Select Wedding Photography

I started this with no brand, no client list, no team and no money behind it, in one of the most crowded, referral-driven categories there is, where couples choose on trust more than price. Over roughly a decade it became a two-studio business across Toronto/Milton and Cambridge doing up to 750 shoots a year, which meant building demand from zero and then building a company that could deliver at volume without the work looking like volume. I owned strategy, marketing, sales, hiring, operations and the creative standard.

1. 01Built the brand from the ground up - name, positioning, visual language, pricing structure and the promise the whole business was judged on.
2. 02Ran all of the marketing myself: website, search, advertising, bridal shows, social, print collateral, email and the referral and vendor relationships that fed the pipeline.
3. 03Set the creative standard and shot the work, then wrote the editing and retouching rules so every photographer's coverage came back looking like one consistent studio tone.
4. 04Hired, trained and led a team of 20 across two studios - photographers, second shooters, editors, retouchers and client-facing coordinators - with systems for booking, shoot day, delivery and albums.
5. 05Managed the business side end to end: pricing and packages, sales conversations, scheduling across a full wedding season, vendor negotiations and the operating rhythm of two locations.

• Grew from a standing start to approximately $1.5M per year in net revenue
• Two studios and a 20-person team: 14 photographers, two studio managers and four editors, delivering up to 750 shoots annually
• Built a 300K+ combined audience and the full commercial engine: positioning, lead generation, paid media, publicity, partnerships, referrals and sales conversion
• Filled the calendar season after season largely through brand, search and referral rather than discounting
• Proved the pattern I still work in: own the brand, own the demand, build the team, keep the craft