Meet Matt and Jayna Hedges of By the Hedges Photo + Video in East Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt and Jayna Hedges.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
We both grew up with a love for preserving memories with photo and video. We are both very grateful that we have so many pictures and video from our childhoods. Jayna’s love of photography started with a photo class in high school. Growing up, Matt used to try and use his dad’s video camera every chance that he got. Photo and video has been a huge part of our married lives as well. In fact, Matt’s proposal even included a slideshow of pictures and video of us together.

After we were married, we carried on our family traditions of taking a LOT of pictures and videos of our children. We would share some of those memories on social media. To Matt’s surprise, in 2013, he was asked by a family friend who had seen some of his videos to shoot her wedding, Matt loved shooting their wedding and after that he started booking more and more weddings from word of mouth. Jayna had a very similar experience with people asking her to take their family photos. She officially started a photography business in 2012 and started shooting weddings shortly after.

Although we worked together often, we ran our video and photo businesses under two different names until 2016. It was then that we decided to combine under one name – By the Hedges Photo + Video. It was at that same time that we realized we were getting too busy for Matt to work full time in the IT industry and continues to shoot as many weddings as he was. So in July 2016, Matt quit his full time job to pursue his dream of being a full time videographer. It was a big leap of faith, but it has paid off and we have never looked back. We have been blessed to work with so many amazing couples and families!

Has it been a smooth road?
Our biggest challenge has been finding the right balance between work and family life. Our kids are very active and involved in multiple after school activities and sports teams. We really try to be present in their lives and have had to figure out how to do that over the years. We are blessed to be able to make our own schedules.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the By the Hedges Photo + Video story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a husband and wife team. One of our biggest advantages is that we offer both photo and video services. We frequently hear from our clients that they really love being able to go to one company to hire both a photographer and videographer. They also really like to have the peace of mind knowing that we work well together!

We primarily do weddings and commercial jobs, such as promo videos and tutorial videos. We are most proud of the high rate weddings that we book from word of mouth. There is no bigger compliment than someone referring us to a friend or family member, to capture the most important days of their lives!

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
With newer technology and new cameras coming out, there is always room to learn and grow. That’s part of the fun of our business!

Our job as a photographer and videographer is to keep up with the trends. We want to take pictures and videos that our clients will be able to cherish forever.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bythehedges.com
• Phone: 480-326-8939
• Email: contact@bythehedges.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bythehedges/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bythehedges/

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