We were lucky to catch up with Katie Fletcher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? We’d love to hear the backstory the illustrates how you grew your brand.

It can be really challenging to start in the wedding photography business, especially because we are dealing with a once-in-a-lifetime day for our clients. There are no do-overs in wedding photography, so there is a lot of pressure on wedding photographers and wedding vendors in general.

Because of this pressure, it isn’t feasible to start charging $5,000 out of the gate when you have no experience. I really had to be scrappy and chase after opportunities when they presented themselves so that I could gain that experience. When I first started, I was actually approached by a college friend who knew that I had a camera. She asked if I could do her wedding last minute, because her original photographer fell through. Her budget was $300, and I jumped at the opportunity to see if it was something I wanted to pursue. Spoiler alert, it was! From that first wedding, I continually started to increase my prices as my experience improved. Importantly, I was always upfront with people on my level of experience so people knew what they were getting.

Once I knew I wanted to do weddings, one of the biggest things that helped me scale was investing in my own education. I had the foundations but needed a coach to help me get there. Coaching helped me go from 5 weddings in my first year to 20 in my second year.

Another key factor to managing this scale is outsourcing and automating certain parts of my business. I use a lot of systems, like Dubsado and Cloudspot, to help automate my client experience and my workflows so that all of my clients get the best of me. I have outsourced things like blogging and accounting so that I can focus on what I do best: creating epic photos for my clients.

Finally I think the last thing about scaling is also knowing where to scale back. I actually take on fewer weddings than I did 2 years ago, because I have raised my prices to reflect that. I have firmer boundaries on my business, like not working double header weekends like I did following the pandemic. Scaling is great, but it means nothing if you’re burnt out and can’t enjoy your success!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my photography journey with landscapes and wildlife, and doing senior photos for my friends in college. Now, I’m a wedding and elopement photographer, which lets me be a part of such a special chapter in people’s lives! I really focus on holding space for however my clients what to celebrate, and supporting them on that journey, whether it is an epic adventure elopement or a rockin party in Denver.

I love combining the style of landscape photography with weddings and elopements, which helps me create really epic images showing off amazing love stories in Colorado’s landscape, but also the small, intimate moments of the wedding day. Each wedding or elopement has its own set of challenges, and really pushes me to better my craft each and every time I pick up the camera.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

With photography, I started small! I certainly didn’t have the amount of equipment I have now, and it definitely wasn’t top of the line. I took advantage of things like PayPal credit, financing directly through Canon, and also buying gear used to save. Initially, all the money I made from shoots went directly back into the business to upgrade gear.

I have always said that you don’t need the best equipment to be the best photographer, but it is important to make sure your equipment matches your level of experience and client expectation.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I really had to unlearn the scarcity mindset, and embrace the abundance mindset. This came out of coaching with McKenzie Bigliazzi, who really preaches this.

It is really easy in the wedding industry, specifically the photography industry, to think that it is oversaturated and that’s why you’re not getting clients. It’s easy to just fall back on that and let it be an excuse. But having the abundancy mindset, and seeing that there are enough weddings to go around, was hugely helpful for me and really helped me when I was starting out.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katiefletcherphoto.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/katiefletcher_photography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katiefletcherphotography

Image Credits
All photos are mine, including the headshot.