We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kyle + Izzy Kurczewski. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kyle + Izzy below.

Hi Kyle + Izzy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

This is such a sweet question with a very special story! The name of our business is closely tied to our story. We met while working at a summer camp back in 2018 working on the media team. We kept in touch as friends after the summer but didn’t have romantic feelings for one another until the second year working at camp in 2019! This second summer Izzy was a counselor and Kyle was on the media team again, so our paths didn’t cross as easily. I (Izzy) decided to write Kyle a letter. We didn’t want our relationship to take away from the mission of our jobs nor did want campers to focus on staff relationships, SO I hid the letter underneath the doormat of the media team office. Once I saw Kyle, I told him there was something for him underneath the mat. He responded with “What is it? Is it a boat?”, obviously as a joke. Boats continued to appear in different ways in our relationship. Even when Kyle proposed, he taped a photo of a boat in the ringbox. In 2020, Kyle was working a 9-5 that was draining him. He knew he was put on this Earth to create. He decided to take the risk of going full-time into photography with Izzy joining his side. We knew we wanted to name of the business to have a symbol instead of our names. Something that would stick in someone’s mind. We kept thinking about what would mean something to us and then Sailboat Media was born!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi friend!

We are Izzy and Kyle and we make up the married wedding photographer and filmmaker duo, Sailboat Media! We are based in Ohio traveling the world to capture all love stories: couples, engagements, proposals, weddings, and elopements. The calling we have on our hearts is to serve and love people well in a season of change, emotions, hardships, and celebration!

Kyle: I have had a camera in my hand since the age of 8 and haven’t had a question in my mind about what I was meant to do since. I used to make fun videos with my friends growing up and once I graduated high school I knew what I was called to do hadn’t changed. After jumping around to temporary media + non-media related jobs and second shooting weddings for five years, I didn’t know what was next for me. I was working a job that drained my creativity, and I felt called to take the risk of leaving my 9-5 during 2020 to pursue my passion: stories. I’ve always been drawn to the career of directing and making a story come to life. Sailboat allows me to do that!

Izzy: My love for stories started when my grandma passed away when I was in fifth grade. The reason stories stuck was loss, hardship, sacrifice, forgiveness, friendship, and love all started to make sense to me through storytelling. From there I made videos in Windows Movie Maker, went to a career center to intentionally study Interactive Multimedia in high school, and then went on to study Digital Media Production with a film concentration at Kent State. I’ve had a handful of media-related jobs, including a Photopass Photographer at Walt Disney World. After graduating and getting married, we jump-started Sailboat Media together and it has been the sweetest dream job I didn’t know I wanted.

Both: When we were getting married, we did not have a clue on how to plan a wedding, as many engaged couples don’t either! Your life changes into learning to navigate decision fatigue, unsolicited opinions, financial challenges, and more. We have been there ourselves and that is why we serve couples. We want you to have a resource and two people who will love you unconditionally to navigate this new season of life!

You will never just be another wedding to us. We will see you. We will care deeply for you, your wants, and your needs. We will notice when your body language changes during family photos because you need a snack, water, or a moment to sit. We will notice when a family member is overstepping a boundary and pulls you away for a moment to be alone. We will carry your lipstick in our pockets for touch-ups. Your wedding gift from us will be curated based on what makes you, you. We will help you create a timeline that allows you to have quality, slow moments together to laugh and connect. We will advocate for your desires. We will be your biggest cheerleaders for not only your wedding day but for your marriage! When a couple looks back on their wedding day, they are especially going to remember how they felt and our goal will always cater to that.

Going along with how you feel, a lot of couples may fear being in front of the camera! We felt that way on our wedding day which is one reason we are intentional to create a space for our couples to feel comfortable and emotionally safe to be themselves. We use prompts and movement that will create not only authentic emotions but also allow time for you to connect with your partner and loved ones. We will never tell you to fake laugh. We want you to feel that real joy yourself. We will never tell you to stand there and smile. We want you to have a natural joyful moment with your lover!

Another way we promote slow-living wedding days is every package we have has no time restrictions. During our final meeting with our couples, we will establish our arrival and departure times. We have seen this work time and time again. Our couples don’t have the pressure to sacrifice what they want captured on their wedding day because we will be there for them. We only offer three packages: photography, videography, or both! On top of that, if you book us for just photo or just video, you will have both of us. If you pick both photography and videography, you will have a team of four on your wedding day with each of us leading a second shooter we select from a curated list of creatives we trust. This has helped minimize stress for our couples. Human connection is worthy of being shared and you are no exception!

We deeply value intentionality, relationships, and connection inside and outside of our business. We will never just be your service provider, but your new friends and double date companions. We are with our clients on average 10 hours on their wedding day. We are basically honorary wedding party members! If you have a camera pointed at you all day by two strangers, you may not feel comfortable being yourself. We nurture the bond we create before the wedding day through consistent communication, an engagement season, and a minimum of two coffee dates with genuine conversation. The vendor-couple relationship matters because it does affect the outcome of how you feel on your wedding day and how you remember your wedding in years to come!

You always hear “My wedding day went by so fast. I don’t remember anything!” Couples deserve to remember their wedding day. We are intentional to create a client experience where you can indeed cherish and remember your wedding day. When we got married, we reminded one another the whole day to “take in this moment”. Now we do this for our brides and grooms. You are so loved and you are worthy of feeling that love on your wedding day.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Our answer is a little outside the norm but for creatives: study cinema, fiction books, and the human connection all around you! Studying films can help develop your composition, directing, lighting, and so much more. Studying fiction books can develop how you can visually create a scene in your mind and romanticize the client experience. It can also help you understand different human viewpoints and the way different people think. It is a difficult task to capture a couple most authentically if you’ve never had the time to see how real humans interact and connect. Keep being a student of your craft and keep connecting with others!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Our reputation just came from us showing up to love others selflessly! We show up as our authentic selves whether in person, on social media, etc. We meet people where they are in life and allow them to have the space to show up as themselves too. That kinda feeling sticks with a person!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sailboatmedia.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sailboat_media/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailboatmedia
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sailboatmedia
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Sailboat_Media/