Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer & Joe Mackey

Hi Jennifer & Joe, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?

Haha, where do we begin? Like a lot of folks out there, we were both relatively fresh out of college just starting out in our careers. At the time Jenny was a high school teacher and I was a counselor. We fast forward a few years into our careers, middle management was getting old quick for me, and Jenny actually got laid off from teaching, which was crazy because that was a career path we always thought was in demand. Throughout these beginning years as full time working adults, we started the side hustle for a photography business. This is something Jenny always had a passion for and had been doing personally since she was young. I didn’t have a background in photography or art like she did but I was someone who understood people, and always had an appreciation for art and photography. Having a wife who knew her way around a camera to show me the ropes was helpful in getting started. When she was laid off, she had three months of severance pay which was key in giving us a little confidence to make the crazy jump I’m about to tell you about. One of the first places we had vacationed to as a young married couple from Florida, naturally was the mountains of Western North Carolina. Every time we got a three day weekend, we hit the road for higher elevations. We had always talked about retiring there one day. When she got laid off, we had the crazy idea, what if we took our chance now? I had recently started the journey of personal development reading from many great and successful minds like Tony Robins, Darren Hardy, Brian Tracy, etc. This all sort of culminated at once for us, and we decided we were going to not only make the jump to NC, but also pursue a career as full time wedding photographers. We figured out quick after a few years of side hustling in FL, that where we thrived with a camera in our hands was with couples and families. We thought, new home, new state, new careers! Or at least I did. We both had a great passion for the work we were doing, and thought how could would it be if we could do this full time and work for ourselves? Naturally like most relationships, one person is glass half empty and one person is glass half full. Though Jenny had her initial doubts, I had already put together (yes pen and paper) a 12 month road map of our success plan. Everything we did day and night would somehow help us move closer to our goal of becoming full time wedding photographers. Our goal that first year was to do 25 weddings. We ended up shooting 53! We exceeded our expectations and it set us on trajectory that has us where we are today. After 5 years in Asheville and launching two successful photography business (our brand and our associate brand) we had finally gotten to the point where we felt like we could pump the brakes to enjoy the fruits of our labor a little bit. We planned a road trip with our friends Megan and Jesse. We were going to travel out west and camp at tons of national parks, and ultimately renew our vows as long as capture Jesse and Megan’s vow renewal. Who would’ve known that trip would be so impactful on this continued journey. After posting one of our vow renewal photos on social media, we had one of our couple’s reach out and ask if we would consider doing their engagement session there? 2 weeks later, we were back out west in Jackson, Wyoming capturing their engagement session and wondering to ourselves when was the next time we could plan a trip out here!? For a few years to this, we had been saving up as we thought it would be cool to take a month off once per year and rv-ing across the country. The idea clicked that what if we took the camper to Jackson Hole and camped there for a couple of months so we could work and enjoy the beautiful area we had fallen in love with. Then, 2020 happened and camper prices went through the roof. So, we decided to keep saving to make sure we had enough. When we were close to pulling the trigger, we were astounded at how much it was going to cost per month to live in one of the local camp grounds. We decided we would take what we had saved up and find a house we could fix up and live in during the summers and air bnb through out the rest of the year. 4 years later, here we are on our 3rd summer in a row living in one of the most beautiful places in the entire country and running another successful photography business. Much like NC, there are so many talented photographers in our area so we were over the moon to have hit the ground running plugged right into this competitive market. Now we own and operate 3 separate photography companies, we’re serving 80-100 couples per year for their special day, and we’re making a ton of meaningful connections along the way!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Big picture, I would say yes. But when you’re in the midst of the day to day, there are times it can feel like it’s a bumpy road. Like many business owners just starting out, we had a lot to learn and to this day we still find ourselves learning and adjusting as we go. Probably one of the more challenging times I can remember was when we had just moved from FL to NC and it was our first month living in our new apartment. We had already burned through most of the little we had saved up, and used our last couple of checks to pay our bills. Jenny had two new jobs, one as a part time retail associate, and one as a technology assistant in the county school system. Needless to say neither paid much, I was in that weird rotation as new employee where you end up missing the first pay check cycle. On top of this we had first and last month’s rent due, had to pay triple the pet deposit that we anticipated, and we were worried. Here we were doing what we thought were all the right things, and this still happened. I guess it probably should’ve been expected as we were both young in our business minds and were probably a little naive. Thankfully through a lot of praying, and continuing to put our best foot forward, we were able to get a few bookings in that first month that helped give us a little cushion where we could breathe, but that feeling of not knowing can definitely throw you for a loop.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?

We are wedding & portraits photographers. We specialize in weddings, engagement, and surprise proposals! I would say the thing we are most proud of with our business is the relationships we’ve developed with so many of our couples and families. You realize quickly how much of an impact you can have on people’s lives. In short, we preserve memories for future generations and we have a lot of fun doing it. I would say what sets us a part from a lot of others is that relationship piece, our work itself, and our use of creative lighting in our work. The relationships go without saying, but as you can imagine, we are fortunate that a lot of our couples refer us to their friends or families. With our work, everyone’s style can vary but the feedback we constantly get from most of our couples is that they love the genuineness, the artistic perspectives, our ability to incorporate the environment and general how our work just looked a little different than everyone else’s. Usually where that difference can come in is lighting. While we always strive to have a balance approach when it comes to documenting weddings & elopements, lighting is one thing we’ve always put a big focus on.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?

What matters most to us is that our client’s have a great experience. Now that can look different for each and every person but at the end of the day we want our couples and families to feel welcomed, valued, and warm excitement to see them and get to know them. This matters most to us within the realm of our work because we remember how our wedding day felt and we wanted to change that experience for the couples we work with. Our work has been a constant pursuit of that ever since.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jacksonholephotographers.com and www.yourjcmphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcmphotographyjacksonhole/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jcmphotographyjacksonhole

Image Credits

The photo of us was shot by our talnted friend: JL Roberts Photography; The rest of the images were captured by us, JCM Photography – Jackson Hole