For starters, it’s absurd how long it took us to come up with a title for this post. Yesterday was my sweet intern, Tiffany’s, last day!! We’ve shared many doughnuts, long car rides, visits to Merritt’s Pasture and laughing until your stomach hurts fits over the last three months! I will miss her greatly in the office, but I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to teach her and get to know her. Tiffany is a wonderful person to be around. She’s a hard worker, knows how to make people feel comfortable and is a truly talented photographer. She aims to serve, and serve joyfully. The girl knows how to hustle and, as I’m sure many of my couples thought, she made wedding days just a little bit sweeter! She is a total gem, y’all, and I’m sad that her time as my intern is up! Today’s post was written by Tiffany herself, and I hope you enjoy reading about her experience working alongside yours truly and what she’s up to next!
Please don’t make me leave!!! Yesterday was my last day interning for Emily and while I am so thankful for the time I spent with this job, I am so not ready to go! These past few months went by really fast, that’s for sure. Working alongside Emily has nudged my 18-year-old self a little bit more into the real world, and I can’t decide how I feel about it. When I started this internship, as I’ve said before, I thought I was going to be a pack mule and (if I’m lucky) an occasional second opinion. But as much as I’ve wanted to hop right into her business, Emily has allowed me to do so. She has taken me in completely transparently, not withholding anything that would edify me. She leads with so many awesome qualities that I now strive to have in my future career. Alongside her work ethic, she is the ideal boss. Being her intern is of first importance, but she never lets my real life become lost in the shadow of work. She is a genuine friend and influence that wants to speak not only to Business Tiffany but to Human Tiffany as well–and my, oh my, does she do it well.
When I first interviewed with Emily, I told her I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted a career in photography, but that I had always been interested in it. Years ago when I got my first camera, I was the giddy thirteen year old running around photographing flowers convincing myself I wanted this as a full-time job. But as I got older and began figuring out my deeper interests, the idea slipped away from me. The hobby of picture-taking had stayed active, but the pursuit of a career in it had died down. But after interning for someone so passionate and service-oriented in a creative career like this, I am beginning to rethink! Now, I have no idea if I will or could go into wedding photography, but this all reminded me why I loved the idea of it so much and it made the idea tangible. I still don’t know if I could do it, but I am so much more equipped to try. I have become much more interested in the creative industries as a whole, and am changing my major to advertising. Woohoo! I can thank Emily March Photography for that one.
If you wanted a generalization of what I learned, I could give you a really long list of bullets describing lighting, small businesses, interacting with people, equipment, etc. And that’s all helpful (obviously, because my shooting has improved so much), but it’s not what makes Emily’s business Emily’s business. Y’all, Emily is super cute and made me little powerpoints to teach me about different aspects of business and photography, and one day the topic was Branding. And I can’t think of a better way to summarize my time as Emily’s intern than to reteach what branding means. A brand, by definition, is a term or mark that separates one person’s product from another. It is one of the (if not the) most important aspects of a business. People know you by your brand, and everything your business stands for is encompassed in your brand. Emily described branding to me as “the feeling someone gets when they’re experiencing your service.” With that being said, let’s talk about Emily’s brand. Have you ever experienced her service? If so, I’m sure you’ll agree with me here. Emily March Photography stands for a lot of things. Quality photographs is the obvious one. But in the execution of that, I know Emily March Photography to stand for fervor, service, truth, and encouragement.
Emily’s brand represents fervor. It’s been years that she’s been doing this, and she still gets giddy at every wedding. Each in-love couple makes her fall in love all over again–with her job, with love, with her husband (this one is my assumption). She literally squeals. She claps. She jumps. Her brand stands for excitement about her job and about her couples. She loves getting to know her couples, and she always feels like their friend by the end of the night. Her goal is to be warm and personable, and she makes it happen.
Emily’s brand represents service. The whole purpose driving her business is the desire to serve as Christ has served her. The way her business reflects how we should serve someone is beautiful. She does everything she can to ensure that her work channels into the wedding being the best day of the bride’s life. The couple always comes first, and she will do whatever she has to to serve them well with her gifts (even if that means going into tick-infested fields or standing on a rock on the side of a mountain). She sacrifices so that people can be blessed with the talent the Lord has given her.
Emily’s brand represents truth. She stands firmly on the truth of the gospel and mirrors that in all she does. She mirrors the idea of faithfulness–staying true to her word as a photographer and a friend. She believes in beautiful truths; she believes that marriage is a God-given gift that is lifelong, she believes in the glow of a bride, she believes in the power of vows. Her business is trusted because she has hope in a Truth that does not waiver.
Emily’s brand represents encouragement. This is my absolute favorite thing about Emily March Photography–that it encourages lifelong marriage. Anytime you ask Emily why she does what she does, she will somehow come around to saying that these vows are the most important commitments a couple will make to each other, and these photographs build a foundation for the two to remember them by. A thousand and one things will change on someone’s wedding day, and Emily March Photography gets to capture the total leap of faith that marriage is. It is Emily’s dream that a couple will be reminded of the sweet and steadfast love of a wedding day ten, twenty, thirty years down the road from her photographs, and that is beautiful.
As much as I’ve learned over these few months, I can honestly say that there is nothing quite like the idea of Branding. Knowing Emily as a boss and now as a friend has shown me that it is equally as important in your business as it is in your personal life to stay true to your claims. This knowledge will be invaluable no matter which career path I decide to pursue. Choose a mark, make it stand for something, and stick to it.
