Danfredo Is LIVE On Squarespace
Danfredo is a husband and wife team killing it in the wedding photography and videography that we had the honor to Restyle this year! Danielle and Wil have been capturing intimate moments on the most important day of people's lives for 5 years, and knew they were ready for a Restyle when they realized their branding wasn't reaching the people they wanted to reach. Their goal was to shoot for inclusivity of all types of people, and with their fun, colorful and modern branding and website design, they are doing just that!
"It’s not just a client relationship. We’ve made wonderful, lifelong friends by being with them on the most important day of their lives." – Danielle Rivera
CHECK OUT OUR Q&A WITH DANIELLE ABOUT DANFREDO'S RESTYLE
Danielle had so much wisdom to dish out about VITAL things in business: attracting your ideal client, networking & outsourcing!
See Danfredo LIVE on Squarespace
GO LIVE: WHERE DID YOUR PASSION FOR THE INDUSTRY START?
DANIELLE: We were very disappointed with our wedding photos. As a person who had no photography experience at all, we thought, “Wow, we ourselves could have done a better job photographing our own wedding in the moment while we were getting married.” It was tragic. We have no photos from our wedding basically. We had hired a friend, and we didn’t recognize the importance of hiring professionals for wedding photography and videography.
That lit a spark for us. We went out and we bought a camera and we started practicing as much as we could. I reached out to a bunch of New York based wedding photographers and I told them my story and asked if I could come with them and hold a light stand or call out family names during family portraits or really anything I could do to see what it was like to shoot a wedding.
GO LIVE: WHAT IS THE BIGGEST LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED IN YOUR BUSINESS?
DANIELLE: The biggest lesson that we’ve learned is the importance of networking with other photographers and vendors. We’re coming from a corporate background, so it was really important for us to leave our comfort zone and reach out to people. We would cold call people and introduce ourselves and say who we were, who we were about and get ourselves in front of as many people as possible. Otherwise, we would have had no other venue to do that.
Being a wedding photographer isn’t as glamorous as everyone thinks it is. We spend 90% of our time stuck behind a computer. Having people in the industry who are in similar situations that you can bounce ideas off of or meet up for lunch is so nice. It’s kind of like having coworkers in a way. If we didn’t reach out to people and form those connections, we wouldn’t have been able to be as successful as we have been.
GO LIVE: WHAT DO YOU WISH SOMEONE WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU WHEN YOU WERE STARTING OUT?
DANIELLE: Outsource! Outsource! Outsource! We were able to meet a lot of personal and professional goals this year because we finally let go of control of some tedious business things that we weren’t thrilled to do or very good at or things that weren’t using our creative energy effectively. We’ve finally let go of some of that. Just having time to ourselves and to focus on other aspects of our business has just been incredible. What’s the point of being self-employed of not having the freedom?
GO LIVE: WHAT THINGS HAVE YOU GAINED FROM RUNNING YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS?
DANIELLE: One of the biggest things for me that I’ve gotten from this business is the satisfaction that we are able to create something for people that we don’t have. We’re able to give back and we’re responsible for documenting people’s memories on that day.
Also, we’re very lucky. We attract amazing people who end up becoming very good friends of ours. We keep up with them and they live in our neighborhood and we got to barbecues with them. It’s not just a client relationship. We’ve made a lot of wonderful, lifelong friends by being with them on the most important day of their lives.
GO LIVE: HOW DO YOU INTENTIONALLY DISPLAY YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS IN YOUR PORTFOLIO?
DANIELLE: When I was going through selecting images for our portfolio, we were very intentional with the portraits that we picked. It’s not necessarily the best portraits, but everybody who comes to our website is going to find him or herself somewhere in that portfolio: all sorts of body types, different expressions of love, different races, and interracial couples. That was something that was very important to us. We wanted people to feel at home when they came to our home page.
GO LIVE: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO TAKE YOUR BRAND FOR A RESTYLE?
DANIELLE: We sat down and looked at our logo, our branding and our website, and it served us really well for the last 5 years. But then, we felt like it was a little bit too feminine. We are very loving, accepting of all people, races, sexes, gender identities, and cultures. We just wanted a brand that would appeal to everybody, one that was less feminine and gendered, and something that every single person could come to and feel connected with.
Congrats to Danfredo on their GORGEOUS Restyle! We wish you guys all the best in your business! Make sure to give them a follow as they go live and live their dream!
(NOTE: Responses were edited for length and clarity.)
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