We recently connected with Chad + Tressie Zellner and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chad + Tressie, thanks for joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

Alright, story time. So we’ve been shooting weddings for about 15 years. Early on in our business I didn’t have a care in the world. We were traveling the country/world shooting weddings and loving every bit of it. Cut to a few years into our business and we have our first child. That moment changed everything for me. I went from not a care in the world to “omg I’m responsible to the wellbeing of another human” in a very short amount of time. I had never had that kind of abundance of love but also total fear of screwing it up. For years I found myself worrying myself sick and not being able to sleep. Inevitably, spurring on some premature grey hairs I’m sure. As a wedding photographer you never know what the next year will be like (IE 2020) and that not knowing was truly getting to me. What if we didn’t book well the next year and I can’t provide for my kiddo? The unpredictable nature of a freelance career hit me like a ton of bricks.

During a particularly rough bit of time where I was hardcore stressing about the future/business/etc. I was photographing a wedding. At this wedding was an adorable family. I remember snagging photos of them dancing on the dance floor. As soon as I became a parent certain things at a wedding instantly became more meaningful to me. The father daughter dance used to be just something to photograph and post baby I often found myself getting misty eyed behind my camera (curse you Tim McGraw!) Small moments like a guest family during a wedding day became far more important to me as a documenter than they were in the past. I snagged photos of a sweet family having fun on the dance floor and it was great.

In the following days we receive an email from the bride & groom that the mother of that family never woke up the next morning and were wondering if we had any photos of her we could share. Talk about an eye opening moment in my life that I won’t forget. Not only did it remind me of the importance of what we do but it put me in my place in terms of perspective. Here I was, alive, with breath in my lungs, and able to hug my kiddo. Why was I sitting here stressing over the future instead of soaking up the time I have. Perspective was something I learned that day and I’ll remember that forever.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We are Two Pair Photography, a husband and wife owned wedding photo team traveling non-stop for killer couples all around the world. We are passionate about telling people’s stories fully and authentically from a unique artistic standpoint, and having a BLAST doing it! We love LOVE and being in love! We are constantly driven to create imaginative and real pictures to stave away from boring with that which is systematic and contrived. We hold tight to the philosophy that people should be themselves fully and unapologetically, and try to live our own life in that way. We are fun, spontaneous, and see the world as our playground. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, are easy going, and really enjoy each other’s company. We are Shoot-o-holics!

Have you ever had to pivot?

Well the obvious answer to the most pivot inducing time in all of our lives was Covid-19 and 2020. We found ourselves majorly stressing with all the shifting of dates into 2021 which was already mostly booked out. In the end we learned that making it easy for our clients was the best route. We sent everyone a live calendar showing our available dates and said “if you choose on we’re open then it’s yours” and this worked out very well. Cut to 2021 and we looked at our calendar and said “omg what did we do” just due to the crazy amount of work that was crammed into that year. We pivoted majorly and made it easy for our customers and paid for it in 2021. It all worked out in the end, though, and we feel pretty fortunate. It could have been a lot worse.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met my business partner in High school. I asked her if she wanted to “make out” and she said no but she was really thinking “maybe?” We got married 6 years later and started a photography company together. We had no clue what we were doing. We never had any classes, workshops, and had never touched a camera before. We just went out, had fun, and learned as we went. That was 15 years ago now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://twopairphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twopairphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TwoPairPhotography
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/twopairphoto
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@twopairphoto

Image Credits
Two Pair Photography