As a wedding photographer for almost 10 years, Lara White has always loved the business side of photography. She shares her passion for business and marketing strategies with photographers through her PhotoMint blog and recently authored a free book for photographers interested in learning how to get their images published. Follow Lara on Twitter.

Want to get published? Follow these easy 4 steps and you will be on your way to creating images that wedding magazines find irresistible.

The first thing you need to know is that wedding magazines and blogs are all about details. Their readers can never get enough details. So that right there should tell you that your submission needs to be at least 75% or more details, and you need to have that on your mind when you are shooting your next wedding that you think has a shot at getting published.

1. Plan Ahead

Take the time to plan ahead for your shoot and how to get the most out of it. Speak with the planner and the florist to get an understanding for the décor and the florals. Will there be a cool escort card table, and if so, how will you capture it prior to the guests spilling into the cocktail hour? How about ceremony details-can you get to the ceremony area prior to the guests, in time to capture how the ceremony looks prior to guests putting their purses down and otherwise cluttering up the area? Ask the catering manager to keep the reception doors closed until the reception, and that you'll be coming in for a few minutes to capture the room before the doors open.

2. Allow Plenty Of Extra Time For Capturing Details

It takes time to capture details in a way that “sells” them. Allow yourself the extra time needed to spend time in the reception finding just the right angle for capturing the centerpieces. Arrive early while the bride is just starting makeup, and you'll have plenty of time to “play” with the details in the bride's room. These can include the dress, shoes, jewelry, bouquet, invitation and other items with personal meaning.

3. Don't Be Afraid To Rearrange & Declutter

Nothing ruins a great detail shot like a half empty glass or a partially eaten plate of appetizers. Think of your detail shots like a product shot. You want the image to “sell” that detail. It's OK to rearrange things a bit or remove bits of clutter from your image. Think of yourself as styling the details. It's perfectly ok to take the salt and pepper shakers (or the table number sign if it's ugly) off the table for your shots of the centerpiece. Take the bouquet out of the cardboard delivery box and find a beautiful spot with nice lighting. It only takes a moment and will vastly improve your images.

4. Consistent Photoshop Style

If you create certain looks or styles in Photoshop, be consistent. For example if you go for a desaturated vintage look on some of your images and some of them are just in a “standard” look. Most magazines and blogs prefer to have all the images in a set done as a consistent style and look. Otherwise the overall theme and feeling of the images is lost.

The more time you spend working on mastering the art of detail shots, the better you'll become. And the better you are at capturing details, the more likely you are to find your images in the next issue of your favorite wedding magazine. If you'd like to learn more tips about getting published, check out Get Published: A Guide for Wedding Photographers.

It takes time and patience to learn to create images magazines will be interested in publishing, but it's well worth the investment of time, because your brides will love those images too.

Remember – You can pick up Lara's e-book, Get Published for free. No strings attached. I've read it and it's full of great, actionable topics. Get it now!

This is a guest post by SnapKnot, a website dedicated to helping engaged couples find their perfect wedding photographer.

We have been very pleased with the response from the wedding photography community and engaged couples since launching SnapKnot in February of this year. Now that we are in our 10th month of operations, we are considering the next steps to improve the site with the goal of making SnapKnot the go-to choice for brides and grooms just starting their search for a wedding photographer.

We have a few ideas of our own that we are planning to implement in the coming months, but we thought it would be fun to create a contest around the next Big Ideas for SnapKnot here on Tiffinbox.

We want to reach out to the vast community of photographers who visit this blog and ask –

How Would You Improve SnapKnot?

What would you like to see?

What would you change?

What would give photographers and/or brides a better overall experience?

Leave a comment below with a few sentences describing what you'd like to see on the site. In return for sharing your opinion with us, three photographers will win free SnapKnot Premium memberships. We will consider all the ideas and we will select the ones we like the best as winners. Also we encourage people to comment on which ideas they like – this will help us make our final decisions.

The 3 Best Ideas Will Win:

1) Grand Prize: 1 year of SnapKnot Premium membership
2) 2nd Prize: 6 months SnapKnot Premium
3) 3rd Prize: 3 months SnapKnot Premium

Contest Rules:

1) Minimum of 50 ideas needed to activate the prizes
2) Current Premium members are not eligible for these prizes. Only new members and current Free members are eligible.
3) 1 entry per photographer
4) Please include a valid name and email address so we can contact the winners
5) Contest ends at midnight December 31, 2010
6) Winners will be announced in January

So, hop to it. You have only TWO weeks left before we call out 3 winners. Keep those ideas coming. We want to hear from YOU!