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

Ashley, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I was a college athlete. With that being said, we weren’t allowed to have jobs, but I still had bills to pay so I had to find a way to make ends meet. I was in the Radio, Television, Film pathway and I absolutely fell in love with my documentary story telling class. I wanted to know how could I do that for the rest of my life and bring joy to people. I picked up photography as a hobby at that point and I was using it to make some extra money on the side.

Some big rollers were in town one weekend and I went downtown with my camera to see fi I could capture anything good. From there I ended up meeting a wedding photographer who told me all about this industry and invited me to shadow them some time. After my first wedding I was IN LOVE. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about this sooner. All I wanted to do was tell stories for the rest of my life and what better place to do that than the wedding industry? Every person and story was significant and different and I never looked back. From there, I kept trying to create new experiences for people in order to tell stories on a different level. That’s where videography, boudoir, and mini documentaries became available in my service packages. I’m always looking how to do more. And there will be more to come!

Ashley, 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?

Well… My name is Ashley, let’s start there. I am absolutely obsessed and in love with life and the human experience. I’ve always thought people were so interesting and entertaining. Their behaviors, their personalities, the way they react to things, but more than anything, the relationships and love they share with one another.

I got into film and photography as a way to learn about all the different types of people, but also, to document it. I feel like even in this super connected world we live in, we are still separated into our bubbles. Most of the time our bubbles consist of people that are very like-minded. While that may be comfortable, it’s not as vibrant and fun as it could be.

By documenting these weddings I am capturing stories of people from all over the world and the one commonality between everyone is always the power of love and how they share it not just with their partner but everyone around them. There isn’t anything I can think of that is more powerful and moving than that.

I offer photography and cinematography services to people during their wedding journey and sometimes even afterwards if they choose to start a family. I create safekeeps to document milestones to reminisce on as time passes for these people and their loved ones.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come with this and it is exciting to see there is a community of people that feel the same way I do. It’s easy to get caught up in the hatred and anger of this world, but why would I choose to do that if there is a much more light-hearted way to go?

I want people to know I am a large part in your support system and I will cheer you on no matter what. We need more support in this world and I want to give it. I’m down to travel, I’m down to eat new food, I’m down to meet new people, I’m down to do anything if it means I can tell a story and be a friend to someone.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

That’s a great question because I’ll be honest, I didn’t start with any capital. I essentially continued to pick up jobs outside of my craft that I didn’t care for just to invest into myself. I would charge super low just to save up to invest into what matters. I still do that now. I’d do things for free just to put myself out there so I could charge in the future. I still do that from time-to-time now

I struggled for a little while, but when you really want something, it doesn’t feel as much of a struggle as much as it feels like you’re grinding. My only option was to succeed. There was never another option for me. If it meant I had to wait tables for the rest of my life to live my dream then I was going to do just that.

Money comes and goes. When you need it, you can go get it. When you want to exchange it, you can. money doesn’t have power unless you allow it to. The really valuable currency is time. Time is what matters. So if I have to spend crazy amounts of time now to save my time in the future, then that’s what I’m going to do.

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 had to unlearn that rejection is bad. I re-taught myself rejection was actually a good thing.

Rejection was something I had to get used to. It got to the point where I expected rejection and I prefer it that way. I used to fear reaching out to vendors and clients, thinking they would be annoyed with me, or reject my offers. And, while that did happen, the reason why I ended up appreciating the rejection is it made it so much easier for me to navigate to the ones that did want to work with me.

Those are the people and businesses that have helped to elevate me to where I am today. I will email 20 venues with the expectation to be rejected by at least 19 of them. I only am looking for the one venue that is interested in doing business. The other 19 have just made it clear that we aren’t ideal partners and that is okay. If out of that 20 I get more than 1 interest, then that really is just a bonus. If all 20 reject, then it’s time for another round of 20. It’s the mindset of constant forward motion that I have adapted to.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.browniephotographyproduction.com
• Instagram: @browniesweddings
• Facebook: @browniesweddings

Image Credits
Jennifer Preiss – Preiss Photography