We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anna Treimer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anna below.

Anna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

If I can make the wedding industry even just a little bit better and more inclusive than when I found it, and know that I made enough of an impact for at least some couple to feel accepted in the ways I haven’t experienced then it will all be worth it.

Anna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Anna (I use she/her pronouns) and I own and run Wildly Connected Photography. My passion is photographing and serving the LGBTQIA+ community on their wedding or elopement day by providing a safe space for them to be with the person they love and feel free and safe to express that since I am also a member of the community.

I photographed my first wedding almost eight years ago now and initially started photographing very traditional weddings. However, since accepting who I was and coming out of the closet, I started to realize how many times it felt like weddings weren’t safe spaces for myself or for the community. I started dreaming about my own wedding day and realizing that if I were to get married, I would want someone who could understand me and my partner and make us feel safe. I felt like there was still a lot of gaps in the wedding industry in that way and so I wanted to shift my business to serving the LGBTQ+ community. Not only that, but I hope that by doing this in my business I will also be a positive influence for change across the industry.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Every morning when I’m starting my day, I have time to think about my goals and to also reflect on my why. During this time, I always think about how if I can change the wedding industry to be even just a little bit more inclusive than when I first started working in it that will be huge! Also, thinking about all of the queer couples out there that have to still deal with so much fear and uncertainty in their own lives, I just so badly want to create an environment on their wedding day that will make them feel as though they never have to worry about being judged or feel unsafe. I know what it’s like to feel unsafe as a queer person and I want to minimize that for my couples as much as I possibly can.

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 how to interact with and treat queer couples. I know that may sound odd considering that I, myself am part of the community- however, I grew up in an extremely conversative Christian background that told me that gay people were living in sin, and even though I knew I was gay I hated it about myself and it took me a really long time to accept it. Because of that, I was never really with or around the LGBTQ+ community until very recently in life. I remember shooting my very first queer wedding and freezing up on poses all day because I realized that even though I was queer, I hadn’t seen queer relationships modeled in my life and so all of my poses fell through because they were based on straight relationships. In the past year I have unlearned so much about how dynamics have to be in relationships and learned so much about how beautiful queer relationships are. I have completely changed how I pose and interact with couples and it is honestly been such a beautiful journey of unlearning heteronormativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wildlyconnectedphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildlyconnectedphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WildlyConnectedPhotos

Image Credits
All photographs taken by me! @wildlyconnectedphoto