We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anthony & Jaclyn Velez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anthony & Jaclyn below.
Alright, Anthony & Jaclyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?
We actually started our business the opposite way–the execution came before the idea was fully fleshed out. About five years ago my mom, a talented wedding photographer who has since retired, suggested we look into getting a photo booth. She had noticed them growing in popularity at weddings and birthday parties. We were a young married couple with two small daughters, and we’d just purchased our first home. I was an operations supervisor for a mortgage lender, and Anthony was a pizza maker at a local restaurant. My mom thought that investing in a photo booth could be a good opportunity to supplement our income.
Initially, I said no. There was no way we could take that on! With 2 kids, 2 dogs, a house, and 2 full-time jobs, we had very little free time. But where I’m a realist, my husband Anthony is a dreamer–a born hustler who thrives off embracing challenges. He was confident we could do this, and his optimism was contagious.
And in a way, it made sense for us. I had a very strong customer satisfaction background, and he was the life of every party. I had always dabbled in art and web design as a hobby, and Anthony had a knack for making people feel comfortable and carefree. We decided I would handle the sales and customer service part of the business (as well as design our website, logo, business cards, etc) and he would be the face of the business, lifting the heavy equipment and attending the event to ensure guests knew how to use it and were having a fun time.
In the spring of 2018 we took a loan out against our only car and ordered our first booth. It was a risky move; if we couldn’t turn a profit to afford the loan, the bank could repossess our vehicle. Our business is named after a hat that our firstborn Cecilia, who was 18 months old at the time, loved to wear and play with. I don’t even recall where it came from, but it said “LOL Srsly?” on it and she loved it — hence LOL Seriously Photo Booths was born.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Because we grew our business right alongside growing our family, our brand is rooted in family-oriented fun. In those early days we had a lot to learn about the booth equipment and it’s software; I had to teach myself Adobe Photoshop in order to make the personalized strip designs that come with every booth rental. To be quite honest, we didn’t know much — but we damn sure knew how to show people a good time.
Even before we were married, our house was a hubbub of activity. We were always the place our friends and family could stop by unannounced and be welcome; and we hosted every Christmas Eve, Halloween and SuperBowl party.. We both wanted a big family, but five years of unexplained infertility delayed that a bit until 2016 when our miracle baby Cecilia was born. Cadence followed 18 months later, and I used the time I had during that maternity leave to really research our demographic, register our business, trademark our name, define our customer base, design business cards, create flyers and build our first website.
Six months later we learned I was pregnant again and Stanley joined our family in 2019. So our first year in business, we had 3 kids ages 3 and under. There’s entire support groups on Facebook for parents in that category, lol! Looking back now, I’m astounded that we were able to handle it all. I had 3 more miscarriages and 2 more children after we started our business — we now have 4 kiddos total (three girls and a boy). We have NEVER cancelled on a single client, and we were somehow magically able to schedule all my C-sections around our event schedule. We understand the importance of capturing our clients’ most important milestones.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of having the creative vision to build our business, is showing our children that it’s possible to provide for our family through total reliance on ourselves and our own innate abilities. It’s seeing ourselves through their eyes; knowing our kids are watching us prioritize family and togetherness while balancing the demands of the business. It’s the dream of one day not having to work for corporations that dominate our waking hours and dictate how we spend our time.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
My business partner is my husband Anthony, and we met back in 2011 when he tricked me into going on a date with him. Three years my junior, Anthony was a good friend of my brother’s, but our paths had never crossed. We met among mutual friends at a concert in Philadelphia. While everyone else was watching the musicians on stage, Ant had his back to it so he could talk to me. A few days later he invited me down the shore with a group of friends, but when he showed up at my house to pick me up he was alone. All of his friends had allegedly “cancelled” on him “at the last minute” but maybe they “would meet up with us later”. I had just gotten out of a relationship and had no interest in dating anyone. I told him in no uncertain terms that I enjoyed his company and liked him as a friend, but that I would NEVER date him.
“All good” he replied. “You’re a cool person. Friends is more than enough.”
Three months later, I stopped trying to fight it and decided to give it a whirl with this incredible human being to whom I could talk to about literally anything. We were married 4 years later.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lolseriously.com
- Instagram: @lolseriouslytampa
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/lolseriouslytho
- Other: TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@lolseriouslytho
Image Credits
Jaclyn Velez Anthony Velez Kathleen Popola