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

Hi Jessie and Dallin, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

One thing that we’ve emphasized is having the knowledge to add flash to our photography to bring an additional artistic element. Many of our couples book us because of our creativity with lighting and flash, as well as our focus on bringing emotional elements into the photos we take. Although we don’t use flash in every photo, we do find ways to bring out certain elements in photos when appropriate.

Because we believe photos can serve as a reminder of memories and feelings of specific moments, we do everything we can to bring emotion into the photos we take. Doing this further helps those feelings resurface whenever our couples look at their photos. We’ve found ways to make photos capture a moment of real emotion rather than just “Now smile at the camera!” This has had a profound impact on our couples and their families.

Another focus of ours that is unique to our couples is a Reveal Session celebration after the wedding day! The first time our couples will see the photos from their wedding is when they walk through the entryway to our home, and see their wedding photos printed up on our wall. We use this Reveal Session to help our couples relive the emotions and love from their wedding day, which in turn can lead to further strengthening their relationship.

To us, the importance of using photographs to strengthen relationships is key. But after the wedding day, we wondered if there was a way that we could continue to stay connected with our couples. Recently we’ve started doing JD Couple exclusive group date nights, where our couples have the chance to do things that are maybe a little unique and different from your average night out. We’ve done cooking classes, candle making, curling, and paint class date nights with our couples, and plan to continue to do more! But more important than the actual type of activity that we plan, is that our couples and us have the opportunity to get out and do something together to strengthen their relationships and individual marriages.

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

Since high school, Jessie has been interested in photography. She took photography classes when she was in school and loved to be creative with point-and-shoot cameras. After we met while going to Utah State University, Jessie would take photos for fun of various things and started posting them on her Facebook and even submitted a few photos to Utah State’s newspaper for a photo contest and won!

About 11 years ago, right before we were married, our wedding photographer sent Jessie an email randomly. He told her how impressed he was with her personality and how perfect it was for wedding photography. Along with that, he told her how much he liked the work she did (we assumed he saw the work he saw on Facebook that she would post), and although it wasn’t technically there, he could teach her and polish her skills. The important thing was that her personality (which he couldn’t teach) was perfect and he wanted her to join his wedding photography team!

Jessie was so excited because this was a dream that she had for a long time – to be a wedding photographer! She emailed back our wedding photographer, accepting his offer to be a part of his team! Not long after, we received an email back from him that started with… “OOPS! I emailed the wrong Jessie! I’m so sorry!” However, he said that he didn’t believe in accidents, restated that Jessie DID have the perfect personality for wedding photography, and then told Jessie to buy a DSLR, and that he’d love to see the photos she took. Eventually, after sending him a few sessions and weddings, he made Jessie a part of his team.

After about 5 years, Jessie was teaching middle school and was pregnant with our first child. She wanted to spend more time with our new baby, so she decided to quit her teaching job, and we formed our own wedding photography business together. The two of us spent many nights devouring photography and business education, and have been working together as a wedding photography team ever since.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

When we work with couples, we develop a friendship with them. A few years ago, we started to organize date nights with all of the couples that we’ve worked with in the past. We try to do things that they’ve never done before, or something unique that they may not do as a date night on a regular basis. This includes making candles, going curling at the Olympic ice rink in Kearns, and doing cooking and painting classes. We’ve found that this has been an effective method for us to keep in touch with our couples and rekindle the friendships that we have with them.

Although our main reason for doing date nights with our couples is to reconnect and see them again while doing something fun, this has also helped us with developing our brand and loyalty to it. We constantly are told during these date nights from our past clients how they always tell their friends about us. It also allows our current clients that may not have had their wedding yet, to meet our previous clients and see the trust and relationship that we have with them, which helps us develop a relationship of trust and friendship with them as well. This trust is vital for us as their photographers so that they will open up to us and allow us to see and capture moments on possibly one of the most emotional days of their lives.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Too often today photos live in places where they are never seen. Couples will invest $1,000s on their photography and often will keep their photos stored away to never be seen again. They are stored as 1’s and 0’s on a hard drive, disc, or phone. The few photos that we do see have to be printed out and displayed somewhere. We do everything possible to help our couples use their photos throughout their lives. From the very first meeting with our couples as potential clients, we show them how photos can serve as what we call “disruptors”.

Disruptors are things that take you out of the day-to-day routine in life and are designed to take your mind to a specific place or time to relive moments. When taking photographs, we use specific wider focal lengths that allow the viewer of the photograph to feel like they are in the moment that is happening. This feels much different than using a zoom lens to zoom in on a couple or a moment. Because of this, when a couple sees one of their photos, they will again feel like they are right in the moment when the photo was taken.

We encourage our clients from the first time we meet them to use their photos to be disruptors by hanging them up on their walls, and in albums that they have easy access to in their homes. As they do that, the photos from one of the greatest moments of their lives, will surround them and affect them on a daily basis.

This combined with our commitment to date nights with our couples shows the passion we have for strengthening marriages and relationships through photography.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jessieanddallin.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jessieanddallin
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/jessieanddallin

Image Credits
Headshot of Jessie and Dallin: Kali Poulsen Photography The rest of the photos: Jessie and Dallin Photography