WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS IN LOVE

GREENVILLE, SC & BEYOND

Why We Changed Our Business Name

Changing a name is difficult. Our brides find this out very quickly after the big day. There are SO many things to update and it takes a lot of time and effort! Well, changing a business name is very much the same way. You have to deal with getting a new logo, designing a new website, and…updating everything else imaginable. There is a lot of time and effort involved!

So, why would we make the decision to do this? Well, we wrestled with the idea. And when we say wrestled, we mean it. We knew how much work it would take. We went back and forth. We made tedious lists of pros and cons. But, ultimately it came down to this simple question: If we don’t change our name now, and we look back in 5 years, will we wish we had changed it?

That question sealed the deal. We knew in that moment that if we didn’t move away from our current name, JAC Photography, we would wish down the road that we had. So we made the decision to go down this path of changing our name. Here are some of our biggest reasons for doing this.

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First, let’s talk about the problems we had with our old name.

1. JAC Photography is outdated.

When JAC Photography was first created, Ryan wasn’t even in the picture. Originally Alyssa came up with it while she was a sports photographer. She had customers who wanted to buy prints from her so she had to come up with a business name. Well, little known fact: Alyssa’s first name is Janelle. So pair that with Alyssa and her last name at the time and JAC Photography was born! Fast forward 6 years to today. We are now married and thus the “C” no longer makes sense. Plus the fact that we are now doing this together and the name becomes outdated.

2. JAC Photography is confusing.

We can’t tell you how many times we answered the question: “What does JAC stand for?” Now, we had no problem answering that question and it was a good conversation starter, but we realized that our couples were more confused by it than anything else. We feel sure that we even lost referrals because our couples knew OUR names, but maybe couldn’t remember JAC Photography. So it was time to move on to something a little more simple.

3. JAC Photography no longer represents who we are.

We are a husband and wife team. One of our HUGE focuses is having real relationships with our couples. We want to have a positive impact on their wedding day and everything leading up to it. “JAC Photography” just doesn’t convey that in any way. It sounds corporate. It sounds cold. And that just doesn’t work for us.

 

So we knew it was time for a change. And we just had to decide on a NEW name. We knew we wanted it to be personal above all. And what is more personal than…our names??! Well it became obvious very quickly that Ryan & Alyssa Photography was a name that would stick with us forever.

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Here are a few reasons we arrived at this conclusion so quickly.

1. Ryan & Alyssa Photography is personal.

THIS is a huge reason. Personal is the key word here. How many times have we used that word now? A lot. This is what really pushed us to do all of this work. When potential clients come to our website for the first time, they should immediately get a sense of who WE are. Why is this important? Well, for our couples photography is very high on their priority list when it comes to their wedding. And of all of their vendors, we are among the VERY few that will be with them the whole day long from the time they start getting ready until the time they head off into the sunset as husband and wife. In other words, they are going to spend a lot of time with us. Is it important that they love our style? ABSOLUTELY! But equally important is that they connect with us. And “Ryan & Alyssa Photography” creates an immediate connection.

2. Ryan & Alyssa Photography represents our style.

2014 has been the first year that both of us were full-time in our business! This year, we have really established who we are as photographers. We have really anchored our style and direction in a way that we had never done before. We want our brand to reflect that style. And this change allows us an opportunity to do just that.

3. Ryan & Alyssa Photography will stand the test of time.

No we can’t see into the future. We wish we could sometimes! However, we can be pretty sure that 25 years from now our names will still be Ryan & Alyssa. That’s pretty firm ground on which to plant our business and we are excited about where it can take us in the future!

 

If you hung with us through all of that, we are impressed! We realize that this may not be a huge deal outside of our day-to-day lives, but it has been an incredible process of change for us and we can’t wait to see what is coming up next! Thank you so much for your support and we love you all!

Ryan & Alyssa

Credit to Greg Warner with Small Reflection for our brand new logo design!

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