Who We Are (In Real Life)

But every story has a beginning, and the one that will give you a little more insight into who we are and how we became the two eccentric characters following you around like paparazzi at your wedding begins here.

We both started our own photography businesses around 2012. Laura was shooting families, babies, newborns and even tried a wedding a few years in. Eventually at that stage in her life, her heart was locked into births.

This is where Mary had started her photography journey, as a doula and birth photographer. A few years into focusing on birth photography and starting to learn videography, we both decided what better way to succeed than to join into one business! We were already talking and helping each other out a lot, and the market for birth photography in the Fox Valley wasn’t huge, so it made sense. From here, Laura had photographed Mary’s second child’s birth, and Mary went on to filming/photographing Laura’s 5th, 6th, and eventually 7th babies’ births…so really, how can you not become best friends when you are a part of such an intimate and important event in a person’s life??

Here is where we began to really start to fall in love with real-life event films. We were helping other birth photographers from all over the country with the storytelling and technical aspects of incorporating video into these births. However…we were also exhausted with the on-call life. As our kids were growing and involved in a lot more outside the home, our wandering eyes started taking in these amazing wedding films we were seeing from other filmmakers around the world. How…sick. To be able to tell the beginning of someone’s love story in a way that makes you feel like you’re at the theater, on the edge of your seat, wanting to see more.

Enter 2020. We all know the story here. Some of our clients who were having hospital births had to painstakingly cancel our services, because we wouldn’t be allowed in. And at the time…we had absolutely zero clue on when this policy would change again. This made our time and money invested into a business solely focused on births nearly impossible to keep running.

The time was now. Do we start a whole new business and try this wedding filming thing? Neither of us even had to think twice. Yes, yes we do.

We reached out to our friend Jen Harvey and asked her if she had any weddings we could tag along and “practice” filming to get a start on a portfolio. We’re forever grateful for this wonderful human (be sure to check out her website!). She had the most amazing weddings, the most amazing couples we could’ve ever asked to be a part of for our first weddings. And honestly, looking back, these are still some of our favorites, and we are pretty impressed with how we did! Take a look at this gorgeous couple, who we became lifelong friends with.

Just last year, they lost their precious 3rd baby boy just after he was born, and Mary was able to be there at the hospital for them to photograph all of their first and only moments together with him. Thinking back to when Laura lost her 2nd baby after she was born, to how that kickstarted her entire photography journey, to how and when our birth business closed and wedding business started, to who was in place for us at just the right time…talk about a plan and purpose for everything that creates such important, full circle moments like these.

There’s so much more to our story – chapters we’ll share as we go. For now, we’ll leave you here. Until next time, friends.