We’ve had the opportunity to get to know Cassie through Showit over the past few years and not only are we big fans of her work, we’re also big fans of her heart for the creative industry. Cassie organizes ALL the styled shoots at United each year and when morning sickness made me too sick to teach this year, she even taught mine!
She’s one of the most positive, cheerful people we’ve ever met and we love getting to see her every year at United. So you can imagine how excited we were when Cassie decided to use Positano and Santa Cruz to launch her new site!
Photo by Montana Dennis
Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in photography?
My name is Cassie Jones. I’m a wedding photographer living a quiet life on a farm in rural Arkansas with my family of soon-to-be-five. I’m an expert dress bustler, iced-coffee drinker and lover of books. I fell in love with photography at a young age when my mom handed me a camera at my older brother’s wedding. I spent the day following people around, playing paparazzi and escaping into my own little world of make-believe. I was 12 at the time and super awkward but being behind the camera felt comfortable. When my mom had the rolls of film developed we poured over the memories and I realized the emotions that photographs could stir.
Why did you decide to redesign your website?
I decided to redesign my website as part of a new journey our business is taking. A few years ago, I discovered the passion of helping other photographers grow in their shooting as others had done for me. This passion ignited a dream that we’ve held on to for several years now and after those years of prayerful waiting I decided to open an education store with guides to help other photographers along with non-photographers learn. I believe that there’s a deeper rooted joy in photography that is watching others grow in the same love I have. Through setting up the store, I fell in love with Davey and Krista’s Santa Cruz template, which takes the freedom of Showit and transforms it into a beautifully designed shop.
Once the shop was purchased I quickly realized that my main site and the shop really weren’t meshing well together and I decided that a redesign to make one cohesive look was in order. Positano was calling my name, the perfect match to show off my imagery, compliment my brand and bridge the gap between our wedding photography site and our new education store. I took elements of Positano and with the ease of Showit, copied them over into Santa Cruz making the two a cohesive look without losing the functionality of the two separate templates. It was a match made in design heaven.
What is your favorite part of your new site?
My favorite part of my new site is the gallery page. I love showing off featured galleries, while it was a lot more work to put together than a few favorites galleries, I feel like clients can get a really great feel of what to expect from seeing larger selections of one event rather than a hundred images from a hundred events. I’m a big fan of the storytelling feel and I think our future clients will enjoy it as well.
Tell us about your ideal client:
Our ideal client is bride who is sentimental and creative. She craves emotional connection with her fiance and wears her hair loose on her wedding day. Who isn’t afraid to get the hem of her dress a little muddy and is up for a little adventure. While she’s stylish and fashion forward, she’s not into over-the-top affairs. She loves the simplicity and sees the beauty in organic locations.
We love the favorites section on Cassie’s site!
Is there anything else you think people considering re-designing their website should know?
I feel like the thing we photographers struggle with most is trying to show it all. I have to stop myself all the time from using an image I LOVE on my website if it doesn’t fit the overall feel, create brand consistent cohesiveness and show the type of wedding I want to be shooting. We love quiet outside, organic weddings so showing one of my favorite images of a big city, modern wedding doesn’t really fit.
While we will enjoy and love all our weddings we shoot, I’ve come to terms with the fact that the website isn’t the place to share EVERYTHING we love. It’s something I debate on for hours usually, but this re-design, I set myself some hard limits on what I was going to show and ended up creating my favorite curated version of my portfolio yet. I think there’s a fear somewhere deep within us that we don’t always acknowledge — that if we don’t show a bit of everything – everyone won’t book us. That simply isn’t the case. The more curated our portfolio is the more we’re going to appeal to our ideal client. We’ve proven that fact over and over again as each re-design or each update – we get more selective with the imagery we share the more brides we have that are our ideal clients.
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