photographer, obviously a Google search can sort that out, but as to find the perfect wedding photographer; why settle for something less especially on your wedding day. We run together a search and we found some directories or websites with listing or banners that provide some photographers but then again it was a dead-end. So, I had the idea of creating something simple, efficient and aesthetically attractive to help brides-to-be like my friend find their photographer match.

The website was launched as a beta version in Cyprus, in August 2011 and then officially in the UK two months later.

Where are you based?
Anywhere a wedding can take place! Okay not everywhere at the moment but that’s the plan and this makes the site so great for just about any couple planning a wedding in either the UK or Europe. At the moment we are able to bring together newlyweds and wedding photographer in 7 countries: UK, Spain, Italy, France, Cyprus, Greece, and Republic of Ireland.

What is your biggest achievement so far?
Not having wedding photographers say “Oh no, not another one!?!” Only photographers get the joke!!
Our biggest achievement is we managed to differentiate ourselves and what we do from other peers that do similar things to ours. In an overcrowded industry like this, it’s often hard to make yourself stand out.

What makes you different than your competitors?
Unlike many other websites, Specialens is a photo-centric site. The only thing that matters is the visual display of wedding photographers’ work. Specialens is not filled with advertisements, banners and unrelated information that distracts from the photographers’ work and purpose of the site.

Specialens is also designed to be efficient and save time. All wedding photographers have a less detailed profile before a bride clicks on his/her individual profile. Therefore a bride can view a photographer’s entire work without leaving the homepage. What’s the point having a bride going back and forth just to see if she likes the photographer? This little detail can save newlyweds time and hassle.

What do you do for wedding photographers?
Essentially, we are the marketing extension of their business. Our goal has always been to increase only wedding-related traffic to the site and get more potential clients to view photographers on the site.

In contrast with other websites, we are utterly not interested in having newlyweds click on photographers’ website links just for the sake of mass traffic.

The idea behind Specialens is that brides do not need to leave our website in order to choose their wedding photographer. All the information brides need can be found on Specialens without redirecting them to each photographer’s website.
Of course, for all our premium members, we provide an insight tool where they can view their detail statistics on our site.
We are pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback by a number of photographers on this approach.

How much does it cost to join Specialens?
Specialens is free to all talented and skilful wedding photographers. There is absolutely no charge.

For photographers that want to stand out and really want to make a difference we offer a premium package which upgrades their listing and expose their work even more. Find all about our packages here.

Thank you to  Perciles for telling us more about the service, if you ar a bride ir a groom, why not hop over to the sight and have a look for yourself and see what you think. It’s a great way to find a fab list fo photographers that you may have other wised not found!……..and you get to look at a whole load of wedding pretty while you are there!

For more information go to:
Website: www.specialens.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/specialens
Twitter: www.twitter.com/specialens
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/specialens
Email: [email protected]

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