We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brooke And David Pitchford. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brooke and David below.

Brooke and David , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

What has been the most important lesson that we have had in a job that has helped us today in running our business? Our answer might not be exactly what you would imagine. David and I have been married for 5 years now and have been running our business for 4 years! We met working together in the kitchen of our local Chick-fil-a. So I would say that an important lesson we learned is how we work so well together. I can look back on our chick-fil-a days and remember our kitchen manager always putting us together on a station because we simply had great chemistry. (Romantically and work-wise haha!) David and I’s love story is a bit unique: we met, one week later David told me I was going to fall in love with him and get married, and 10 months later we did just that! Ever since I had met David he had known that he wanted to own his own business and I always knew that we made such a great team. When I picked up photography as a hobby I convinced him to join me as a videographer because a.) it would fulfill his dream of being an entrepreneur and b.) we just naturally compliment each other so well and I knew with him by my side our business would thrive! So the overall lesson would be that David and I make a great team and we were made to be partners (as husband and wife and business owners!)

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

David and I are a husband and wife photo & video team and we capture weddings together full time! I (Brooke), have always loved taking photos. I love capturing the perfect moment that will encapsulate a memory to look back on for a lifetime. When I was in middle school I had a little digital camera that I would bring with me to document life. Then with the age of iPhones I was always snapping photos of our (now four) kids. I tossed around the idea of getting a professional camera but I just didn’t know if I could justify the cost of buying one. David, the dreamer in our relationship, convinced me I would thrive and bought me a starter camera. I started experimenting with my little canon t3i, learning the basics of shooting manual, and within one month I brought up the idea of David doing videography. At first he turned away the idea, “that’s your thing” I remember him telling me. But David had done some videography classes in high school, is a super creative person, he’s heavily influenced by music, and I knew we would thrive working side by side. So he decided to try it out… and of course he was a natural! David booked his first wedding one month after picking up a camera and giving it a go. Then we booked our first wedding together shooting photo and video and we realized this is where our passion was. We both consider ourselves to be hopeless romantics and so what better career path than documenting love stories for a living? And so we went from buying a couple of cameras to being fully booked for weddings within our first year of starting! We give all Glory to God for blessing our business and we truly believe this is where he has called us. Well, fast forward two years and while we were shooting a wedding I heard a groom say, “I never really realized that weddings were just big photoshoots”. That is a core memory for me because I thought about that comment a lot and it has completely changed how David and I approach weddings. Our biggest thing that we want our clients to know is that their wedding day is about their love, their union, and their celebration with the people they care about most. Their photos and video are centered around their day, their day is not centered around their photos and video. We take a documentary-style approach to shooting weddings so that our couples don’t feel like they are at a photoshoot. Now granted, there is a time and a place during the wedding day where we will pose and prompt, but we want the majority of what we are capturing to be raw, organic moments that couples can look back and remember as real memories, not staged ones. David and I LOVE love and we feel so honored and privileged that our work revolves around just that!

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I touched on this in an earlier question but David and I met working at Chick-fil-a. I (Brooke) was in nursing school and working part time and had been at that Chick-fil-a for about 3 years! David had gotten a job there and it was supposed to be a quick temporary thing as he found a different job but once we met it stalled his plans.. David convinced me to hang out with him a week after we met and I agreed on the condition that he knew we were hanging out as just friends. Well, while we sat eating custard at Culver’s, he told me that I was going to fall in love with him and we would get married….. and I told him he was crazy! But, he was right. 10 months after meeting each other in the chick-fil-a kitchen we got married!

How did you build your audience on social media?

Instagram has always been a fun challenge for me. I love sharing about our personal lives with our followers and interacting with them so that they feel connected with us. To anyone who is trying to grow their social media presence I would recommend consistency in posting, and opening up with your followers by being personal! I also always tell people who are getting into making reels to work hard on not caring what other people think about you. I have made reels where I feel “cringe” or “awkward” but I make them anyway! Instagram reels have been a game changer for growing our account and we have booked some amazing weddings from people finding us through our reels! One thing to remember is that there are so many amazing and talented photographers and videographers so you have to set yourself a part by being YOU. We have had clients who told us one of the big reasons they booked with us was because of our love for chick-fil-a!! People love to feel connected with you and you can do this simply by showing them who you are!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.brookeanddavid.com
• Instagram: @brookeanddavid

Image Credits

the first photo of David and I is by @Monetsphoto! The rest are all images of our work!