Meet Jessica Bishop, the Editor and Owner of TheBudgetSavvyBride.com. Jessica founded TheBudgetSavvyBride.com while planning her own wedding in 2008 and it has since become the #1 resource for couples planning a wedding on a budget.
I’ve worked with Jessica for several years and know that she is a multi-passionate creative with a focus on and love for the wedding industry. She has worked in just about every field having in the industry from assisting cake bakers, wedding planners, and photographers to designing wedding invitations and, of course, as a bride herself. In addition to running BSB, Jessica also serves as the resident Weddings Expert for About.com and as the Director of Design and Branding for Aisle Society.
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Jessica, what do you like about writing about weddings?
There are such a wide variety of topics that I can write about in relation to weddings! From travel for honeymoons, to wedding day beauty and fashion, to home décor and registry, it never gets boring. My readership is a constant revolving door, which helps keep me on my toes. It would be easy to repeat the same content every year because the average life cycle of a couple planning their wedding is around 12 months, but I like the challenge of finding new trends, technology and ways to spin the subject matter year after year.
What is your favorite part about The Budget Savvy Bride?
One thing that sets The Budget Savvy Bride apart from many other wedding blogs is the fact that our real wedding couples share a breakdown of their wedding expenses. When a bride visits our site, she can browse weddings based on the budget to see how other couples before her allocated their funds, which is incredibly helpful especially for those couples who are working with a tiny budget. I think this is really my favorite aspect of the website and it’s definitely one of our more popular features.
How do you typically find sources for your stories and features?
I love sharing resources that make my couples’ lives simpler and save them money or time, so I’m always on the lookout for the newest offerings in the market. I love how much technology is playing a part in weddings and I tend to cover quite a bit of that especially in my articles for About.com. I tend to get lots of email pitches for different things related (and sometimes not-so-related) to weddings, so if I see a pitch that sparks an idea for an upcoming article I flag it to reference later. Occasionally if I’m in need of a specific source, I’ll go to Twitter or ask my networks for recommendations. It’s really a mix!
Many people are intimidated by bloggers. What do you recommend as the best way to get your attention?
A personal greeting and a tailored pitch is the best way to get my attention. I can’t tell you how many emails I get that are incredibly generic and miss the mark in terms of relevance. I get secondhand embarrassment for the folks who send me an email promoting a super luxury product or service provider that is obviously not a fit for my audience. Especially if they follow up multiple times… yikes!
Yikes indeed. So what’s one piece of advice you could give to wedding professionals looking to get featured?
Do good work, be a good person, and add value to your connections. Don’t always be looking for what you can get out of a networking relationship, but also ask how you can give. And, of course, be intentional about the publications you’re pitching to. A few well-tailored pitches will go much farther than thousands of general emails to every wedding-related publication without taking fit into account.
Want to connect with Jessica? You can find her on TheBudgetSavvyBride.com and on www.twitter.com/savvybride.
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