Community Highlights: Meet Ashley and Austin Ionetz of Diffuse Media

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley and Austin Ionetz.

Hi Ashley and Austin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I (Ashley) have always had a love for photography and videography and the desire to get into the wedding industry. A friend of ours gave us a chance to film their wedding as our first and it ignited the spark in us both to want to continue and attempt to do this for a living. We both worked other full-time jobs for the first year and a half of operating our business and then I (Ashley) got laid off a week before our wedding.

Austin gave me the push I needed to convince me that I was capable of succeeding at doing this full-time. Fast forward now to 3 1/2 years after that moment, we are in a place where we are fully booked out, and able to travel back and forth from Michigan to Arizona for weddings now.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would say it hasn’t been the smoothest road to get to where we are today. It was very scary to leave the “stable” corporate world that I was used to with a strict schedule, weekly paychecks, etc… to make the jump into a career of uncertainty. We invested in a lot of education and mentorships with fellow videographers and photographers that we look up to and they helped us so much more than we thought was possible.

Once we were starting to feel confident, covid happened, and I think that was a scary time for everyone. We tried to remain as positive as possible and focused on things we could control: education, streamlining back-end processes, and planning for the future. I think that our positive outlook helped us make it through.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a husband and wife photography and videography business specializing in weddings and lifestyle photography sessions. While we do photography, we are more widely known for our wedding films. Our style is very much seen as storytelling, cinematic, documentary, and most importantly: real.

We want you to truly FEEL something when you see a photo or video of ours. We offer all-inclusive wedding packages for both photo and video and we are always open to travel for any wedding with you!

Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think the biggest risk we took was when I (Ashley) was laid off and decided to go full-time. I’m not a risk taker by nature, and I felt very much out of my comfort zone, but I had a feeling deep in my gut that it would be worth it and even if it wasn’t, that was going to be the best time for me to put my all in.

Pricing:

• We begin at $3,000 for weddings.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.diffuse-media.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/diffusemedia
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@diffusemedia

Image Credits
Briquelle Kayanne Photography and Diffuse Media