We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Trey and Paige Swager a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Trey and Paige, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
Hi! Paige here. I have been immersed in family businesses since I was a child and it became normal to me to see my dad working on his business after he returned home from his day job- he later transitioned into running his business full time. I also had the privilege of growing up with a mom who grew and cooked food, mended clothing and the house, rebuilt furniture, and didn’t shy away from a hard task. Seeing my parents take on personal and professional tasks head-on built the foundation for my journey into entrepreneurship and running a family business with my husband. The shared joys of a hard day’s payoff on a job that you personally curated is incredibly satisfying. We can bounce ideas off of each other and provide timely insight into making our businesses work better for us. It is also a challenge to not “clock-out” and we are now strategizing on how to self-impose a hard stop to working or talking about work, although any small business owner can attest to the fact that you can’t always mentally check out of work when you want to. A lot of times it’s because we are always inspired to do more for our clients, be more for them, each other, and ourselves. Although our daughter isn’t even a year old yet, I see her helping out with the family business because it’s so natural to do. Kids want to help their parents and it’s something I grew up doing, but the important lesson to remember is that your kids aren’t automatically going to love what you do just because you do and they won’t necessarily have any interest in pursuing the skills that it takes to be successful in that specific area. My biggest lesson learned is that hard work and persistence will get you far and that if you’re open to a plethora of definitions of successful, then you surely will be successful.
Trey and Paige, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Trey has always had a love for story-telling and started learning filmmaking at a very young age and even had a commercial on tv as a teenager. He has since earned a bachelors degree in communications and film and has a wide array of experiences working in and learning film production inside and out. He has used this knowledge and experience to create Swager Productions, LLC, a production house specializing in telling your story, whether that’s in the narrative, non-profit, commercial, or documentary space and has become an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker in the process. We serve the Kansas City area and beyond. He started filming weddings when his friends were getting married and realized he enjoyed creating those films as well.
I (Paige) began second shooting and assisting Trey on his sets and eventually at a wedding. I loved it and we soon realized that I could better serve our clients by providing photography services. It was a big pain point in the wedding industry for couples to hire separate photographers and videographers and we could solve that problem by providing both! I took over Marigold Weddings and haven’t looked back. I so enjoy the work I get to do with my couples.
Together, we run both businesses. It’s hard work, but getting to work with incredible people and tell our clients’ stories in a compelling finished product is the legacy we want to leave.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I actually only thought of myself as a creative person, not a creative by trade. I went to college to go into a health profession, which is very science/ logic heavy. So, it’s been an interesting journey to talk about with my former colleagues. I have always enjoyed painting, singing, story-telling, building, and being in nature- which fosters my creativity more than anything- and picking up a camera was another way to not only be creative, but to master a technical skill. There is a lot of technical aspects to photography and videography, some could argue 80% technicality and only 20% creativity/ right brain thinking. Everyone is different in how they approach the world and I think having a good understanding of the marriage of technical prowess and the creativity that leads to a thought-provoking or emotional image is the best part of all. There is always a new skill to master or new creative concept to play with, and the continual learning about your craft, trade, profession, etc. is what we have in common.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
We went the route of “start small and go from there” many years ago. Our equipment was acquired with funds from day jobs and then the money earned was reinvested in the business. This process carries on today, although the profits now sustain us and our business. Early on, this meant becoming more savvy with less advanced gear so that the final product was just as good as those made with newer equipment. This period actually forced us to hone our skills so that we didn’t rely on our gear to make us better at our jobs, although we enjoy the best gear now and don’t take it for granted! Starting small was less scary than taking out a loan to go straight in to full time work, which allowed us to learn more about business gradually. Being great at your craft and running a successful business don’t always go hand in hand.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.marigold-weddings.com
- Instagram: @marigoldweddings_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarigoldWeddings
Image Credits
Marigold Weddings