When Luke and I are together, we talk a lot about where we’ve come from and how we started our business. Somehow, it just comes up! Granted, I’m a hopeless romantic, and I love to reminisce. So, maybe it’s my fault that we talk about it so much ???? One of the things we talk about most often is how GRATEFUL we are for the way our business started.
There are a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of photographers out there who started young like I did. (If you’ve never read the short version of how our business began, click here to do so!) A lot of those young photographers made it “big” very quickly, with tens of thousands of Instagram followers, dozens of weddings and a lot of recognition and income very early on in their business.
Back in high school, when I started my business, I watched these girls’ businesses grow and flourish, and it was amazing. It was so cool to see other young photographers killing it so quickly! However, I’d often wonder why my business wasn’t taking off at a similar pace. And if we’re being real, it was discouraging.
At the time, I didn’t see many differences between what I was doing day in and day out to grow my business and what they were all doing. Back then, I only saw the different amounts of success we were experiencing. I felt like I HAD to be doing something wrong to not be experiencing this same success so quickly.
In high school and the early years of college, all I felt I did some days was finish my homework and WORK. Y’all, I had the spreadsheets. I had plans for my plans. I budgeted to be able to save up for the gear I wanted. While I couldn’t afford it as an 18-year-old, I mastered the baby camera I DID have and used my 50mm 1.8 and 1.4 until just recently (no lie). I read every blog post on wedding photography that I could get my hands on. I tried to make my clients’ experiences incredible and unique from those of local photographers, many of whom who were decades older than me and were already established. I worked so hard to get my little dream off the ground.
Often, I’d chat with brides for weeks over email, and we’d plan on her signing the contract when we met up for Starbucks in person… only to have her show up, see how young I looked, and back out. Upon realizing my age, many couples chose to go with another photographer because “there was no way I knew what I was doing.” Some even gave back the bridal welcome packages I lovingly had created and brought to those meetings. Of course, I thought, “If you trusted me and my work enough to meet with me in the first place, why don’t you trust me to shoot your wedding based on my AGE alone?”
It was hard. My beginning was certainly a humble one. My first year marketing myself as a wedding photographer, I only shot one wedding. I worked my little butt off that whole year and marketed using styled shoot images, workshop images, and photos from the one wedding I’d shot. The majority of my income and business still revolved around portrait sessions, and I shot those all the time. Yet, I dreamed of making weddings my full-time pursuit. It was my goal, and I worked towards it day in and day out. Y’all, I wrote emails and blog posts and read articles while I should’ve been paying attention in class… I wanted it!
And yet, that next year, I only shot two weddings.
I wondered, “what am I doing wrong?!” Turns out, I probably was doing nothing wrong… God just had a different plan.
That next year, I shot two weddings; one was in June, and the other was in September. To this day, I am in touch with both those couples and love them to death. That October, a cute boy I barely knew from our church’s college ministry and I pulled into a bonfire party minutes apart. I drove there straight from an engagement session, and neither of us had planned on coming to the bonfire because we had big tests to study for. That night, that guy sat down next to me while I was making smores, and we talked for the entire rest of the night about everything… but mostly, our mutual love for photography. #nerds, we know. ???? At the end of that night, he asked me out on a date, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.
My husband is why I believe I wasn’t doing anything wrong when I was working like CRAZY and only booked three weddings total in my first two years as a wedding photographer. Those first few years of working hard became a foundation for the business we would grow together. I believe that all that hard work was for something because it set us up to go full time right before we got married.
I’m okay with the fact that I wasn’t one of those crazy young success stories who shot 35 weddings her first year. Let’s be real, guys… it was humbling enough to work on my pride and let Luke into my business, anyways. (Oh hey, old Caitlin… that was only Jesus through you and you should’ve gotten over yourself a lot quicker.)
I didn’t get it back then, but now, I can see it. I’m so glad I had a humble beginning.
On a foggy, rainy ride home from a bridal consult with Luke, I shook my head as I looked out the window. Luke had just pointed out that we now require more for a retainer than what I made on my first wedding. That simple realization made me realize how far we’ve come.
These days, I’m just really thankful for how I started. And I’m even more thankful that Luke took a chance on the “girl who does photography” that October. Life is now sweeter than anything I could’ve planned or wanted for myself back in those days where I wrote emails in class. My humble beginning allows me to be thankful for EVERY inquiry that comes our way and treat EACH bride like my first one I booked.
Wherever you are, whether your beginning was humble or an explosion, keep going. You never know why God has you where He does. Someday, you will be so grateful for your beginning… no matter how small. ????
