In 2007, we met at a greasy spoon restaurant in Paris, KY, where I (Kels) was a waitress and Matt, was a regular. It took Matt a month to ask me out and when he did I made him wait another month before we went our our first date!! HAHA. Oh the suspense! We’ve been doing life together ever since. Currently we live in Lexington, KY with our sweet girl, Myla Grey.

I (Matt) dabbled in photography for years. Knowing this, a co-worker asked me if I would shoot her daughter’s wedding. I said yes and rented Kels a camera. Side note: We had never shot a wedding before. Side-side note: This was Kels’ first time holding a camera! But we made it count and quickly fell in love with wedding photography.

After this first wedding adventure, Malicote Photography became a real thing…and it grew. One wedding quickly turned into twenty weddings within our first year of business! Year two the wedding count doubled. We couldn’t believe it!

Over the years we worked to hone our craft and weave an intricate thread of natural light through our body of work. Our offerings expanded from digital photography to digital and film photography. We began to shoot more than just weddings. We made a decision that we wanted to “do life” with our clients and be there for all stages of their lives – engagements, weddings, headshots, maternity, newborn,family photos, and seniors. We even began to move into the commercial, event and editorial world shooting for magazines and local businesses across the state and even internationally!

Looking back we are blown away at how far we’ve come. Time and time again we say that we are so blessed to call this our job. We get to be memory makers. Photograph takers. And love shakers.

Being in business for a few years, we noticed something. We weren’t showcasing ourselves and our work in an authentic way. We were branding ourselves by what we thought people wanted to see. Then it hit us…we needed to show the real us. So, we began the rebranding process. It was hard and scary, but so worth it. We spent every spare moment pouring over our business and doing the heart work.

This rebrand completely defined our business and set us apart in the industry. After the positive response and the massive influx in our business (bookings were shooting through the roof!), we thought, if we could do this for ourselves, maybe we could do this for other small businesses too…

From this, The Malicote Creative Company was born. The Malicote Creative Company was built with the intention to put truth back into branding. As a creative company and branding firm, we work alongside small business owners to own their brand identity by putting the business’ heart out into the world. Within our first year, we had the opportunity to serve 26 clients.

After our rebrand and influx of clients, we decided to take the next big step in our business. Matt had been a quality engineer for 13 years. Together we decided it was time for him to retire and join me (Kels) full-time. Don’t worry we threw a huge retirement party to celebrate!

It took us a few years to get in a rhythm of working side by side as a married couple and running a multifaceted business. Now, we excel in our roles alongside our team as a husband and wife photography team and creative business.

Then something happened. Our calendar was filled with over 600 sessions – but our hearts were left tired and weary. One day after two years of non-stop shooting, I (Kels) walked into our office and looked at our team with a tear-stained face and said, “No more”. I couldn’t continue trading time for money. It took some time to figure out how to stop trading hours for dollars, but we gradually made the change and our business evolved yet again.

We found ourselves making things happen and figuring out our business. But then we started thinking again. We had two separate businesses. The businesses were totally different and we worked to keep them that way…or so we thought. The businesses were constantly overlapping. Why were we working so hard to keep the two businesses separate when they could work together to create the ultimate client experience?

So, we’re here to share that we are taking yet another big step in our business and merging Malicote Photography with The Malicote Creative Company. We’re more than just a husband and wife photography team, y’all!

The Malicote Creative Company, a photography and creative company, is composed of accomplished business entrepreneurs with decades of experience. Our offerings now include photography, brand development,education, speaking, and events. And can we say…we’re really freaking excited!