Book photo sessions without losing the morning to messages

If you sell photo sessions, your week probably starts in a chat thread. Someone asks about a portrait for Thursday, another person wants to know whether you go to their home, a third sends three dates and disappears. Every message is a question about time, length and place, and every morning you rebuild the agenda from screenshots. The most expensive thing is not the message. It is the session you confirmed twice or the slot nobody wrote down.

This guide is for anyone who sells sessions of one or two hours, in a studio or at the client's place. By the end you will have five moves so that your clients can check the agenda without messaging you, and so that what your page offers is always a free slot.

1 · Each session with its real length

A session is not "taking photos". It is an hour of shooting, a change of outfit and two test images, or two hours of outdoor coverage. Make it a service with the length it actually needs, because a slot shorter than the work is the origin of almost every rush. As a starting point, the photography activity comes with services of 60 and 120 minutes. Adjust them to what you do and set a price for each one, or mark it as free if it is a gift session.

There is one time people often forget: the time after the session. Before the next one you have to change the set, pack the gear or go through the photos. Set it as the service's buffer time and the agenda blocks it after each appointment. Note that it does not calculate travel. If the drive to a home takes forty minutes, you add that margin yourself.

In Reserrva: the service catalog stores the duration, the price (or free) and the buffer time of each service. Catalog edits never rewrite sessions that are already booked. Services are created in step 5 of the setup guide, and you edit them afterwards from the panel.

2 · Where you work

There are two ways to work, and the client needs to know which one applies before choosing a time. In your studio, people come to you: the address appears on your page, and so does the contact phone number. At the client's place, you go to them: arrival time and the margin between sessions weigh more. If you do both, pick one as the main option and treat the other as the exception, instead of clarifying the address by message every time.

In Reserrva: you choose at a venue (you give the address) or at the client's place (you go to them). Your page shows that setting and the contact your activity asks for, which for photography is the phone. You set it in step 3 of the setup guide and change it later from the panel.

3 · Your portfolio and only real openings

Someone who does not know you decides with three questions: what you do, what they can book, and whether the time is still free. A link with your best photos and the openings that really remain answers all three at once. Put photos of your work on the page (portraits, families, events, whatever you want to sell) and let the person pick a service, a day and a time without creating an account. If a time can be picked, it is free.

That promise depends on the page taking everything into account: your hours, your time off, the sessions already booked, the buffer time and the minimum notice you set.

In Reserrva: the booking page is your public link at reserrva.app/en/b/your-business, with your services, your hours and your name. The portfolio puts photos of your work on that same page, so whoever books sees them. With only real openings, the page subtracts everything you already have booked, and booking without an account lets the client confirm with a name and a phone number. To publish it, sign in at Reserrva and follow the setup guide. What each feature includes is on the features page.

4 · A limit for long sessions

A two-hour session does not refill the way a forty-minute one does. If someone cancels the evening before at eight o'clock, that block stays empty and does not come back. Set a cancellation limit that suits your longest session, with enough notice to offer the slot to someone else, and make sure the client sees it before confirming. Whoever cancels before that limit leaves you room to offer the slot to someone else.

In Reserrva: whoever books cancels from the link in their confirmation, before the cancellation limit the business sets, without needing an account. You set the limit, and you can change it whenever you want.

5 · What comes in by phone

There will always be someone who calls, messages or drops by the studio. If that booking lives only in your notebook, the page will keep offering the time. The rule is simple: every session, wherever it comes from, goes into the agenda the moment you confirm it. That way the time can no longer be booked as soon as you promise it by phone, and the page never offers an hour you have already committed.

In Reserrva: manual appointments from the panel are for whoever calls or drops by the studio, and they take the slot just like an online booking. With only real openings, that hour can no longer be booked on your page as soon as you save it.

• ✓Each session has a name, a real duration, a buffer time and a price, or is marked as free.
• ✓Your page says whether you work at your studio or at the client's place, with the contact your activity asks for.
• ✓Your portfolio has photos of what you sell, and the link opens without an account.
• ✓The cancellation limit leaves you room to offer a two-hour session again.
• ✓Every booking confirmed by phone goes into the agenda that same day.

Frequently asked questions

Can I offer one-hour and two-hour sessions on the same page?

Yes. Each session is a service with its own duration and price, and whoever books picks the one they want.

Does Reserrva calculate travel time?

No. The buffer time blocks the agenda after each appointment, but you add the travel yourself.

Do my clients need an account?

No. They book with their name and the contact your business asks for, and they see the confirmation on screen.

What happens if a session comes in by phone and through the page at the same time?

Only one of the two can be saved: the database rejects the second appointment for the same professional at that time, whether it comes from the panel or the page.