i always worked multiple jobs throughout
college and so being able to just have
one job that is my own setting my own
hours making my own schedule has been
such a blessing for me i wake up every
morning so excited to work with the
clients that i work with and to do what
i love perfect come a little closer to
him my name is grace torres i'm 23 years
old and i make 177 000 a year doing my
wedding photography side hustle turned
full-time job living in lakeland florida
i've always loved photography and art as
a child but my passion for photography
really began in 2012 right before my
family decided to take an rv road trip
from new jersey all the way out to
colorado
in 2012 13 year old grace got her first
camera and it changed her life her
family trip to colorado began her roots
in photography shooting nature and
national parks before working with
people even as a 13 year old i saw it as
an investment 2012 is when i made my
first investment purchase into a
semi-professional-grade camera like an
entry-level professional camera i bought
my first camera with money i had saved
up from birthdays and christmases a
family friend took her daughter a dancer
and graced to the beach where grace had
her first mock photo shoot and i
absolutely loved it i went to public
high school in my hometown here in new
jersey and was really heavily involved
in the sciences because i thought that
was the direction that my career was
going to take however i still loved
photography on the side so i took senior
photos for friends i shot sweet 16s and
just shot portraits for fun just to be
more involved in photography however i
never thought of it as a career option
for me
my first ever paid gig was a sweet 16
and i made a hundred dollars for
probably like four hours of coverage my
parents have always encouraged me to
have a financial plan and to be
financially independent so starting
photography for me was always a side
hustle until i was more than 100 sure
that i would be able to sustain myself
in a career and by the time that i got
to that point they were really
supportive
at age 16 grace started working at
chick-fil-a about 15 hours a week to
have spending money and to build her
savings i've always been a big saver
working that job really allowed me to
save up money to purchase the camera
equipment that i wanted to i realized
that i did need better equipment and
better lenses to really do the kind of
photography that i wanted to do which
was portrait photography
at 18 grace began taking her first
clients and made under 500
throughout college i was constantly
working
two to three jobs on student leadership
at my school as a resident assistant
working in the pr department at my
university working a news internship
i've always enjoyed working and being
busy and i knew that in order for
photography to become something more i
would have to really put in the extra
work and work those jobs while doing
photography on the side
at 19 grace gained enough clients to
make around fifteen hundred dollars the
following year she grows seven thousand
dollars in 2019 is when i really started
to follow other full-time photographers
on instagram and realized that there
were people making a full-time living
off of photography
both my parents were very traditional
jobs and i just wasn't aware that people
did freelance work when i got to college
i think my eyes were really open to the
freelance world and the opportunities
that there are
i started shooting
every other week instead of every other
month my business was beginning to scale
so quickly i knew that i wanted to take
photography full-time instead of
pursuing a traditional nine-to-five job
after graduating from southeastern
university in lakeland florida in
december 2020 grace started exploring
photography as a full-time business i
knew what i needed to feel comfortable
to make that jump and that for me was
mainly being financially secure so i
worked really hard to make that a
reality for myself about a month before
graduation i was projecting my revenue
and really just trying to get a handle
on the business side of my business i
was really focused on client acquisition
through organic social media marketing
and then i started to invest in things
like legal contracts having a cpa to
help me file my taxes and some of the
more back end nitty gritty parts of the
business grace decided to keep her
part-time internship at a non-profit i'm
not a huge risk taker especially when it
comes to finances so jumping right from
college to entrepreneurship would be a
huge change for me having that part-time
job really just gave me the stability
and the confidence that i needed to put
more time into photography but not feel
the financial burden of not having a
steady income
grace's love of portraits and being
around people evolved into shooting
weddings i took my photography business
full time in may of 2021 five months
after i graduated college i love
people's love stories and i love how
fast-paced weddings are they always keep
me on my toes and they're just really
fun and joyful days
i did a lot of reinvesting in my
business and i know it is really common
to not be profiting a ton or even
property at all in your early years of
business grace started with a 500
investment toward her first camera and
lens since then she spent about 50
thousand dollars on equipment education
and contractors in the beginning i was
really focused on growing the business
and i was putting a lot of time into it
but definitely neglecting my social life
my friends things like taking days off
traveling and now that i've grown i do
prioritize giving myself some pto and
days off only shooting on weekends if
it's a wedding and just prioritizing
time off and rest however being an
entrepreneur being a solopreneur
specifically there isn't a lot of
outside affirmation for what you're
doing and you have to have a lot of
confidence in yourself taking the time
to speak with her clients about the
different services she offers has helped
grace remain fair and confident while
running her business
i structure my services in a package
format including specific hours of
coverage and then other deliverables
like the number of photos and the print
rights clients get eight to ten hours of
coverage from one or two photographers
and typically 500 to 900 photos
depending on the package they choose
right now lifestyle photo shoots like an
engagement shoot or a family session
start at 450 and my weddings start at 4
000
but my average spent is typically
between forty five hundred and fifty
five hundred in the wedding photography
industry there's a standard of fifty
dollars an hour for second shooters and
a hundred dollars an hour for associate
photographers grace takes care of her
administrative operations out of her
home office in florida and delegates
work like bookkeeping and editing to
contractors i definitely experienced
some burnout with the postcovered
wedding boom i had a lot on my plate
that year i shot 46 weddings and once i
shot 10 weddings in one month which is a
crazy workload i started to see the
value in outsourcing when i knew that i
was burning myself out by taking on too
much grace has decreased the numbers of
weddings she takes a year to have more
personal time and has maintained a
steady monthly revenue i am typically
grossing over ten thousand dollars a
month so i can feel confident in what
i'm going to pay myself that month in
the beginning stages of my business
social media marketing was crucial for
my growth but now that i've had some
more time in the wedding industry a lot
of my wedding clients come from
referrals from other planners
coordinators and even other
photographers
hey guys are you so excited for your
wedding yeah we're so ready we're so
pumped the pandemic in 2020 was really
devastating to not only the wedding
industry but also all of my wedding
clients and i definitely had a lot of
compassion for what they were going
through grace had her first fully booked
year when the pandemic struck i had a
lot of wedding cancellations and
returned a lot of deposits i just wanted
to be a compassionate person during that
time and it definitely taught me a lot
about business 2021 was grace's busiest
year yet she shot 46 weddings and has 34
books for 2022. so we'll just keep you
for maybe 15 20 minutes for those photos
and then you'll get to join cocktail
hour and really enjoy the wedding with
everyone in the near future i want to
continue building my company and growing
and scaling so that i have just more
opportunities to work with more couples
who i really connect with and to travel
to places that i've always wanted to go
to in 2023 i plan to cap at between 25
and 27 weddings and i'm halfway booked i
wanted to share my story to show you
that you don't have to jump right from
your corporate job to being a full-time
entrepreneur and i also just wanted to
show other young female entrepreneurs
that it is possible to have a successful
business so young and that reaching six
figures is not so far away if you really
work hard it is totally possible to take
what you love and turn it into a
business
[Music]