Leveraging the Power of Collaboration to Grow Your Business

On this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive, our guest is Kelly and Renee. They are the owners of Love Letters Co., a wedding photography business and planning company. And what I love about these two is that they have been in the industry of wedding photography and photography for over 10 years. And so they really share what drove them to look to be partners or look to have partners and how to actually provide more value for your clients. By doing something like this. You know, this is the whole world of collaborations. You know, you guys, I truly believe collaborations are a great way for you to grow your business. So even if you're not looking to have a partner, this is a great way to kind of get your creative juices flowing as far as thinking about collaborations, as well as figuring out how to set yourself apart in a saturated market. So definitely stay tuned. This is a fun, raw conversation. We have this, they're in their place and I'm in mine, but they're together recording this. So the audio is not perfect. So just be ready for that, but I did my best to edit it, but it's such a good conversation. And there are so many gems and so many aha moments I think you will have. So be sure to stay tuned.

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host, Nikita Williams. And this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey. And on this podcast, you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business Beth thrives. You guys, I'm so excited about this episode. Like, you guys have no idea. I am so happy to have Renee and Kelly on from Letterskull. They are photographers, wedding photographers, and I am just in love with them. Like, I love their style, I love their personality. Um, I think you guys are going to love it too, and it's the first time on the show that I've had like a team on at the same time, so this is going to be exciting for you guys and for me. So So welcome ladies, welcome.

Hey Nikita, how are you?

Hi. I'm Kelly and I'm Renee and we are the co-owners of Love Letters Co., a wedding photography and planning company.

Awesome, oh my gosh, you guys are so sweet. So tell us a little bit about like your business and who you guys are.

Well, I would say we've both been in business for over 10 years now and the company Love Letters Co., we really just, as wedding photographers, we saw our bride's journeys and we loved being part of the journey. But a lot of the times we would get brides saying to us, "Oh my gosh, Kelly, I'm just over the planning process. Like I'm just kind of frustrated and overwhelmed." And we really wanted them to enjoy this journey, the whole entire process, all the way through to the wedding day. So that's when we kind of came up with Love Letters Co as a partnership between us, was not only taking our expertise in wedding photography, but having been behind behind the scenes for 10 years. We've seen it all, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and we wanted to embrace that and go alongside of our brides so that we can help them do a little bit of planning on the front end and then enjoy the process all the way through.

I love that. Oh my gosh, that's so true. I, you know, I did— I would say a stint. I don't know why I say a stint, but I, I did photography, wedding photography, a couple of times with my husband. We were more like lifestyle branding photographers, but then we, of course, people would ask us and we were kind of doing it as like a side hustle thing. So we were like, yes, everything. Um, but wedding photography is a beast. Like it is straight up a beast. I just remember when my wedding was there, you're totally right.

It's completely insane.

The brides are crazy. Um, because they just, they, they're all over the place, right? They have so many things, there's so many people pulling at them, and it can be so stressful. And you're just like, forget it. Like, I don't know how many times, even for myself, I was like, you know what, let's just go to the courthouse. I'm good with that.

Like, we get a lot of people doing that a lot.

And so that was why it was so important that we could create something more for our, our couples and everything like that, so that they could really enjoy that part of it, and they can enjoy just taking a breath on the day of and leading up to, you know, the whole thing. We want it to be special. And that's what I think we're doing.

Yeah, definitely.

I think you guys are doing that too. I can tell. I mean, if you go to their website, it just feels like that. It feels very comfortable. It feels like, oh, finally someone who gets it and can help me deal with all of this stuff. So I love, I love that. So I know I initially met Elsie with her photography, and then she introduced me to Love Letters Co. First of all, tell us how you came up with this business name.

Sure, so it's a really fun way that we kinda just brainstormed it. So I knew that we wanted to do a new venture, and Renee and I had been working as counterparts for a long time when I was pregnant over 2017. So my last couple of weddings into 39, 40, 40 weeks pregnant, Renee stepped in and just carried me, carried my company, just was there for me. And then as we went postpartum, I had to shoot a wedding 4 weeks postpartum in a different state.

Oh my gosh.

Yes, Renee jumped in, flew to Michigan with me, like a 48-hour trip or 48-hour adventure.

Yep, 48 hours we were up and back 'cause I had a 4-week-old baby, she has 2 kids and stuff. And anyway, so as I was like knowing that that this was where I wanted to go. I wanted to partner. I wanted to bring more. I wanted to do this stuff. And Renee had just been brought into my life at the perfect time, and I really feel like it was a godsend. And anyway, so I was listening to this song by Chris Tomlin, and it talks about when you look at the beautiful sunsets and beautiful sunrises in the sky, and of course we live in Florida, so we're all very familiar with the sunsets. It's kind of like God's love letters to us. And it really just prompted this thought in my head, well, how else do we write love letters? And sometimes I feel like when we're photographing our couples, that's our love letters to them, how we see them, how we see their day, how we translate that through our imagery. And so boom, Love Letters Co.

I love it. Yeah, I love it, love it, love it. That's such, you know, we have been in Florida for almost 3 years, will be 3 years and 2 months, but, The sunsets are like no— nothing else. Just the nature in general here is beautiful. And I definitely have— definitely appreciated God's creation even more so because of that. And so I love that you kind of incorporated that thought, like, you know, how can we bring something that's like that hug that you feel when you see that beautiful sunset to your clients? And I just love that you guys incorporated that into your business name. That's so awesome.

Thank you.

So tell me, like, what would you say is like your mix for your business? Like, what was Renee doing before and what was Kelly doing before Love Letters Co. like became this marriage that you guys have as a business?

So we were both running our own separate photography companies for 10 years each. So we both had that kind of experience. Behind, you know, behind us. Even prior to that, I was teaching for a while. I was a high school English teacher. Kelly was from out of state.

I lived in North Carolina.

She was in the Marine Corps. Like, she's done, you know, like, we have all of this, these experiences that have brought us to where we are. But we, we really, it's really just been a year that we've known each other and kind of made this transition. But we were both running our own companies. And I think one of the things that we always talk about is we both knew, Kelly and I both knew what each other's strengths and weaknesses were. So when we came together to create Love Letters, it's just been like, we've made this like perfect match.

I love that. So that took a little bit of like, Did you guys like plan it out? Like put it on paper? Like, okay, so this is what you guys— I'm watching their faces while I'm doing the podcast episode and their faces both went like, no. Okay. So like, so how did you like, did it just match? I shouldn't say magically, but did it kind of just fall into its place like that where you guys were like, hey, so I do have my MBA in entrepreneurialism.

So part of me did strategically align this. But I came to Renee probably about 3 weeks before this and I said, okay, if we're going to do this, I need— we brought our husbands in too. So our husbands are like our co-counsel, right? So we all sat around a bonfire and we just talked it out. We had real honest, hard conversations because when you go into business with somebody else, it is literally marrying them. I mean, we have a bank account together. Our Social Security numbers are together. Like it affects our lives, our personal credit, our children.

And everything.

So we had a real long, hard, honest conversation. And then we said, let's both go back to our corners and we're going to give it one week. And if you can't think of any reason in one week, and we both wrote down a list of like everything that could be scary, everything that could go wrong, we wrote it down and then we came back together and I said, I'm willing to jump. Are you? And she said, absolutely. So within two weeks, me, spent every day filing every single legal paperwork that we needed. We did all the filings, waited for our Sunbiz name to come back, we waited for all this, and then we launched at a bridal show. And if you've ever done a bridal show, it is already insane. But we had to come up with all of our new marketing, logos, website, legalities in 3 weeks and launch at a bridal show and never looked back.

It was just hit the ground running and that was it. And it's just been— It's just been so awesome ever since.

And we booked 5 brides at that bridal show. So if that is not saying it was meant to be, I don't know. I don't know what is.

Wow. Whoa. 5 brides. That's awesome. Like, that is awesome for like just jumping in and going for it and doing it. I love that you guys though took that week. I feel like that was like a really smart decision. I think sometimes as creative entrepreneurs, we kind of like just jump and we don't give ourselves that time to be like, okay, wait, Let me see this really, you know, does this make sense to me? I love that you guys really talk really openly about it and you brought your spouses in. If that's, you know, I think that's like you said, everything is commingled at this point. Like, you know, everything is together.

Yeah, it's so intertwined. It's not even like, it's just how it had to be, you know? And we're very big on communication. Like we, if you look at our phones, we laugh about this all the time, but most of the time it's like either we're talking to our husbands or talking to each other. So it's how we have to do it. It's how we have to run a business. But we started that foundation so early on of communicating. And we, you know, initially before we started Love Letters, we were trusting each other with each other's companies. You know, if I was going out to shoot for Kelly, I was shooting on her behalf. So I had to do a good job.

Right, right.

And it was nerve-wracking in the beginning, but it was also, you know, somebody saw what I could do and I know she feels the same way and trusts us enough to deliver a product that we can still put our name on and be proud of. So all of those things just mingled together to create something that is Love Letters.

Yeah.

Well, that's an awesome story. And I think that anyone who's thinking about partnering with someone in their business is something that you really have to, like it is, I totally, when you said, marriage. I was thinking that, like, it totally has to be like a marriage. Like, you straight up need some real talk. You might need some wine. Like, you need like a whole kind of like counseling kind of talk, like, let's get it out to make sure you guys are a good fit. Because if you're going to do it the right way, like building a business, you do have to do all those steps. Like, you have to put them, you know, you have to decide who's— who are you really committed to doing this business together? You know, you have to really decide if that's what you're going to do. So what inspired you guys though to create Love Letters together? Like you guys were both doing photography on your own, on your own world and kind of were working together, but what inspired you to do this? I know you were saying the brides and creating that, but was there anything else that really motivated for you guys to do this?

I guess that's where my business sense kind of comes in. And I think that As creative entrepreneurs, sometimes we don't embrace the business and the analytical side more. So I said to myself, in an environment that's oversaturated with new photographers coming on the market every single day, how do we stay fresh? How do we stay relevant? How do we stay above the bar? And how do we service our clients better? Because we are all about, as you can see on our website, it says love, service, and grace. We live those words every single day. So for me, I first, you know, I just, with being, having Renee in my life and thinking about how can we service brides better, it kept coming up and we kept getting the same compliments at weddings. At the end of the day, the parents, the brides were coming over and saying, "Guys, if we didn't have you, our wedding would've been a mess. Like you guys organized everything, you did the timeline, you did this, you did that. Like you're the best planners we ever had for not having a planner." And we laughed at it at first, but after it kept happening and kept happening, I said to myself, So I joking around said to my husband one day, heck, if I was never a wedding planner, or excuse me, if I was never a wedding photographer, I'd be a wedding planner. And he's like, well, why don't you add that in? I was like, 'cause I can't do it by myself. And so that's how it kind of came together. I said, how could we make, still be wedding photographers? 'Cause we absolutely love that. We never wanna give that up, but how can we add more value to our brides? And we said, we don't really wanna be like the full, like the crazy Kardashian wedding planners. We don't wanna be those girls, right?

Right, right, right.

Can we come alongside of our bride more? And so we came up with DIT planning. So DIT is Do It Together planning. So it's our bride relying on our years of expertise outside of the photography portion to help them get through the planning portion of their wedding and then enjoy the day today, enjoy the day together as the photographer, bride, stuff like that. So that's kind of where we added the planning onto the photography. To make love letters.

You know, it's so— you're so right. You're so— like, what you did was like identify a very important need because a lot of wedding— like, a lot of brides, like, they can't afford like the traditional wedding planner because it's so— I mean, nowadays it's so expensive. I mean, I've been married 11 years and I remember thinking about getting a wedding planner and I was like, yeah, no, can't do that. So, but. But I also remember thinking with my own business, with my husband, with photography, feeling like I, as a photographer, you are like totally timelines. You're like, you know, thinking about what it looks like in this shot, where are the pictures, what's the location. You literally are planning it, but you're on the outside of that. And so you guys really have identified a very unique piece in the business that a lot of photographers though will run away from because they know that it's a lot of work. Like you said, it's not a one-person job to do photography and even the do-it-with-you part of planning, because that's a lot of work. Like, that's no joke. Like, wedding photography by itself is like a two-man job. So you add that planning into it. I love that you guys have just really branded down and found that that is something that sets you apart. And right now in this world of creative entrepreneur business life, you have to find things that really set you apart. And I think you guys, you know, that's what I love about what you guys are doing because it really is doing that. And it makes it easier for brides, you know, it makes it easier for people in general getting married to like, okay, I have all-in-one, right? All-in-one set. Yeah.

And we, and we wanted people to, you know, not only on the client side of it, but also for ourselves. As, as business owners, you know what goes into running a successful business. Social media, that's blogging, that's updating the website, that's always creating content. And how are we meeting new people and getting new leads and everything like that? So I think that was the other inspiration behind getting together and creating this partnership was because doing it together with somebody with the same focus is so much more attainable to do all the things we wanted to do. You know, as individuals, we knew, okay, we have to do social media, we have to do XYZ, but getting together and putting it all into one where she does, you know, these tasks, I do these, we can manage a lot more and still give great service to our clients.

Yeah, that's a good point. I like that. That's a good point. So for all the listeners that are listening, like if you're thinking, I want to start a business, but I don't know if I want to do all the things by myself. Hey, you know, try to find a partner, someone that you really can trust and you feel like you really can rely on that way. And maybe that's a way for you to better serve or do that thing that you want to do. Um, so we're talking about all this inspiration though, but I know there has to be some like fears, right? Like there has to be some like, for real, like talk, like scary moments even before and during this kind of transition period for you guys working together. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

I would say that, you know, before I partnered with Renée, I had gone into a studio with a couple other photographers and ended up getting burned hardcore, like really, really bad.

When you say burned, Kelly, you need to explain that because some people would be like, what do you mean?

Burned in my eyes is I lost many— I lost a couple of friendships that had been years in the making. Economically, I lost the studio that I was in. I lost money because the fighting had gotten so bad that we just had to settle financially over that. And I lost some of me because I feel like I love to give back to people. And when somebody hurts you so badly, you recoil into yourself. And, you know, they say, you know, once bitten, you know, twice shy. So, but Renee and I actually talked a lot about that before we partnered together. And like I had kind of mentioned before, with even with all the apprehension of everything badly that had gone beforehand, I never, it never overwhelmed my heart. And that's how I knew that this was meant to be, that this was kind of, you know, a God thing because it never I never felt overwhelmed by the previous experiences. I only felt hopeful, excited, in anticipation of what we can do. So I guess while there was some bad separately, there never was bad here.

No.

And I mean, I think my fear or my— it wasn't even fear. It was just the unknown. You know, you don't know how it'll work out and everything. But with my company, you know, beforehand it was, it was something I had created. And I was like, am I just giving up on, on something that I created? And after I thought about it, I'm like, but this could be so much more. And in 5 months, 5 months, it has been so much more. So it's just like she said, it just kind of was never a fear. It was like once we made that decision, it was, it was just go. We don't look back. We don't say like, oh my gosh, what if, what if it doesn't work out? You know, it just, it has to succeed. It has to, it has to work because we're, we're in this now. We're partners. We're married.

We are married. We're married.

Mom Letters is our baby. So we shared this baby together and And we have to, have to do it. We have to make it work and we want to make it work because every week there's something new. There's something exciting that we're looking forward to. And, you know, we're always planning. We're always talking about blogs and what are we going to talk about next? What value are we going to give somebody next? So it just being creative and being able to bounce ideas off of somebody else is just It's just so much fun and it's so helpful, I think, in that creative mindset to just be like, well, okay, here's this idea. And then Kelly will be like, oh yeah, and then let's do this with it. And we just keep building and building in it. And it's just so much fun.

But we are women. And just to give your listeners some, some real talk, we are women and we do understand that being a great partner means that you need to embrace your weaknesses. And I know, and I will tell Renee, like, I I am weak at this. I can be snappy. I can get overwhelmed really easy. But as long as I acknowledge that and she can love and grace me through that and vice versa, that's— we both knew that we were able to take those and, like I said, we just keep going back to those words are so foundational to us. Grace, especially in a relationship, is absolutely necessary. And I am a terrible business partner some days. Let me tell you. You know, and so she takes the reins those days and vice versa where I can take the reins some days and that's what makes it successful. So if you had to give like one piece of advice to your listeners, if they were ever thinking about partnering with somebody, sit down and write down all of your weaknesses and see if that person will deal with it. Just like your husband.

You know, that is such a good point. And I would imagine too that Throughout, as you guys grow in your partnership, there might be other things that you didn't know you were weak in that you're like, oh dang, like you have to be ready to be like, okay, I accept that. And I'm going to just move on with, you know, like you said, have some grace there. It's so, um, I love that piece of advice of just like, you know, be honest with— it takes honesty, you know, with you, like yourself and with your partner to be like, hey, this is not my lane. I'm having a bad day. Things are not good or whatever the case may be and really rely on that. It just makes me think of like my mom and my grandmother used to always say to me, she's like, you know, when you get married— and I always change my voice when I start talking about my mom, I don't know why. When you get married, she would say, when you get married, sometimes a partner gives you 80 and you have to do 20. And if you do, you know, sometimes it's 50/50 and sometimes, honey chile, it's 100% and the other person is way down there. So it's like, I would imagine it's very similar for a business partnership. Like, you know, some days you're going to have really great days where you're like vibing like nobody's business, like it's like amazing. And then you're going to have other days where it's like, girl, why did we do this? But we're going to keep going, you know?

Right?

That's where we just, you know, don't answer our phones for a little bit. Take a half day off and we'll just reconvene in a little bit.

Yeah, we do. We take timeouts. We're not scared to say, Renee, I need a timeout. I just need a timeout for a minute.

I just need to go check myself here and go play with the kids or something and we'll get back to this in a second. Let's just table it and we'll just get back to it because you do, you have to, you're human. Something totally outside of business may have messed up your day and you just have to deal with that and that's okay. We're very aware of that.

Yeah, so that was my next question for you guys. I can't even imagine this. I'm thinking about this now because you guys have kids, each have kids, you're both married. It's not like y'all are all up in the same house together or anything like that.

That would be a great idea in the future. A commune.

A commune. It would be easier to conduct meetings.

Yes. But you guys, I ask this question sometimes, how do you balance life and business? And I would imagine trying to do that with two different people. Like, I mean, obviously you guys know that you guys work well together, but does your family work well together? Does your schedules, like with the kids and everything that's going on, like how do you find harmony and grace and all of that between those things?

Well, our schedules don't really usually align on the day-to-day because, you know, she has a 1-year-old son, Kelly does, and I have a 6-year-old and 3-year-old son. So we're, you know, her morning she's usually with the baby and I'm already halfway through my day entertaining my kids, you know, in the summertime. So it's, it's kind of that we have to work around that part of it.

We call it power hour.

Yeah.

So we'll be texting each other and I'll be like, hey, the baby's about to go down, can you get away from yours for a little bit and let's have power hour. So we try and have one power hour a day where we're actually actually focus on each other, focus on business needs. And of course we're texting all day long, answering clients and emails and stuff like that, but we try and have one power hour a day.

Just to focus in on what needs to be handled. And then, you know, throughout the day we get to, we're either Marco Poloing, we're FaceTiming, we're calling, we're texting, we're doing it all so that we're still getting things done. But we do try to do our power hours and are very efficient at them because we have to be.

That is awesome. Well, I think that power hour is pretty cool because that means you guys are getting a lot accomplished in that 1 hour.

Yeah, and it allows us to divvy up the tasks for the day too. So based on our strengths and clients and stuff like that, it just really helps us. Not even really— we're really saying, okay, this is what needs to be done, let's divvy it up. Okay, we can do this at our individual times. What do we need to do jointly? What do we need to do individually? Stuff like that. And I think also because we both value family so much, much. And because for both of us, success is defined by having that balance between work and life. Because you cannot be successful in work and have a bad life, and you can't be successful in life and have a bad career. So you have to have that balance between both to be really successful. And we both embrace that concept and we're able to kind of meld that into the workday as well.

Yeah, I like that, that point. Like, there, you know, everybody's balance or whatever in life and business, like, nobody's going to be the same. But as long as there's that harmony on both sides where you're almost like that seesaw effect where everything is kind of working together, then that's good. But if something's so off and it's throwing life off, then something we need to hold up, right? Like, I always feel like, uh, we need to stop, we need to put the brakes down, let's figure this out. Because you can't really— like you just said, you can't have that success without having that harmony between both sides of your life, you know, it's really important. So what are like, so what are some women or companies or things that like inspire you guys individually? So I'm going to break you guys up a minute.

Let Renee go first.

I was going to say, Renee, you tell me a little bit and then we'll get to Kelly.

Okay. So what women do I admire?

Yeah.

Probably one of them. I've been following her for a pretty long time, so Jasmine Starr would probably be one of my tops. And then I'll let Kelly tell. I know who she's gonna say, but she's also one of my top people.

So I would say that my, my definitely woman crush, my businesswoman crush, is Jenna Kutcher, obviously. You know, I think every female entrepreneur knows who she is. And I just value— I think again, she emulates some of the same foundations that we have in our business as far as like really service, servicing her customers, which is us. We're her customers, so we take that same service. So Jenna Kutcher is definitely my girl crush entrepreneurial-wise.

Are there any teams out there like that's like as a business for you guys that you were like, hey, you know, you know, kind of where we see ourselves, or you guys feel like we're doing something completely different and we're owning that?

No, we're crushing it.

Yeah. We only know like husband and wife teams, you know, that we follow stuff like that photography-wise, but we're, I think, a little bit different in the market with those two female entrepreneurs that wanna just wanna crush it, wanna do good things.

And we also wanted people to know that it's possible because a lot A lot of times females have this persona that we can't work together, we can't successfully because there's this whatever out there. And we wanted to like, you know, just take that stereotype and, you know, throw it in the trash because you, it is not about, you know, who you are individually. It's about who you can be together and whether it's male, female, female, female, male, male, who cares? Like, as long as you do that and you are out there for your clients, you can be super successful, right?

And you're creating like this amazing superpower. Like, I don't— like, like, I guess I think I feel like— I feel like it's like a superpower kind of thing. I mean, first of all, you know, yes, I get what you just said, like, man, you guys can be partners in business, whatever. But two women in a business, like, as partners is like a superpower. Like, women alone, in my opinion, this is This is obviously in my opinion, you guys. Like, so we have, I mean, the preface of this show is that we are crafted to thrive. Like, we are literally created to create amazing things. Like, we create people. Like, come on.

Okay?

Okay, so let's just be real about that. Okay, so secondly, you put two women who are just naturally born to create beautiful and amazing things. And work so hard and do the wonderful things, you put them together in the same space, like, superpowers. Like, Superman things happen. Like, Supergirl things happen. Like, they're amazing. And so I feel like we do— like, you just have to say— I think it's getting better. I think it's getting a lot better that there's a lot more, you know, women supporting each other. There's a lot less women shaming. I think we all got on the bandwagon jump on the bandwagon and are like, look, nobody else is going to lift us up. We got to do it for ourselves. You know, we've got to support each other doing that. And that's what I love about this partnership with you two, because you guys are taking your, you know, your weaknesses and your strengths and you're making it like amazing. It doesn't matter what, what you're good or what you're bad at, because together it's amazing. It's true.

It's very true. I call her the sweet to my salty. Like we joke around with our brides, but it's so true. Like it's like a yin and yang thing as much as, you know, we both look alike. We are, you know, we definitely can support each other in our weaknesses and empower each other in our strengths.

Yes, yes, yes. So what are some tools you guys are like in love with in your business that you're like, must-have in your business, especially as partners? Like, what are some things that you like couldn't live without between the two of you in your business as partners?

I would say that the one thing I would encourage anybody to do in business is have a CRM or client management system. Even if it's something that seems astronomical at first and you only have 5 clients, if you start it with 5 clients, you are setting the path to success. So our CRM CRM is Tave, and we absolutely love that, and we can, you know, send you a link if you need anything like that for your listeners. But Tave allows us both to have our individual logins but see all of our clients' information real-time, 100% easy. It populates down to our calendar, so we share a joint calendar. We can add, subtract things, see instantaneously what our clients have booked, anything information. It's just phenomenal. And what I love most about them is their customer service. They're there within an instant on chat features if you need anything at any time. So a CRM is 100% an absolute necessity if you are starting your business today or if you've been in business for 10 years. You have to have that.

What was the name of it again? Was it Tavey?

T-A-V-A-Y?

Nope, just T-A-V-E. Oh, T-A-V-E. T-A-V-E. Okay. I've never even heard of that one.

Yeah. There, I mean, there's a lot of client management systems out there, but Tave is phenomenal. I've been with them for about 3 years now. I had used just QuickBooks before and WeddingWire as wedding professionals. They're both amazing in their own right, but Tave is just next level.

Is it specifically for like photography, the photography industry, or just, is it more of a general I would say more creative.

It's creative. I think it's geared towards photography, but I think all creative fields could make it work.

Yeah. And I mean, even so more like they have templates for different types of businesses. So really honestly, just having somebody kind of, I guess, manipulate the templates or kind of customize the templates would be a better word for your industry would make it even better. But yeah, it's very much for a creative entrepreneur.

Cool, cool.

So I will definitely have that in the show notes, you guys, because I haven't even heard of them. Like, I always love asking that question because sometimes I'm like, I never heard of that. And I have done a lot of research for my clients and stuff like that. So I definitely will check that out myself too. So if there's one fun fact about you guys that you would like to share, we'd like to hear it.

You say fun or funny? Fun or funny.

Actually, let's do, let's do the funny one.

Funny fact? Oh my goodness, you stumped us with that one. Yeah, we should have been—

I think, I don't know, we always have fun, we are always doing funny things, we have our inside jokes. Trying to think of—

So if your clients were like to say something funny about you guys? Like, what is one thing you think they would say? Like, what if it's not funny, what do you think your clients would say that you're known for?

I mean, I definitely think our clients would say that they love how well we just mesh and blend in and just become part of the family with them. And I mean, it makes their day better, so I think they really appreciate this. Even so much that a mom sent us a personal thank you card because we bustled her daughter's dress. And we were doing it because it was, we needed to get in, we needed to get moving, we needed to get into the reception. So we did it to help her. But they just thought it was such an amazing thing that we would just reach up there and bustle that dress. You think it is nothing, but you know, to somebody else that was an amazing thing. And I think I'm super quick-witted. And poor Renee has to deal with that all of the time.

And I'm super sarcastic. So there's that.

I don't know.

We're just— we think we're funny in our own minds, I think. I don't know if everyone thinks we're funny. I love it.

I love it.

But we do. And we do— we have been complimented also on the fact that in our social media and everything like that, we show our real couples and everything like that. We don't just curate for like models and stuff like that. That's been something we've heard quite often is how much people appreciate the real, real people, real couples, real, real weddings and everything like that. So I think just back to like how we, we want to just empower other people and want other people to see the beauty in themselves.

What are some funny things coming up? Do you guys have some fun things coming up in your business or that you want to share with this?

Well, yes, actually, I think that we're really excited about doing, and I'm sure, like I said, this will be fine to talk about because we, we love the Collaboratory, the place that we're at right now, and they have such a great mission statement. Their whole purpose is to service an underserved community. So where the building is, everything they do is— the purpose is to, to serve an underserved market. So what they wanted to do was do like a photo shoot to show off the building and stuff, and and we talked about doing like a stylized shoot, which is very common for photographers. And then one day when we were brainstorming with the executive team here, I said to them, I said, you know, with your mission statement and just, you know, how we feel personally, I said, if we're gonna do all the time and effort to do a stylized shoot, what if we gave it away to somebody? Like, what if we did all of the flowers, the music, the chairs, the officiant, and gave it away to somebody who wouldn't otherwise get that chance to have a beautiful wedding? Yeah, that's what we're working on right now. We're working on getting vendor teams, looking for people to partner with us so that we can put on the most beautiful, you know, just aesthetically gorgeous ceremony, but also let somebody really be married during that time.

Wow, that is so cool. I love that. That's so cool. Yeah, that's such a great idea too. Like, you're gonna spend all that time, minus 12, Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, I love that.

We have a lot of things. We have some other things in the works. So we're always just adding. And like I said, we're always bouncing off ideas and working on new things, new projects. And in the meantime, photographing a lot of beautiful people.

Yeah.

That's awesome. Well, tell us where we can find you guys on social media and all that jazz. Like where can people go look you up if they want to book a session with you guys or want to check out your blog? Instagram, share that with us real quick.

So our Instagram is @lovelettersco_fl, and we're always on there, we're always posting, we're always doing our shenanigans.

If you want to see some ridiculousness, check out our Instagram stories. It is real life shenanigans all day.

We try to keep it real on on our stories there. So our website is lovelettersfl.com, and we do blog all the time as well. We try to do not only real weddings, real engagement sessions, add in the planning advice, and then entrepreneurial things that we really feel passionate about. So all the things.

Yep, and on Facebook you can just find us at Love Letters Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, ladies, Renee and Kelly. This is so much fun. Thank you for being on the show. I mean, this is great.

Well, thank you. We are so excited that, you know, to get to share our passion with you and your passions are amazing. So this is just such a great experience.

All right, ladies, that's a wrap for this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive. Thank you so much for joining me. Please share with your friends and be sure to like and subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. In the meantime, check us out at she'scrafted.com. To check out the show notes for all the goodies and things that we talked about, and there'll be links there for you guys. So in the meantime, just remember, you are crafted to thrive.