Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Grace Trexel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Grace thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry.

The wedding photography industry is full of trends, Pinterest boards, and endless ideas. In the past few years since COVID really, the wedding industry has changed in a lot of ways. As far as wedding photography styles go— film is everywhere, and everyone loves it. Many photographers have started incorporating digital videos and photographs from simple point-and-shoot cameras from the early 2000s. Flash is used more often, even in spaces that are well-lit or outdoors to just give the image a bright, clean, refined look. Motion blur still works, and so does grain, but editorial posing and creating interesting depths of field in photos with the subjects not simply standing next to each other has become very popular.

Everyone wants to call themselves a documentary wedding photographer or an editorial photographer. The word documentary is heavily overused. A lot of brides are drawn to a more candid, real style of photography right now over an ultra-posed approach. This is my personal style, and I love shooting that way. However, not everyone understands what goes into structuring a wedding day or the mindset that the bride and groom have to have to get the photos that they want out of their day.

As far as aesthetic wedding trends, serpentine dining is everywhere this year. In addition to lily bouquets, pops of red, neutral drapery, bridal minis— which are always a favorite, all clothing inspired by vintage fashion, and pops of color.

Wedding trends, as far as types of photography coverage that clients are looking for— there is still a swing towards smaller, more intimate weddings instead of traditional large 200+ guest weddings at big venues. Along with that, though, welcome event coverage has become very popular the day before the wedding for the rehearsal dinner. These welcome events are lavish and themed and almost as grand as the actual wedding day in a lot of ways.

Grace, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Grace Trexel Photography has been my pride and joy for the last five years. I built it from the ground up and have shot over 120 weddings. I was finishing up college in 2020 when the pandemic hit and the world shut down. Always dreamed about possibly getting into wedding photography, but it seemed very scary at the time. My education and everything I knew up to that point about photography was with the Photojournalism lens. In May of 2020, when everything was still shut down, I had friends who were graduating and did my first portrait sessions doing cap and gown sessions for seniors. I decided to give away a handful of free couple sessions over the summer to grow my portfolio, and someone asked me to shoot their wedding in the fall of 2020. I was giddy and scared and excited and nervous that someone would trust me with their actual wedding day, but this was literally the opportunity that I had been looking for, so I took it, and I shot my first two weddings by the end of 2020. I graduated college that December and decided to give myself three months before I started to look for a real job to see what I could do with photography. I made a goal of booking 15 weddings in that time. And dove head over heels into my business. I worked on my website, business cards, posting all of my work all over Instagram. By the time March came, I somehow had those 15 bookings. I decided to go full-time as a wedding photographer. I truly believe that God has blessed my business every step of the way. My community continues to support me, and I have had the best clients over the past five years. In 2022, just a year after going full-time, one of my photos was featured on the cover of the Nebraska Wedding Day magazine. I won a cover contest for my image,e and it was voted to be the best one of the winter/fall magazine issue for 2022. That was one of the greatest honors of my career so far, as I was just starting out in the industry, and it was a huge confidence boost. 2022 and 2023 were my biggest wedding seasons as I was doing associate work, having associates work for me, and shooting every chance I got. Fast forward to the past couple of years. I am now Mom to two boys, and I still get the privilege of shooting weddings on the weekends, running and continuing to grow my business (full rebrand in new website is currently in the works) while also being a stay-at-home mom during the week and raising my boys. It is the best job I could’ve ever asked for.

My style of photography leans heavily documentary. I love capturing emotion and delivering images to my clients that they can not just see what was happening, but also feel what was happening in the image b what are you doing My style is not 100% documentary as I make sure my clients have beautiful family portraits and portraits of themselves, but I always lean towards prompting my clients instead of posing them. I believe that the photographs that have the most meaning and significance are all of the real, in-between moments. Those are the photographs that, above all else I promise to deliver to my clients so that they remember exactly how the day looked, how it felt, who was there, and what they were doing, so that they can truly relive their wedding day over and over again as they view their wedding gallery. I get these genuine moments through my intentional process. I invest a lot of time into getting to know my clients, their stories, and what’s important to them about their wedding day to truly understand what photos are going to matter to them 40 years from now.

The main types of work that I do are weddings, couples, families, and branding sessions.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Grace Trexel Photography has been my pride and joy for the last five years. I built it from the ground up and have shot over 120 weddings. I was finishing up college in 2020 when the pandemic hit and the world shut down. Always dreamed about possibly getting into wedding photography, but it seemed very scary at the time. My education and everything I knew up to that point about photography was with the Photojournalism lens. In May of 2020, when everything was still shut down, I had friends who were graduating and did my first portrait sessions doing cap and gown sessions for seniors. I decided to give away a handful of free couple sessions over the summer to grow my portfolio, and someone asked me to shoot their wedding in the fall of 2020. I was giddy and scared and excited and nervous that someone would trust me with their actual wedding day, but this was literally the opportunity that I had been looking for, so I took it, and I shot my first two weddings by the end of 2020. I graduated college that December and decided to give myself three months before I started to look for a real job to see what I could do with photography. I made a goal of booking 15 weddings in that time. And dove head over heels into my business. I worked on my website, business cards, posting all of my work all over Instagram. By the time March came, I somehow had those 15 bookings. I decided to go full-time as a wedding photographer. I truly believe that God has blessed my business every step of the way. My community continues to support me, and I have had the best clients over the past five years. In 2022, just a year after going full-time, one of my photos was featured on the cover of the Nebraska Wedding Day magazine. I won a cover contest for my image,e and it was voted to be the best one of the winter/fall magazine issue for 2022. That was one of the greatest honors of my career so far, as I was just starting out in the industry, and it was a huge confidence boost. 2022 and 2023 were my biggest wedding seasons as I was doing associate work, having associates work for me, and shooting every chance I got. Fast forward to the past couple of years. I am now Mom to two boys, and I still get the privilege of shooting weddings on the weekends, running and continuing to grow my business (full rebrand in new website is currently in the works) while also being a stay-at-home mom during the week and raising my boys. It is the best job I could’ve ever asked for.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being a creative is simply creating beautiful, meaningful images. The texts and reviews I receive raving about their galleries when I send clients their 1000+ image galleries are worth every minute of the time-consuming editing process and all of the late nights working. When clients send me videos of them watching their slideshow of wedding day images and tears are streaming down their faces— my job was well done. Trust is also huge. When my clients trust me, my process, and my work, they receive my best work and images that truly reflect them, tell their story and a unique wedding day gallery. Being able to witness so many beautiful starts to people’s stories is the biggest honor.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gracetrexel.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gracetrexel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gracetrexelphotography

Image Credits

As a photographer, these are all my images. :)