351: Cat Ekkelboom-White – How to build a profitable adventure elopement photography business

351: Cat Ekkelboom-White - How to build a profitable adventure elopement photography business

Andrew Hellmich: Today's guest is an ex ski and snowboard instructor, born and raised in the UK. She took a trip to the Austrian Alps and she never left. Since then, she's married an Austrian local and has built a photography business around adventurous couples and capturing their elopements and weddings in the most beautiful and wild locations. She says on her about page, "I'm just as at home skiing down the slopes with you on your wedding day as I am hiking to a peak whilst helping you with your wedding dress." And judging by some of the locations I've seen where she's shooting, this has to be 100% true. Her website is filled with in love couples amongst crazy beautiful backdrops and it's immediately obvious she offers a special kind of photography service for a particular kind of couple. We had a brief email exchange before setting up this interview and she told me, "I want to challenge the wedding industry view that elopements are predominantly low-budget, last minute weddings with couples who don't value photography." I'm talking about Cat Ekkelboom-White and I'm rapt to have her with us now. Cat, welcome.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Hi. Hi. Great to chat with you.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, yeah. Likewise. I said there in the intro that you were a UK resident. How long have you been in Austria and how difficult was it to set up a business there?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: So I first came to Austria 10 years ago for my first ski season and absolutely loved it and I've been a permanent resident here for the last eight years. So yeah, it's been quite a while now. It definitely feels like this is my home. Setting up my business, it was kind of challenging. So I started my business after we got married, so I started it in 2015 and at the time my German was okay, but it wasn't amazing. And so trying to set up a business in a country where you don't speak the language, you don't understand all of the laws of tax and how to do it. It was pretty complicated and quite stressful. But I got there.

Andrew Hellmich: So did you have to be a resident to start a business in Austria?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I think you do. I can't remember exactly, but I know that because I've been a resident for less than five years, when I went to the chamber of commerce to set up my business, I had to produce things like a certificate that I had no criminal record and things. So I don't think you necessarily have to be resident for a certain amount of time but you do then if you haven't been living here for a long time, you have to prove that, yeah, you're not a criminal and things like that.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. And look, I can imagine it's similar sort of tax laws around the world. Did you have to hire an accountant to sort of wrap your head around all that sort of stuff, or did your husband help you with that?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I did hire an accountant. I kind of just decided that I'm not great with numbers anyway. I've definitely more of the artistic side of the spectrum of oh, let's create amazing things. And I'm really not very numbers focused. So right from the start I just decided I'd rather just have that expense and know that it's taken care of than just to be stressing out or worrying about doing it right and getting penalties for not doing things correctly. So yeah, I just paid someone to take that over for me. That's one of the best decisions I made.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, cool. Cool. Did you have a photography business in the UK or did this all start once you got to Austria?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It all started after I got married, which was in Austria. So yeah, I didn't even own a camera when I used to live in the UK. Photography and business all kind of started at the same time, so within the last five years.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So what made you even get into wedding photography?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It was my wedding. I got married and the most important thing for me when we were planning our wedding was our photography. And there was just something about wedding photography that I fell in love with. And so when our wedding was over, I kind of just like "Do you know what? I want to be a wedding photographer." Um, and so then I went and bought a camera and learned how to use it and learned how to create a business and learned about marketing. And until then, I really had no background in either business or photography.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. So can you give us a bit of a snapshot of how the business has progressed over the last five years?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Absolutely. So yeah, I started my business. I went to the chamber of commerce and registered and said I want to be a photographer. That was in October 2015. For the first two years I did it part time alongside a four day a week job working in a hotel. And then almost two years to the date later, so 2017, I went full time. And since then I've been doing it full time. So for the last two years, I shoot 25 weddings/elopements a year plus a few kinds of engagement and couple of shoots in between. And the majority of my income is from wedding and couple photography.

Andrew Hellmich: So you have another source of income as well.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: A very small amount. So for the last year I've also started doing mentoring and workshops. So that's a fairly new thing over the last kind of year that I started up. So yeah, that's a small amount of other income on this side. And I also run a wedding blog, which has a very tiny amount of income, but I think it probably has higher outgoings than it has incoming at the moment. Can't really count that.

Andrew Hellmich: What's the name of the blog?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It's called We Are The Wanderers.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So I found that when I was Googling you. So that's actually your blog?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It is. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, very cool. So with the weddings of 25 a year that you're doing now, is that 25 by choice or is that the maximum number you're getting in regard to bookings?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: That's by choice. So I mean very much the whole reason I left the UK and I moved to Austria was because I very much wanted, you know, my life to be based around a certain lifestyle that I wanted to lead. And I kind of worked out that with the amount that I wanted to earn, the kind of prices I was charging, that 25 was a good number. And then kind of this year it's been 25 and it's worked out really nicely that I have a good amount of weddings, but also that that leaves me with enough time in the year to actually take two, three weeks off to go on holiday, go traveling with my husband to go and visit family back in the UK and you know, to not be working every weekend so I can actually go skiing and hiking or finding myself over the weekends. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: What's your husband's name?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: My husband's name is Menno

Andrew Hellmich: Menno. So does Menno, does he work in the business too or does he have his own job?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: He does. He's an architect.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So he has weekends off. So he doesn't need to be working every weekend either?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No, he doesn't. And he works for four day a week as well, so he works pretty long hours, but he only works Monday to Thursday. So we generally have Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's a three-day weekend and often we have that together because a lot of the weddings that I shoot are during the week.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh wow. Okay. That's interesting to know. All right let's get into that in a minute. Have you got an idea, or do you remember, or do you know off the top of your head how your revenue has grown over the last five years?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Ooh, that's a good question. It has grown an awful lot. I would say that probably I would have to guess to say it's pretty much doubled every year.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh wow. Okay. Did you have an idea of what you're doing now?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: So my target for this year was to have, I always get confused with this. This is where I said I'm not a numbers minded person, but I'm trying to be. I wanted to have a turnover of 50K and I'm going to be close to getting a 100K this year.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, and that's Euro?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. So you've got a great business.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So 25 weddings and then you're doing, so elopements are [inaudible] weddings, are there for you. And then you're doing some, is it like engagement shoots or couple shoots?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, elopements for me are weddings. It's a couple of getting married and it's an important day. So they are priced the same as weddings. I don't differentiate. So that's 25 elopements/weddings and then, yeah, in between that, occasionally it's engagement shoots or sometimes like honeymoon shoots, trash, the dress type shoots as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. I love it. Your website that I can see is in English. Is there a German version as well?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No, there isn't. So I made the decision when I started my business that even though I spoke German, my German written is terrible, but I kind of knew right from the start that the local German speaking market was not my target audience and I'm lucky enough to live in a location where people travel to on holiday. So I was like, well, if people travel here on holiday, I'm pretty sure people travel here to get married too. And like I looked at statistics and seeing that people do get married here. It's not a huge amount, but for the fact that I only wanted to shoot kind of 25 weddings a year, there was more than 25 people coming from abroad to get married here. So I just decided right from the offset, everything's going to be in English.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, love it. So most of your, all of your couples are coming from outside Austria and then mainly from the UK. Is that where most of them are from?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No, actually most of them come from the USA, sometimes Australia and occasionally the UK.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, okay. I'm excited to find out how these people, these couples are finding you. But just before we get into the marketing side of things, you mentioned pricing. We talked a little bit about revenue there. What a couple spending with you, like did they buy a package, do they get a collection? What do they get included?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: So, because I started off with slightly more traditional and there's a lot of people do started with slightly lower budget weddings when everyone starts out. When I first started it was like you get the digitals, you get a USB drive, you get an album. And when I first started, a lot of people like, "Oh but can we take this out? Can we take that out?" Cause it just makes it cheaper. And in the end, I ended up doing digital only and I kind of, as my business progressed, I just stuck with that model because it works for me. I have the option to up sell albums to clients afterwards. Like I, well I just do it through Pic-Time. Generally I don't really push albums, but then I kind of just base my pricing on like if they're only getting digitals, what do I want to charge for that? I'm not having to work out album costs, deadlines for getting stuff to printers. I kind of just, yeah, just did it that. So literally when they book me, it's digital only package, one photographer. I work alone and they choose kind of between four hours up to 12 hours is kind of what their packages are. And then I offer the option to create like a multiple day package depending on what it is that they're looking for.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. So with the deliverables is that, you know, digital files in a Dropbox folder and how many?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I use Pic-Time gallery.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So Pic-Time for everything.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah. I use Pic-Time for the whole, so I send them high res images. All are edited in Lightroom. I don't do really heavy retouching. Kind of a lot of what I do is, it's all about kind of keeping it natural. But yeah, so it's all edited in Lightroom and I kind of, it's difficult with elopements kind of estimate because every elopement is very different. Sometimes you may spend like a few hours hiking where you're taking very few pictures, but I still tend to do the average estimate of around 50 images per hour that I'm with the couple.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. So you don't really tie yourself down to particular numbers. This is what you explained to clients. Depends on how much hiking, how much skiing, whatever we're going to be doing.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So what does that start at? So 4 hour, do you call it a package? 4-hour package?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yes. A four-hour collection. I call them collections? The four hours starts at 2,850 euros, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, okay. And then they go up from there depending on what they want.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah. And that's the local pricing. And then I also have a separate pricing guide for within your, so the destination stuff.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So, are you getting booked then to go outside Innsbruck to other locations in Europe as well?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Does that happen often?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yes, quite a lot. I would say 60% maybe of my elopements are what I call local is for me is within like a two and a half hour drive, two and a half hour radius. So for me that's around the Tyrol area. I also count the Dolomites as local, so even though it's across a border in Italy, some of the locations in the Dolomites that I shoot are less than two-hour drive and that also stretches into a bit of Bavaria in Germany. So those are what I call at my local area. And then destinations within Europe, I've just got back from Norway this year. I've also been to Ireland in the Faroe Islands.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you actually stop and appreciate like how exotic your life sounds?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I do, I do. I am incredibly grateful for it all. It's amazing. And this is another reason, like with my 25 limit on weddings, like whenever I do destination stuff, I try and make sure I spend at least a week there because like I actually kind of want to experience the places that I traveled to not just fly in the day before shoot a wedding and fly out again.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. So when you talk about weddings in Tyrol, the Dolomites, Bavaria, is that all included? Like the travel to those places that's included in those collections?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It is, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: And then what happens if you know they want you to go to outside those areas?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: So the way I price it, so I have on my contact form, I ask where their location is, and I have two pricing guides. So I have a local pricing guide. And I have a destination pricing guide, which is Europe-wide. And what I've kind of done is worked how the averages from the kind of locations that I tend to get booked for, how much it costs me to travel. I cost into the travel what a return flight would be, what car, how I would be in the average cost of accommodation. And then so I add that on top of my local prices and I create a separate pricing guide so that when I then send the clients the prices, if they say we're looking at getting married in this location, I go right, okay, well this is Europe, so they get the Europe guide and it's just, it's one set figure, not it's this price plus this is what my travel costs. It's all just included in one price. And I found that works really well.

Andrew Hellmich: I love that. And you don't hide any of this either cause I'm on your website now. You have a pricing page and I can see there that, so elopements in Austria, Bavaria and the Dolomites it says, you know, coverage starts from 2850 and then the average spend is 3900 euro. So it's all very clear and upfront.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Too easy. It sounds amazing. And you know what? You really got me excited for the genre when you said that a lot of the weddings aren't even on the weekends, so you're shooting mid-week a lot of the time?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Almost all of the time. I think most of my weekend ones tend to be in the wintertime when they're the slightly bigger weddings in the ski resorts, but yeah, most of the time when it's elopements, it's midweek. I actually recommend midweek as well to a lot of couples because you're generally going to find that places are quieter and when you don't have to kind of plan a wedding around a whole load of other people schedules, you can do that whenever you want.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I love that. I'm guessing that you would even have things like ski lift tickets to think about. Does that happen?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, I'm quite lucky that where if couples want to get married around Innsbruck, I have a year pass for a lot of the ski lifts there. But within, I kind of factor in in with my prices that if I have to pay for a 50 euro lift ticket within it, that's fine. It's all kind of, I just roll it into my prices, assuming that I may have that cost as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. And then the couples that are with you then do you pay for them or they just get their own lift tickets?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No, they're responsible for their own lift tickets, but most of the time they've been in the resort or they're staying in the resort for a week. So they will already have like their weekly ski pass and then I just need to get mine for the day that I'm with them.

Andrew Hellmich: Got it. Okay. And I get the impression from your website that like, it's an all-inclusive service that you're offering. So if I'm thinking about eloping, let's say with Linda, my wife and I want to come to the Dolomites, you'll actually recommend locations, you'll help me find the best dates, times, places to go for photos. Is that right?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, absolutely. That's something like I've started doing more and more like this year. Like I kind of often found myself doing that anyway because couples would come to me and see that I'd shop in these places a few times or that I traveled there just for like my own like personal enjoyment and they're like, Oh, you know, cause you recommend maybe like, you know, a good location. And you know, as a wedding photographer, you know, often we're helping couples plan a timeline for a wedding day. And so that also kind of came into the fact with elopements. It's like, well couples don't know that having your ceremony, even if it's just the two of them at 12 o'clock noon in August is a really terrible idea. And so, you know, I kind of was like, well, they're coming to me, you know, they've never done this before.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I know their location and I kind of know the results I want to get from it and for them to have the best experience. So, you know, why wouldn't I help them pick the best locations to do it. So, yeah, it's all part of it. And I think that, you know, a lot of couples when they choose to elope, it's because they don't want all the stress that comes with planning a huge wedding. So to have someone go, yeah, you know what, I've got your back, I'm going to help you make this really awesome. You know, that's one of the reasons why I think a lot of the couples that I get come to me and why, you know, I get really incredible testimonials from them afterwards.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. How many people are generally at one of your elopements?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It really varies. This year I have had quite a lot where it's just a couple, just the two of them.

Andrew Hellmich: Don't you need to have a celebrant and then a couple of witnesses at a minimum?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No. Well, it depends. And so a lot of the elopements that I've done this year, they've chosen not to do the legal paperwork as part of their elopement.

Andrew Hellmich: So it's really just a shoot?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah. Kind of. I think, again, so a lot of different countries, so if you've ever seen anyone get married in France who's not French, they haven't had a legal ceremony and destination weddings in France have been huge for a long time. And so a lot of the times what people do is they just sign their marriage license either before they leave their home or when they get back and what they class as their wedding day is the ceremony that they have where they say their vows to each other and they exchange their rings and their promises. And so sometimes they choose to have a celebrant or a friend do the ceremony for them. But for some of the elopements, the couples actually just want to do that part in private because it's a really, really personal thing. They don't want to say these incredibly like personal vows in front of an audience. They only want to say them to each other. And so I think, yeah, there's a kind of a misconception that, yeah, so in elopement, if you're with a couple for the whole day, it's a full day photo shoot. And, I mean, it can seem like that, but a lot of the time it's just like they're having this just incredible day. They get up, they maybe get dressed together. We go to a location where they say their vows at sunrise and then we kind of go off and find, you know, a couple of other locations, go have lunch somewhere. And so it's not, yes I'm taking photos of it, but it's not a photo shoot. Like it's them kind of just doing something that they'll always remember and saying, this was the day we said our vows to each other and the day we like became, you know, sort of spiritually kind of husband and wife or you know, a married couple. An elopement or getting married doesn't have to be, you know, a celebrant or a registrar and witnesses. Like sometimes it is the emotional part of getting married. That is what they want to celebrate.

Andrew Hellmich: I love this. Okay. So often it's just the three of you out on a shoot. Will they bring out a piece of paper and read their vows to each other and exchange rings and you're there to capture that and see that witness that?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what a lot of them have been this summer. So they have their little vow books or sometimes just a scrap piece of paper from the back of like the hotel menu where they've scribbled their vows on and then I'm just there. And when they do their vows, I always say to them like, I'm going to step back. That's the one point where I put on like a 70 to 200 and yeah, I respect the fact that they've chosen to say their vows in this super intimate setting. So I step back and just let them have that moment to do that in a complete kind of safe space.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. I love it. So you mentioned gear there or equipment there, and not so much about the photography gear, but with the couples, are you helping them with, you know, what to bring? I mean, I imagine there's parkas and ski pants and things like that in the background that we can't even see in some of these photos. And I imagine you have a lot of that stuff too. Is there like backpacks of gear?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Oh absolutely. I mean, I think the thing is with a lot of the couples that choose to do these really adventurous types of weddings or elopements, whether it's skiing or hiking or climbing, they're usually choosing to do that because that's a huge part of their own lifestyle anyway. And so they already have all the gear like almost all of the time. So do I. I'm a huge gear hoarder. I have more rucksacks than I could ever need. And yet still I never have the right one. But I do still help them cause there's kind of that thing of okay well we know what outdoor gear we need, but then it's like, well it's our wedding, so where can we kind of save weight on maybe gear that we don't need? How do we kind of combine that with this stuff that we need that's wedding specific. Like how do you get a wedding dress in an already stuffed rucksack full of other things. And so that's kind of often where I help them and go, well, there is some ways you can save space. Here's what you definitely do want to bring with you. Here's some tips on how you can keep warm and bring stuff that's going to be useful, but not that you're carrying extra weight that you don't need.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. Wow. It must be a lot of planning that goes into some of these shoots. '.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Let me take you back just a little bit because I know they're going to be listeners that want to hear how you went from your own wedding to deciding you want to become a wedding photographer to actually getting bookings. Do you remember how you got those first few or first bunch of bookings?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, I can. Probably going to be a controversial one. So yeah, I decided I wanted to be a wedding photographer. I bought a camera. I watched some creative live courses. I watched, you know, University of YouTube. I've watched a lot of stuff. I attended a couple of workshops and then I did the thing that everybody hates and I posted in a couple of Facebook groups, "Does anybody need a photographer? I'm just starting out. I will shoot your wedding for free. And you know, as long as you know that I have no experience and I'm trying to kind of gain portfolio." So that's how I started. I started by shooting weddings for free and then after a couple of free ones I realized, okay, I'm not too bad at this. So then I started charging a little bit of money and then I started charging a little bit more and kind of built from there. And to start with it was pretty much all through Facebook.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. So those initial weddings, did you know, or even at that time, were you shooting elopements and these weddings in these amazing locations? Is that how it started from the beginning?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No, it wasn't. Although one of the first kind of, once I started asking for money, I was really lucky that one of the first ones that I shot within my first year was an elopement and I absolutely loved it. But at the start I was shooting anything and everything. So often like big church weddings, sometimes just like the registry office part of someone's wedding day because in Austria for the locals you do the registry office separately. So the only way you can legally marry is the registry office. But a lot of people like to do the church wedding as well. So they do registry office and then church. Sometimes on a different day. So I was doing all sorts of different stuff. But it was because I come from such an outdoorsy background being a ski instructor. And the reason I moved to the Alps, I very quickly learned that I really didn't enjoy these types of weddings. So when I did get the first elopement, which was through a wedding planner that I'd made contact with, I really, I just, I loved it so much and that was kind of that light bulb of "Oh wow. Like people do this. This is amazing. This is the direction I want to go in."

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So you didn't even know that existed before you actually did it yourself?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I kind of, I knew. I knew it did, but I was definitely more, you know, from the, you know, in the US you've got like Vegas, when people think of elopements. In the UK you think of like running off to Gretna Green and so like I didn't really know that there was a different side of eloping so that was kind of a new, it was an eyeopener that there's a different way to do stuff.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. You said this might be slightly controversial. Did you actually feel that when you posted that you're going to photograph for free cause you starting out, did you get any negative pushback or feedback?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: No, I didn't at all. Like at the time, no one said anything. But then I didn't really know any other photographers at the time. But I know now from, you know, being in the photography community and Facebook groups with thousands of members and if somebody says, you know, I want to build my portfolio and I'm going to shoot for free or I'm going to do a contest to win your photography, there's often outrage. Everyone's like, no, that's devaluing the industry you're making everyone like, this is what's ruining the wedding photography industry. No one will pay anymore because everyone's offering to do it for free. And so there's a lot of hostility if somebody says, "You know, I'm going to do it for free," but to be honest, that's how I started because how can you charge for something you've never done before when you've got no experience?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So would you do the same again?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Probably, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Let me rephrase that. Would you encourage someone to do the same thing you did if they were starting out?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, I mean like now that I've started mentoring, I often get people coming to me who literally are just like, "I want to become a wedding photographer. How do I get started?" Um, and I think honestly the best way is to, if you've got a friend who will let you shoot their wedding, I always think it's, don't try and convince them if they were going to hire a pro and you're like, "Oh no, it's fine. I'll do it for free." Like, if you hire someone that's like, "Oh we can't afford a photographer, we're not going to have one," then you know, put yourself forward and go, "You know, I'll do it." Or you know, the other thing I say to people is, yeah, okay organize styled shoots. Get all the couple friends that you know to pose for you and just practice directing them. It's not the same thing but how on, there's no real other way of getting that experience. Cause even second shooting, if you've got no experience, generally no primary shooter wants a second shooter that's never shot a wedding before.

Andrew Hellmich: That's right. And second shooting is different as well isn't it because you get the main shooter setting things up and you've always got great great posing. You got great light cause they know what they're doing. It's different when you have to do it yourself.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, absolutely. It is. It's really hard. And so yeah, I mean honestly like as long as you're completely up front and go, yeah, do you know what? I'm going to shoot two weddings for free. And you just say right up front, you know, this is what it is. I've got no experience but I'll do it for free. And you don't know what you're going to get. Like, yeah, I mean I don't think I would say not to do that if that's where someone is at that point where they want to give it a go and just see if they like it.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, for sure. Fast forward to the time you got that wedding from the wedding planner, was that a relationship you already had with a wedding planner? Did you initiate that relationship to get that booking? How did that all that play out?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I can't remember so much now. I think I kind of, you know, as I was starting out, I was trying to kind of build connections and find people within social media and kind of try and build relationships with people to try and build a referral kind of network. Even though I was starting out and didn't have a whole lot of portfolio. And yeah, we kind of connected a few times through social media and I think this was the first time that we worked together because I had worked with her. I have worked with her on a couple of occasions since I think, I think this was the first time, but it was literally like we built this relationship and I'd always kind of been very supportive on our social media and told people that she was a great wedding planner I've even worked with her. And then when she got this inquiry through, it was from a couple from the UK and she knew that I was from the UK and she was like, you know, I think this will be actually a really good fit. And it was.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. So then you had that first taste of these, I guess elopement weddings out in the wild and you knew that's what you wanted to pursue. How did things change? What did you do differently then to start attracting those kinds of couples?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: At that point, I didn't do a whole amount. I didn't really kind of focus as much what I was doing because I was still shooting very traditional weddings. During the portraits, I would often try and take them somewhere that was very beautiful outdoors-y as much as I could, but because my portfolio wasn't really showing that as much, I did a lot of blogging of just like my own travel and my own hikes, my own skiing stuff and that's kind of how I got my first skiing wedding was from literally a couple who were looking at getting married in Austria and they found me and then saw that I was an ex ski instructor and we're like, "Oh well we want to ski on our wedding day and it looks like you could do that with us." It's like, "Let's see if we can make this happen." And so that also gave me a little bit more fuel, but it honestly, it wasn't until about, I don't know, about two years ago maybe that I kind of was just like, no, this is the direction that I want to go in. And then it was quite scary because it just meant that like I had to delete half of my portfolio on my website and social media feeds and just really start only showing this sort of stuff they wanted to do more of. And I really had to look at the language I was using, how I was talking about things, the sorts of things I blogged about. So any blogs that talked about, you know, questions to ask your wedding venue, those had to go because an elopement couple don't care about wedding venue.

Andrew Hellmich: So you really had to strip back a lot of the previous work that you'd done and put time and effort into. That must've really been difficult.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It was, yeah, it was very daunting to kind of all this like content that I'd created to go on and go. Actually you know what? This is attracting the wrong sorts of people, the wrong sorts of weddings. It's got to go. And also yet like really stripping down a lot of my portfolio, like also on social media, like deleting a whole load of Instagram posts.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh wow. So what happened to your bookings, to your revenue, to your business once you made those changes?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: It started to actually, I started to notice a change pretty quickly.

Andrew Hellmich: You mentioned there your workshops and I brought them up as well. How often do you teach? How do people learn from you? What's the next step if someone's heard this and thinking I want to do what you are doing, Cat, teach me.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah, so last October, so a couple of months ago was my first workshop that I've done and I'm in the process of kind of planning one for 2020 I'm not quite sure, probably going to be October, November time again. So that was kind of in the planning stages at the moment. And I also do one on one mentoring. So I take on like up to five people a year on a mentoring thing. Sometimes I do just like one off mentoring, but most of the time I get photographers who come and we do like a kind of an intensive like mentoring program where every like two to three weeks we speak and we kind of work through what they're trying to achieve and kind of creating a strategy for that.

Andrew Hellmich: Do the photographers come to you, Cat, in Innsbruck or is this over on Skype or Zoom?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: So the workshop that I did was in Innsbruck just cause it's really beautiful here. So it's a great excuse to get your company to pay for you to have a nice [inaudible].

Andrew Hellmich: Absolutely.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: But the mentoring that I do, the one on one stuff is usually over Skype or Zoom.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, great. The workshop you're planning again for next October or November, would that be in Innsbruck again?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: I'm looking at doing one, yeah, in or around Innsbruck and I'm potentially talking with another photographer to do one possibly in the UK. It's like a joint thing like with two photographers and a small group of people.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Okay, well can you keep me posted about those so I can let listeners know what's happening in regard to those and then for the one on one mentorship and coaching, where do people go for that?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: So I set up like a separate website for the mentoring and coaching and it's also where I publish all the workshop details when they're announced and it's just adventureweddingacademy.com.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Okay. I'll add links to those in the show notes to accompany this audio for the listener. And I'll also add links to your photography website as well so people can see your work and you're on Instagram and Facebook as well. So I'll have links to all those places. Where's the best place to see your work when people ask?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: My website or Instagram.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, fantastic.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Facebook is kind of one of those things that I keep it active just so that someone knows that I am still active, but I don't feel like it really serves me too much on the business side.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. On your Instagram feed is that you climbing up that vertical rock wall in the orange singlet top.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Oh, I don't know...where. It possibly is.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, right. It looks amazing. I mean, even if it's not you, you must've been on the side of the mountain to take that photo. There's actually, I can see a paraglider down below. Wow. You live in an amazing part of the world.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah. Oh no, I think, I think I know the one you're talking about. That was me hanging off the edge of a cliff after climbing the same thing and taking a picture of a friend of mine climbing up after me.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. So that's you?

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Amazing. Cat, you have been fantastic. It's been a real pleasure to chat to you and a massive thanks for sharing what you have. It's been fun for me, and I know the listener will have a ton from what you had to share, so a massive thanks again.

Cat Ekkelboom-White: Oh, thank you. I've really enjoyed it.