Andrew Honey and Dear…March 6, 2014.

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Justin – Hey my name is Justin Jocks and I am here on the wedding insider podcasts and today I’ve got my friend and you Andrew Sorely who is a videographer at “Honey and Dear”. So, hey Andrew what’s up?

Andrew – Hey man, how are you doing?

Justin – Good…So you started your film business back in 2009.

Andrew – Yeah.

Justin – And, what were you doing before that and like how did that come to be? Its sounds like you weren’t actually in film and you were doing this since school and way back in the day.

Andrew – Well I’ve got a funny little journey that got me to where I am now. So, I got marketing background. During high school I took a couple years off and I was playing in a band. I was just kind of being a teenager and I enjoyed being the promoter of the band and organizing things. A couple years after graduating high school I actually went back to college for advertising and marketing and I took a 2 years course during that and loved that and didn’t find a fit in the advertising world but I actually got a job doing marketing for a manufacture and did that for 2 years. I enjoyed that but it wasn’t my cup of tea exactly, day in and day out working for a big huge firm. I kind of wanted to be on my own and so in the mean time I just always kind of had a video camera just walking around. I would just make little videos of friends. I think it was about 2004 or 2005 when I decided to bring the video camera to a friend’s wedding and just literally gorilla style like I guess…just made a funny little video and edited it and gave it to them; and they didn’t have money at the time, they didn’t spend money on their wedding and it was like super church based and that kind of thing. But, they absolutely loved it and they showed it to all their friends and I thought “oh, that’s interesting” but I never really thought anything about it. And then, luckily a year later another friend got married. Same thing happened; I just made a fun little video because I was going to the wedding anyways as a friend. And, they loved it too and again it was just playing in the back of my head. In 2007, Emily and I got married and we hired a photographer but we had no idea about cinematography and we had no idea about videography. It just didn’t seem to be something obvious or amazing. And, we don’t have a record of our wedding basically. So that was 2007, October 2007 was when I got married and that was right about the time that I started to think that “okay- its time to get out of marketing and do something of my own. We had gotten asked to do some more videos and projects. Again, these were just for friends and then I started think that you know what …there might be a chance that something could work out here. So, we got in touch with our wedding photographer and said “hey, what do you think” and they encouraged us to give it a shot…and that’s kind of how it happened. So, mid-2008 we started to just mess around and try new things and in spring time of 2009 we did our first paid wedding. It was for $150 and we weren’t expecting to be paid we were expecting to do it as a gift and then the brides mom, I think like a month after sent us a card with a little cheque in it… because we are not professionals.

Justin – Yeah, actually a pretty similar story ; I did a friend’s for basically they rented the equipment for me. And, I think my first paid gig was $350 which is nowhere near what my rate is now.

Andrew – isn’t that funny to look back at that stuff now?

Justin – yeah, but I mean somebody with a good deal because I feel like, because I mean obviously the service was not as good but I cared as much as I do know so

Andrew – and the same for us. Like, we cared a lot and we have obviously learned ridiculously a lot of things since then. But, you know what I’m saying when I say that the care level is the same.

Justine – yes definitely, I mean that is as huge part of being a good wedding vendor. I think whether or not you care about your clients. So how many weddings have you guys don’t? Do you know?

Andrew – you know what, the numbers are well over 200.

Justin – wow! Nice

Andrew – we haven’t actually called to in a while and in fact this is pretty funny, we do our own website designs and updates and every once in a while someone will call to attention a page that like I haven’t updated in a while. I think our “about us” page said in 2011 we are still looking. It said we had done over 100 weddings and I was like wow… We better update that. We have averaged between 25 and 30 weddings per year and it just seems like we have eclipsed. We have done over 200 and we have had a great time. We have had some pretty awesome opportunities given to us and we’ve been flown to Australia and Singapore and Dominican Republic and Bahamas and even in Canada. We have gone over the Colonna which is absolutely beautiful. Majority of our work is in Ontario obviously in the ( ) market and also up north and kind of ( ). That is kind of what we’re up to

Justin – okay cool! With that said, do you have like a strategy for how couples can find a good videographer if you guys are already booked I guess.

Andrew – yeah I guess, we’re just honored in the first place when someone calls us or emails us because I think that’s like the highest compliment right? If someone has poked around on your website and liked it enough to give you a call we think that’s the nicest thing. So, if we are booked, we always try our absolute best to connect the couple with friends of ours who also in this business would do a great job and who we know would treat them the way that they should be treated. Justin- yeah, yeah, I will do the same thing

Andrew – so we actually have a small network, specifically in Toronto. I have about eight or so other film makers and that I’ll say are similar in their approach to what we are doing. It is a nice little group of friends that we can bounce things off of but we also share his back and forth in the attempt off not only sharing business with our friends but also taking care of the couples when they take the time to write in. It can be daunting…

Justin – for sure- yeah. I get a lot of people that just seem very frazzled on their first call or their first email.

Andrew – and the thing that we forget like you’d probably agree with me like because we are mercenaries and we had been in this for so many years, we just think ” Ahh… another wedding, no big deal”. We don’t actually think that the way. What we have to remind ourselves is that the, the couples are planning one wedding. It is the first time that ever done it unless they are like a professional wedding planner. And, the Internet is a huge place right?

Justin – for sure…

Andrew – it can be pretty easy to actually find the wrong fit and even as much homework that you can possibly do… Reading on blogs, websites and stuff… You have to get out and meet the person that you are going to work with; this is really important for us.

Justin – okay cool… So you suggested basically that they try and find someone online first and then that’s kind of would be outside off obviously Toronto. If they are in Toronto it’s a email Andrew.

Andrew – there you go. We do travel for weddings but online they are just…

Justin – maybe if they are in the middle of Australia or well I guess you’ve traveled there. (laughter)

Andrew – online is definitely the way that most people find us initially and I would probably say a half of the people who find us is either through Google search or style me pretty ( the website that we partner with). But quite frankly we have built our business up through referrals. We have a few different brides who connected us with about 6 or 7 other couples and we just absolutely love that. It’s kind of like when someone hires you to do a job with like that kind of feels good but when someone refers you that is like the greatest thing. You have earned trust right? And for us we just love that …it just feels great.

Justin – okay so, you are kind of like alluded to couples that make the wrong decision and end up hiring someone that you don’t work with. Like how… What mistakes would that person have made usually to in the process of hiring someone do you think?

Andrew – I think it is important for couples to have really clear expectations and really clear understanding of what they want at the end of the day. It’s the super easy to just look at the price tag of something and think “oh my goodness I would never be able to afford that”. So that is a no. A lot of people do that it- it’s human natur