Meet Danielle Blevins | Co owner/Lead Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Danielle Blevins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Danielle, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I think our thought process was very similar to most creatives. We both were tired of the day in and day out of a 9-5. We just felt stuck and unhappy with the thought of doing what we were doing until retirement. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There are many benefits to working that type of job as well. Especially when you’re considering things like health insurance, sick days, PTO. It’s just not a structure that works for everyone. When we both sat down and discussed it, we knew that for Andrew especially, photo and video had always been one of his biggest passions even in his childhood, and it was something that I had started to develop a love for as well. We decided towards the end of 2016 to dive into the wedding industry and see where it could take us and shot our first wedding for two of our friends in 2017 and began to build our business from there.
2020 was a challenging year for many, but for the wedding industry in TN the last half of 2020 and 2021 were two of the busiest years to date. I had went full time with the business in 2019 when our son was born. We decided to go all in and see what would happen in 2020 and Andrew went full time with ABV at that point

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I think one of the biggest aspects that set us apart in the early days was our video services. The market was already saturated with photographers in our area, but there weren’t as many companies offering video. Specifically highlight films. Our video services are what helped drive business and build our clientele, and over time it helped the photo side of our business grow too. We find that most couples like the idea of being able to book their photo and video coverage with the same company and being able to use one team for their day.

As far as challenges there have been plenty. Lots of learning curves along the way whether it be with how we structure and run our business, learning how to better operate our equipment, the editing process for both photo and video, How to better serve our clients, balancing work and home life. And those are all things that continue to challenge us because they’re always evolving as we grow and learn each year.

The main thing we both want everyone to know is how hard we’ve worked to get where we are. We’re a husband and wife that wanted to go through life providing for our family doing something we love and have a passion for. We’re both self taught. Any of the knowledge we have about running our business and how to produce the quality photo and video that we create are all things we had to teach to ourselves. The thing we tend to hear most from others is how nice it must be to have so much freedom in our schedules and not have to go to a “job” everyday, and yes of course those things are nice, but we’ve had to put in a lot of time, hard work and effort over the years to get to where we are now.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We’re from a small town, but we have some beautiful scenery. We would definitely want to take you to a couple of spots that show off the mountains and we have plenty of locally owned restaurants and bars to try out in our downtown areas here in the tri cities.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I don’t know that I could name everyone that has played a part in our success, but the main two people that are coming to mind are mine and Andrews mothers. Running your own business is a challenge in itself, but once we had our son in 2019 it added another element. If it hadn’t been for both of them stepping up to be available to watch our son and now our daughter that we welcomed in November it wouldn’t be possible to do what we’re doing without paying some hefty childcare fees. Other friends in the wedding industry that we’ve made along the way and past clients that refer us and help keep our calendar filled.
We also want to give an overall shoutout to anyone that’s helped us along the way, whether it was just a word of advice for how to structure our business or education on how to better use our equipment in those early days. Even those small acts of kindness have played a part in helping us grow.

Website: www.abvweddings.com

Instagram: @abvweddings

Facebook: ABV Weddings

Image Credits
Danielle Blevins- ABV Weddings