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

Vanessa, appreciate you joining us today. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

I always try to go the extra mile for my couples, and that can be shown in the little things – like sending them a few printed images as a gift after their elopement day to enjoy in their home – or in the bigger things like I’m about to share….

As well as being their photographer, I am also my couples’ legal officiant (I work alongside my husband so we wear many hats!), and once, during the most intimate and heartfelt ceremony, the poor groom accidentally dropped his wife-to-be’s ring, and it bounced OFF A CLIFF. Like, gone.

At least, we thought it was gone…

The bride was an absolute champion and we pushed on through the ceremony and got them MARRIED. Afterwards, she got down on her belly (yes, in her dress!) and looked over the cliff: and there was her ring, settled on a ledge maybe 5o’ below!

There was no way we could possible get to it but I told the couple ‘Don’t stress. I WILL get you that ring back’. I then went on to organize a local rock climber to venture out to this middle-of-nowhere spot and retrieve the ring!

I think you can all imagine the level of relief and joy that must have brought!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I, alongside my husband Chad, am one half of ‘The Outlovers’. We’re an adventure elopement team: we help to plan, photograph and officiate super tiny weddings for all couples who find their deepest connection in the great outdoors. We take our couples out into the desert and mountains of Colorado and Utah to get ‘wed in the wild’.

Chad and I have always been a little alternative – we spent many years as full-time scuba instructors in Fiji prior to this endeavor – and we find it easy to be ‘different’. So, we love taking that attitude and using it to help others to break the mold and live their lives in a way that feels true to them. The way in which you get married MATTERS, and your wedding day doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s. After we eloped ourselves in South Africa, we KNEW we wanted to help others to do the same!

Choosing to elope is a brave decision and is often met with a lot of misunderstanding, even criticism, from loved ones. So, we think it’s really important that those couples have someone ‘in their corner’. We pride ourselves in helping couples break free from expectations and external pressure and create a wedding day that truly feels like ‘them’.

We also help couples to understand that eloping is so much than just dashing down to the courthouse on your lunch break, or running away to Vegas. It’s the most liberating blank slate, and don’t be afraid to dream big! Want to charter a helicopter and land on a glacier to share your vows? You can do that! Dream of flying off to Scotland or Ireland and immersing yourself in the romance? We got ya!

In practical terms, we know that planning even a small wedding – especially if it’s not close to home – can feel totally overwhelming, so we provide a LOT of support for our couples in the planning stages. We help them pinpoint the perfect location, whether that be a national park or a lesser known, off the beaten path hidden gem. We help them find local vendors to work with, we brainstorm fun activities for their day, we design a timeline etc. Essentially, we aim to make the planning process FUN, not stressful!

Essentially, we do this because we BELIEVE in it. Often we’re the only two people around when our couples share their vows, those most intimate of words. And that moment of raw vulnerability in an authentic environment we’ve helped to create, is everything.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I was actually fortunate and found these resources early on in my journey and they made ALL the difference: business goals that would have taken YEARS if I just tried to wing it, took months with this support.

Education, education, education! It’s crazy – and foolish – to try and learn everything yourself with no support. So, find educators you admire and trust and learn everything you can from them.

For me, that’s Maddie Mae of ‘Adventure Instead’. Her elopement business is everything I hope for our’s to become, and her education is unparalleled. She’s insanely smart, gifted at educating and, most of all, holds nothing back: there’s no ‘gatekeeping’, she shares absolutely everything she can to help you succeed. Without both her business/marketing and art-based courses, I simply wouldn’t have a business.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

‘You Are A Badass At Making Money’ by Jen Sincero.

We allllllllll have hangups about money: it’s a dirty word, a taboo subject and yet – if we’re honest – it’s totally essential for our happiness! Money = freedom = happiness.

We HAVE to recognise and break through these barriers if we’re to build a successful business, rather than romanticise the ‘struggling artist’. It’s ok to like money, it’s ok to want money, it’s ok to make a ton of it. Ditch the shame and the guilt and create the life you actually want!

This book was revolutionary for my money mindset.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theoutlovers.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/theoutlovers
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/theoutlovers