All right, everyone, welcome back. Today we have Sony Pierre on the show from VBS Creations Photography. Sony, welcome. Thank you for having me. Yeah, awesome. Well, it's great to have you here, man. I'm super excited for this call. I've been a fan of your work for a while and yeah, just came across you actually on Instagram and just wanted to reach out because you do a good amount of weddings. A pretty seasoned wedding photographer. How many weddings do you do a year or so, would you say? So right now due to the fact that I only started freelance in April. So from April to now, I'm at about 60 weddings. Dang, yeah. So not even a year. Yeah. Yeah, good stuff, man. And you're pretty booked a good amount for next year too. Awesome, awesome. Well, cool, man. So you started in April. So how did that go? What made you get started and everything? Yeah, I mean, so my background, I was in the business industry for wireless telecom company, but on the side, I was always helping different business owners, sporting events, when it comes to anything media. It could be photography, videography, soundboard, anything that either had to do with a camera, video camera or XLR. I'm on it. But in April, I just took that faith and I said, hey, I'm going to do this full time. And when I say full time, I'm going to make this primarily what brings revenue into my household and what consumes most of my time. And yeah, I just went with it. Awesome, man. Yeah, it's quite the journey then. It sounds like you've, so you do both photography and video regularly? Okay, yeah. Yeah. So how, what made you go into wedding specifically and is that a majority of your work or how does that work? So one, I love capturing people, specifically just enjoying life. And the best enjoyment of life is when two folks come together to become one, right? I would say right now when I started, 80% was just weddings, right? But now it's kind of like 60, 40% weddings and then the other 40% is like commercial portraits, stuff like that. Got you. Got you. Yeah. I think that's really cool. Just wanting to capture people on pretty much the happiest day of their life for most people or for a good amount. So yeah. So how do you, I guess in terms of your style and how you approach weddings, talk to us a little bit about that. How you just, when you're doing a photo, video, how do you kind of approach the day? Yeah. So an eight day wedding with VBS, I'm very family oriented, right? So I make sure people get to know me before the wedding. I think the wedding is actually prepared when I'm having, like before we got on this call, I just did a meet and greet. I think that was the most important part of the actual job of the wedding. Me getting to know them and them getting to know me because that allows me to know one, are they going to like how I operate as a business owner, right? And then two, am I going to like how they operate as individuals, right? So that's the key because once I get to the wedding, they don't have to worry about their photography or videography. I'm not getting a text. Then I ask them, hey, can you make sure you capture this? No, because they already know what my work and what my mentality and how I operate looks like, right? But by the time I get to the wedding, by the way, signing on my wife is my second shooter. So by the time we get to an eight hour event, where we start our day off just capturing details. It could just be the core. I might have a drone up in the sky capturing the area if it's an outdoor event or if it has a very specific type of venue, right? So then we transition into the getting ready shots, things of that nature. And then we go into the ceremony. Normally I'm mainly focused on the whole layout and me personally, I have my second shooter focused on the bride, right? Because I think the wedding is very more, I don't want to say more important to the bride, but there's specific, you want more captured of the bride, right? Because more for them is better than less, right? I know because I have a wife and she wants more and I'm going to give my wife more. So I already know to give my clients more, right? So that's how the ceremony, any imperfections before the ceremony happens. If I see things not going to look right in the picture, I might address it to the coordinator and things like that. And then boom, we keep it going. Then we transition to the venue. Most of my weddings now before the, whatever is happening at the reception, that's when I'm doing the bridal party shots, the portrait session for both for the bride and groom. And then that's when we go into the next program capturing everything. So what's cool about how I operate, I mostly shoot on a gimbal because that gives me the flexibility to want to take pictures of course, but then transition into video, right? And then my second shooter is just mainly photography. So that's pretty much how I operate. I make sure I get a lot. I'm all about more content. I don't care what it is. If someone's working with me, more content is better. And then when I'm editing, I'll scrub through it and then go from there. Yeah. More content, the better. Yeah. I like it. So you do both, are a good amount of your weddings both photo and video that you're doing together? So out of all the weddings, probably only three of them, I just did photography. Okay. Wow. Yeah. So a lot of folks, I mean, one, they like the fact that it's a one deal package. And folks just like how I lay out everything, especially with my photo story kind of lines up with the videography story. So makes sense. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That makes it easier for couples, I think, to have to have just one person, especially after having met you on a call and they know you, they like you and the trust is there. So yeah, absolutely. Well, cool, I guess. So in terms of, you mentioned you like capturing people and that's a big thing for you. What's maybe a moment or two that there were maybe one of your favorite moments at a wedding or at a wedding that you were capturing? Any specific moments stand out that you really enjoyed? I think one wedding I did in Raleigh, North Carolina, MMA fighter. Doesn't matter, he might be the baddest, the biggest, whatever. But when he saw that bride hit the corner of Black Park, it was tears of joy. Right. And being able to capture that, what was cool was I was able to capture that whole layout since it was in a park from a drone and able to pull out pieces. So I have his facial expression and then I have that pieced out with her walking and cutting across the little greenery of the park and knowing that they have a video and pictures to repeat that. They look at that over and over and over again. That's priceless. That's awesome. And then the second one was my first wedding. My first wedding was like after, there wasn't even a piece of that. When I was done doing that wedding, I was like, I'm going to do this till I can't pull a trigger on the camera anymore. Because the joy and knowing that they get to relive that moment through pictures and video, that was very heart-failing for me. Yeah. Yeah. Content. It's more and more content as much as possible. That's great. Cool. Well, I know it's been, we're almost out of time here, Sony, but I appreciate you joining us. If I could ask one more question, I usually like to ask at the end. Any, maybe a word of advice for a couple who is planning a wedding, who's looking for a photographer or videographer both, any advice for someone who's maybe in that process of planning it and looking for that? Yeah, that's a very good two things. One, don't make a decision of who's going to capture your date just by going by the price without even just meeting somebody or talking to them, getting to like, yes, they might show you their work, but I think it's very key to have some type of interaction because that's huge. And then the second thing I would say is it kind of ties into the first one, but this day is going to be a story that should carry on through your life and through generations, right? If you look at it that way, you're going to pick your photographer and videographer based off of that. Because you would want your kids, your grandkids to be like, wow, look at this image. Wow, look at this video. They're exactly like this to the date. So if you go by those two principles, you're going to land not only the right photographer or videographer for you, but you're probably going to have that person that does other genres of stuff that's going to become your family photographer. It's not transactional anymore. Yeah, for sure. I think not just looking at price, but definitely looking at the quality of the work and what are my kids and grandkids going to see or going to think. And that's not something that 20 years down the line, you're not going to remember that $500 that you saved or that $5,000 that you saved. That's nothing at that point. But yeah, for sure. I think that's so important to reiterate also to a lot of couples, because I mean, you know how it is too, just in today's culture, you just were in the habit of just finding the cheapest thing, most value, most cost to value ratio. And so I think with weddings especially, it's really good to be able to speak about that and to explain your value to couples also. Love it, man. Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you for joining us. I will link your website, your Instagram and everything down below so people can find you. And where are you? Where are you based again? I am based in Virginia Beach and I cover everything from North Carolina up back to my hometown in New Jersey, South Jersey. Gotcha, South Jersey, all the way to North Carolina. Everyone's Sony Pierre, VBS Creations Photography. Thank you again for joining us today and we will see you all soon.