We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alayna Waddell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alayna, appreciate you joining us today. Taking care of customers isn’t just good business – it is often one of the main reasons folks went into business in the first place. So, we’d love to get a conversation going around how to best help clients feel appreciated – maybe you can share something you’ve done or seen someone do that’s been really effective at helping a customer feel valued?
In the wedding industry, hiring a photographer is a big deal. We are the vendor you will spend the most time with on your wedding day AND often a lot of time leading up to it. It is one of the major investments for your wedding day and it is how you will look back on your day months, years, and even decades into the future. Because of these things, I don’t take my client’s choice of me and experience with me lightly.
I learned so much about the importance of showing clients deep, intentional care very early in my career through a photography business course I took with The Heart University- an online entrepreneur education shop. Since taking that course and continuing to build my business, I have prioritized care and appreciation of my clients by making their experience feel as organized and stress-free as possible. For most people planning weddings, this is the first time they’ve done it, and because of that, it can be a very stressful experience with a lot of unknowns. I LOVE coming alongside couples to hear their vision and goals and help sort through how to accomplish them. If I am hired, it is super important to me to show my appreciation by being hands-on throughout their entire planning process, wedding day, and even after. My clients can feel at ease, knowing I am by their side fighting for their priorities, happy to support them throughout the process.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi there! My name is Alayna D’Aunoy Waddell and I am a Louisiana and destination photographer specializing in events, weddings, and couples. I lean heavily into a documentary/observer approach, wanting to photograph you, your day, and your people in their most authentic form, stepping in to direct as minimally as possible. I don’t want your day to feel like one long photo shoot, I want my presence to feel a lot more discrete. I find that approaching events and weddings this way allows for me to catch much more raw and real moments and keeps my clients out of a ‘performer’ mindset so that they can fully enjoy the moment.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I have always been a creative and tried all kinds of art forms growing up. I knew I wanted to pursue a creative career but struggled to figure out what that could be. In high school, I started playing around with photography as a hobby and quickly grew to love it. My senior year I decided that I wanted to pursue it as a business but was nowhere near jumping into it full-time. Over the next few years, I worked part-time jobs to pay the bills as I continued to learn more about what it would look like to make my photography into a business and taking on any clients I could get.
Over the past three years, I have spent a lot of time second shooting weddings with different photographers to learn more about the wedding industry and getting a behind-the-scenes look into it. This helped me narrow down my niche to what I was most passionate about- events and weddings. I thrive being able to step back and play an observer role and have found that to be a huge benefit in this industry.
Gaining as much info and knowledge as I can about how to run the business side of things well and making personal connections with people who turn into clients over these past couple of years has finally allowed me to make the jump into full-time photography this past summer! It has taken a lot of time, effort, and commitment (and some minor risks) to get to this point but it has all been worth it. I love what I do and it is such a joy and blessing to be able to do it full-time now.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
As I said before, I have always been the creative type and knew that was something I wanted to pursue. Photography has become a passion from that and has allowed me to turn a creative passion into a sustainable career. But my true goal and mission is to use the skills and opportunities I’ve been blessed with as a way to honor the Lord. As a Christian, that is my goal in all that I do and I hope to point people to Christ and how he has loved and cared for me through how I love and care for my clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://alaynalouisephotography.com
- Instagram: aly_louisee
- Facebook: alaynalouisephotography
Image Credits
Alayna D’Aunoy Waddell
Alayna Louise Photography