Tuesday, August 10, 2010

First Impressions

If you think about it, our entire lives are filled with 1000s of First Impressions - meeting new people, going to new cities and places, going into a store you've never been to before ... we experience a first impression frequently. And what do we do with these first impressions? We made an immediate reaction to them, a judgement if you will. This reaction can play a huge part in how we emotionally view this person, place, store, interaction. It will influence how we perceive things and how we ultimately decide we feel about things.

So how does a first impression work in weddings? I've found that its a huge influencer when it comes to engaged couples making very important decisions for their wedding day. If when meeting a vendor for the first time, the vendor is rude, unfriendly, uncaring or generally rubs the potential clients in the wrong way, there is a slim possibility that these potential clients will become contracted clients. But, sometimes its the potential clients initial judgements and then their first impressions that steer them away from a wedding vendor who they should be working with - and to me, that is just sad. Let me explain: you cruise around websites looking for potential wedding vendors to work with and to bring your wedding vision to life. Here is one first impression that allows you to create a snap judgement. Either the website / the images / the words / the blog whatever it is, you either feel drawn to or you dismiss it. {We all do this!} If you feel like this wedding vendor fits your style and aesthetic, you reach out to them for a meeting. When you arrive at the meeting, you make another first impression since you are now meeting this person in the flesh and you either confirm that your original first impression was spot on or you overturn it. Obviously, everyone prefers when your initial impression equals your meeting impression and the vendor is a match, but sometimes it doesn't go that way.

So what to do then? Think through your decision - why doesn't this vendor in real life match online? Is their branding off? Did you have a certain image of them and they didn't fit it? Basically, you need to figure out if your impression was valid {online claims lux service but the person arrives looking worse for wear and is clearly not lux} or did you make an unfair snap judgement?

Has there been a time when your online impression with someone and your in life interaction didn't add up?

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