We recently connected with Rhiannon Bodine and have shared our conversation below.
Rhiannon, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
“ We’ve talked so much last night and today about how much we LOVED you and Eric being so much more than photographers at Maddy’s wedding. Never realized before how integral to mood and morale the photographers vibe was! Many times I appreciated your intentionality when it came to ensuring Maddy got her special day the way she planned it, down to the dancing, and if your ears were burning today, it’s because we were all raving about you after we got done picking up all the tables and chairs!!” -Mary, Mother of the Bride
Rarely do wedding days go according to plan, but sometimes they go completely off the rails. The weather in Kansas is always temperamental, but especially in October, when you have no idea if it’s going to be eighty-five and sunny, or snowing, or if it’s going to be like Maddy and Gabe’s wedding day. Forty-five degrees and a torrential downpour.
Maddy had spent months planning every single aspect of her wedding day. Every single detail was thought through, from her custom made and engraved wedding rings, to her carefully crafted bouquets, to the hundred year old chairs for the ceremony, she knew exactly what she wanted and had planned accordingly.
Few brides expect rain on their wedding day, and when it started pouring shortly after we arrived, Maddy, like any bride, started panicking. Even though Eric and I had spent the morning taking detail shots and scouting locations around a quaint cabin in the middle of the most gorgeous pasture for first looks and couples portraits, we had a decision to make. Wait out the rain, or pivot. Queue a montage of us with the help of some very kind bridesmaids moving furniture, taking down curtains, and trying to let as much light into the tiny sunroom as possible. When we had finished, we had just enough space for our pre-ceremony first looks. Alternating between keeping Gabe under a lean-to outside out of the rain, and keeping Maddy away from the windows. We managed to pull it off. Thank goodness for the advent of cell phones.
After snapping a few quick portraits of our couple, we made a point to kick everyone out of the cabin and give them a few minutes to talk and relax before ceremony time. At this point the rain had mostly let up and we managed to stand under the lean-to and get some bridal party shots.
With forty-five minutes to ceremony time and little hope that the rain would stop entirely, a decision had to be made. Everyone wanted to know if this wedding was happening or if they would postpone.
Wedding days are always stressful, but when you have parents, grandparents, siblings, and your entire wedding party, asking you to make a decision on moving your ceremony under some kind of shelter or maybe postponing your wedding entirely, it very quickly becomes overwhelming and stops being about you marrying the love of your life and instead trying to please everyone else.
This is where we come in. We stole Maddy and Gabe away under the guise of pre-ceremony portraits and gave them time away from everyone else to make a decision based on what THEY wanted to do.
Maddy was determined to get married, in the spot she chose, on the day she chose, everyone else’s opinion be damned. And let me tell you, we were here for that energy.
We were slated to get started at 3:00pm. It came and went, everyone was dressed, everyone was ready, but we were missing a key member. Maddy’s dad was no where to be found pre-ceremony. To the point that there was very brief discussion about starting without him.
As we began lining up the wedding party to begin, Maddy’s dad pulled in driving a 50s Chevy that they had been working on together for months. He had spent the entire day, trying to get it running, so that she could make her grand entrance in the truck she loved.
I’m not big on miracles or magic, but that truck running felt a lot like both. Things had started to fall into place, the rain had mostly stopped and it was shaping up to be a beautiful, albeit soggy, ceremony.
With our cameras wrapped in grocery sacks to keep out the drizzle, we captured their sweet ceremony and all of the special touches Maddy had planned including branding a board with her and Gabe’s custom cattle brand, a combination of the brands from Maddy’s family and Gabe’s family.
Around the time Maddy and Gabe were saying “I do” it starting POURING and I don’t mean a little bit, it was raining buckets and our bride was unphased. Not just unphased but giggling. The family formals and post ceremony portraits were all taken during the downpour. With groomsmen stepping in to hold umbrellas over our cameras so that we could shoot.
After the ceremony, we caught the last bit of sunlight for a few portraits of Maddy and Gabe dancing in the rain.
As the evening wore on, our bride was once again feeling down, about things not going according to plan. It is tradition in her family, that her dad picks the first dance song for his daughters and surprises them with it on their wedding days.
It was pitch black, and Maddy had given up on first dances entirely. We decided that was unacceptable. We conspired with Maddy’s mom and sisters to get the string lights on and got Maddy her first dances. Her dad chose the theme from Curious George for the sweetest daddy daughter dance I have ever seen.
At the end of the night we were sent home with lots of hugs, love, and Maddy’s moms homemade ice cream.
The Hight’s and the Allen’s are so special to us as photographers and as friends. We have never worked quite so hard at a wedding as we did at Maddy and Gabe’s but we also have never felt so loved and appreciated.
Going the extra mile for our clients is our favorite part of the job.
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
We are Velvet & Ivy Photography Company and we want to shoot your wedding.
We are made up of photography duo, Eric & Rhiannon and we specialize in intimate weddings and elopements for couples who love each other a ridiculous amount.
We got our start in photography after our own elopement experience in the mountains with just us, our sweet boy, and our photographers, Cass and Ty. We saw how much they loved shooting with each other and how they had made a career out of celebrating love.
When we returned to Kansas, we started shooting on our first DSLRs and began cultivating relationships with our couples. We are constantly striving to give our couples images that trigger tactile memories of their day.
We shoot documentary style images, with minimal posing. We never want our couples to appear as anything other than they are. We are here to capture and showcase the love as it happens. It is our hope to give couples photos that they can feel.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
For us it’s all about creating a genuine personal connection with clients. We want our clients to have a lasting impression of what it means to work with us.
Remembering things about our clients, like birthdays, anniversaries, and familial anecdotes really allows us to continually cultivate relationships not just through photography but also on a personal level.
Our client experience is also designed to let our couples know how special each of them are to us and is chock full of personal touches.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think the thing that has helped most with our reputation is putting our money where our mouths are. We advertise as photographers willing to go the extra mile and we really are.
From climbing a frozen waterfall during elopement scouting, to shooting in a downpour, to a sub zero engagement shoot in a blizzard, to almost having a heat stroke mid ceremony in August, we actively go out of our way to give our couples the perfect wedding day.
When, as a photographer, you are willing to put yourself into uncomfortable situations to ensure that your clients are getting everything they want from their shoots, word starts to get around. Word of mouth has gotten us more clients than any amount of marketing ever could
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Image Credits
Photo of Rhiannon and Eric was taken by Hailey Rose Photography