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

Brian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later?

I wish I started a lot sooner but there were several reasons why I was afraid to make the jump to a Fulltime Wedding Videographer. The first thing was this stigma with other filmmakers back in college that would laugh at wedding videographers because many of them had this image that weddings are not creative or they’re just filming that boring out of touch uncle dancing to the Macarena. I also had no clue what the industry was like so I assumed it was something that wouldn’t be a thing for me. So I was doing a little bit of corporate work and short contract jobs right after college, then I went into teaching video because I thought a full-time salary job would be easier. The problem is that it felt like I was working more for less income. Overall, I taught for 6 years and 5 of those years was teaching high school students (2015-2020). I had a habit of hunting for another job if I didn’t like where I was at, but the biggest challenge was living in the expensive Bay Area and seeing my paycheck after taxes which was very discouraging for me to go back to work. Since I taught video, there were a lot of expectations of me to go to after school activities to film events and I was getting overwhelmed filming for something I wasn’t passionate about. When I filmed my first wedding in 2018, I built relationships with other people in the wedding industry and I found out that it was very common for the average videographer to charge $3k-$10k and some are doing a lot more for each wedding. I kept wondering why I was filming after school sports, school rallies or other school events for free just to keep my salary job while teaching, and all these other filmmakers only need to leave their house once a month to film 12-15 weddings a year to make more than my income. Once I joined communities with other filmmakers in January 2019, I learned so much with the mentors I had and they really opened my eyes to what it’s like working in the wedding industry. There were also many florists, planners, photographers and other vendors that also provided guidance as I got my business started. Once I started booking a crazy amount of weddings in 2019, I actually had fun being around some of the best parties and filming people that are dressed their best. During the fall of 2019, I was getting even more overwhelmed doing both weddings and teaching high school. I eventually stopped going to those after school events because I started to prioritize weddings. It was very difficult doing both and I realized during 2020, that I may have to eventually move on. We had the unexpected pandemic, and it was just a good time for me to think about what I wanted to do in the next few years. Now that I look back, I wish I gave weddings a chance a lot sooner and avoided all the stigma from other filmmakers. Something that I thought was so cringe and boring, was the complete opposite. The biggest thing I enjoy about weddings is the freedom, I get to choose how much I’m worth, and the excitement couples feel after I deliver the film. The most important thing is that I get to choose how I can run my business, and I stopped listening to people that don’t run a business or that have no experience in weddings. It’s very heartwarming when my clients tell me how much they loved their video and some will even call me crying that it was amazing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

After filming so many after school events, we would share those videos to the entire school. I did a lot for the football team and one of the football assistant coaches asked if I could film his wedding. I almost turned it down because I was so overwhelmed with my full time teaching job. After he asked a few more times, I decided to do it which was in November, 2018. Then I continued back to work like usual. I stayed in touch with a few vendors during the next few months. During Christmas break, I joined several free communities online in the wedding industry to gather more information about wedding videographers. What was really important to me was finding something to film that I was passionate about and having more freedom. I then followed a lot of tips from some of my mentors and the first thing I did was create a brand on my social media sites as a wedding videographer and I used my first wedding film as my portfolio. I had so many other videos of school events, but I started to archive them to clean out my page. I realized my brand was very important. Even though I had so many great videos of many other events such as football games and school rallies, none of that mattered if I’m trying to get into weddings. I wouldn’t have been able to start this business if it wasn’t for many other wedding professionals that were willing to help me. A lot of them were willing to share business information with me because of the relationships I built, and it comes down to personality and how I treat others. After I built my brand, there was a local florist, Nicole from Averi K Designs, that invited me to a styled shoot. It was a collaboration with other vendors in the wedding industry where they hired models to get content for all of our social media accounts. When I was working on more weddings in 2019, it wasn’t just the quality of work that I needed to grow, it was also the personality that mattered. I have to get the couples and bridal party comfortable and loosen them up. Many couples and vendors would tell me they enjoyed my energy, and it helped them get comfortable when I was just being myself. I’ll be very honest that when someone books me, I’m not cheap. I can also tell you what sets me apart is also my gear isn’t cheap either. I hear too many times videographers’ files get corrupted because they went with the cheap camera or memory cards. I also make sure that when I get home, all my files are backed up on 3 different hard drives just in case something happens. I let the couples judge my quality, but the other part of my service is knowing how to handle the most difficult situations since we usually have to move fast at weddings and be ready to pivot if things do not go as planned. I’ve seen so much happen at weddings, it’s a live event, I always feel like I’m prepared for almost all of it.

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

We have social media, Facebook groups and plenty of online education to help people start entrepreneurship. It’s a lot easier to start a business now than it has ever been before. Before I started my business, I thought it would be more work to run a business than to have a salary job. With my experience, it’s been completely opposite. I have more time to myself and I can charge what I’m worth instead of letting a company choose how much I’m worth. I don’t need to wait for pay raises. I also thought I would be dealing with more financial struggles having a business than keeping a salary job, but that was also completely opposite. I have more financial freedom. Also, when I had a salary job, every time I saw other employees quickly get let go, or laid off, it always made me nervous that my position could be terminated any time. All it takes is for one person to not like the employee to just get rid of them, or someone to tell them the business is going a different direction or just tell them they will no longer need them anymore. With my business, I require a retainer during booking so if they don’t need my service anymore, I don’t refund the retainer. But look at it this way, I have filmed for more than 182 clients in the last 5 years, it would take all 182 of my clients to fire me for me to go out of business. A salary job just needs 1 person to fire the employee. We can easily make more than a teacher, doctor, lawyer from running a business in the wedding industry. I remember a few of my coworkers were telling me they didn’t know weddings were even a thing. It’s really not hard to make over $100k a year. It’s very common for a lot of filmmakers in the wedding industry to make a 6 figure salary and I know a lot of other friends that are doing well over $200k or $300k a year. You just have to decide how much you want to put into your business as gear, workshops, education or maybe in your retirement. When I was filming weddings in 2019, it was all extra money for me since I still had a salary job. I was using that extra money to either buy more gear or just pay off my car loans. I can say after that, I’m not paying any loans except my house mortgage which is completely affordable.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

If it wasn’t for me having a full-time job and living in a more affordable area, I don’t think I would have been able to start my business. I never took out loans for this business. I was living in the Bay Area as a high school teacher and I remember paying $3400 a month for an apartment and my salary wasn’t enough to start a business. I’m sure the cost of those apartments is much higher now because I moved out of there in 2018 while rent kept going up every year. When I moved to the Inland Empire in Southern California, I took a teaching job that paid a little bit more and the cost of living was much more affordable. I had a lot more money on the side. I already had a camera that I bought back in college in 2014 that was $3,000, and used that to film my first wedding in 2018 for $400. Social media is free, I created my brand using social media and ran Facebook ads. I spent $35 on my first ad and had my 2nd wedding for $1,000. That was enough money for me to continue running more ads. Then I spent another $50 and booked 2 more weddings for $1200. I continued to keep booking weddings during the summer and Fall of 2019 with the expectation that I might just pursue this more in the future instead of working a salary job. The ROI was much greater than I expected. Now I don’t run ads anymore since I established a reputation and my average wedding is around $6k-$8k but I will say I’ve spent a lot of money on quality gear and education which has probably been more than $50k in expenses these last 5 years and I hired a team to work with me at weddings so I don’t film solo anymore. Knowing what I know now, if I started this business all over again from scratch, I could rent a camera and start this business with less than $100.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://briangarciafilms.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briangarciafilms
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/briangarciafilms
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/garciabrian/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/briangarciafilms

Image Credits

All still images by Brian Garcia Films