Today we’d like to introduce you to Jill Marie and David Scruggs.
Jill’s photography journey began with her modeling as a hobby for a few local photographers. David hired her for an editorial shoot. That first session morphed into a project that lasted about a year and took them to a variety of locations in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. Along the way, Jill became interested in learning photography herself. David taught her about lighting, composition and posing.
At the time, David was shooting a lot of weddings and asked Jill to second-shoot, but she wanted to keep her photography a hobby. Plus, Jill doesn’t like to learn through failure, and she didn’t feel ready for — or interested in – the high-pressure responsibility of capturing all the important moments of a wedding. David pressed, she finally agreed, and she fell in love with wedding photography — especially destination weddings. As a team, they covered weddings across the Southeast US, the Caribbean, Mexico, South Florida and the Keys, Connecticut, Alaska, France and the UK. Along the way, impressed by her perfectionist, detail-oriented personality and her passion for improvement, David invited her to be an equal partner. She said yes, and together they formed One Soul Photography, and David retired his solo photography business. It didn’t take long for David to want more from their partnership, and he asked Jill to marry him. She said yes – AGAIN. They’d been booking boudoir sessions with brides and others between their wedding assignments, and they learned how much they enjoyed helping clients find self-acceptance and gain self-confidence through boudoir. Jill asked David to concentrate their business on boudoir, and this time David said yes!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s been so much fun so far, we can’t say we’ve struggled along the way. We are, however, continually evaluating and refining our client acquisition strategies, our client engagement practices, our product portfolio and even our photographic style. We want to be known for delivering not just great pictures but for delivering experiences that are literally life-changing, and all four of those refinement areas contribute to the creation of a peerless and memorable event for our clients. Consequently, there’s rarely a booking that we complete that doesn’t surface something for us to improve upon, something new to introduce, to make our next client more appreciative than the last. And that’s just gratifying.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about One Soul Boudoir?
We introduced our One Soul Boudoir brand in 2019 with a business model that follows a concierge-style approach to boudoir photography that promises each client a memorable and life-changing experience that begins with their first contact with us. Even before a client makes her booking decision, we engage at a level not typically expected of a photography studio. We explore her fears as well as her hoped-for boudoir outcome, so we know how to tailor her overall experience to make it meaningful for her. And when we’re booked, every client enjoys personal touches like an optional lingerie shopping trip with Jill and session-day details like champagne or a mimosa, a complete makeover, and a range of unique themes to personalize the experience.
The most popular are The Anastasia, Luxe Boudoir, and Pretty Flowers. The Anastasia theme includes shooting time in our provocative Red Room set. Luxe Boudoir gives her access to high-end wardrobe items like a Finnish mink coat from Neiman Marcus, a variety of Christian Louboutin shoes, and exotic lingerie like ostrich feather dressing gowns by Catherine D’Lish and Jonquil, and bespoke Chantilly lace underthings by French label Marianna Giordana. Afterward, we bring our clients back to the studio for a private reveal party, where they see their stunning photos for the first time and decide which printed art collection best suits their home décor and budget, To deliver the best possible client experience without burnout, Jill and David limit themselves to one client shoot a week.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Entrepreneurs are inherently risk-tolerant or they wouldn’t have struck out on their own to pursue a business dream. At One Soul Boudoir, we have a healthy willingness to risk our time and money on a new marketing approach, and we’ve spent money on campaign ideas that simply didn’t deliver the results we wanted. We’ve also made some really great decisions in our efforts to reach our audience of Greater Atlanta women. For instance, in January 2020, we seeded a ladies-only Facebook group for Greater Atlanta women called One Soul Women with about 60 of our local female Facebook friends. That group right now has more than 2,100 active members. We’re continually looking for ways to make it a fun, healthy and supportive environment that draws our ladies out of their shells and gets them to engage. We know that the happier our community members are, the more likely it is that they’ll one day go through with their fantasies of experiencing a boudoir session for themselves. On the other hand, we’re quite calculated and intentional about the design, execution and tone of our client experience, and we don’t mess with that unless we have a lesson-learned that justifies an adjustment. That said, and as we mentioned earlier, we’re constantly assessing everything about our offering, looking for improvement opportunities. When we find something that could be adjusted, we do so only after considering the direct and indirect ramifications of the change we’re contemplating.
Pricing:
- Our session fee is $499. This includes a pre-session consultation and optional shopping trip, the day-of makeover, champagne, and magazine-style studio shoot, and a private reveal party afterward.
- Our session-enhancing themes range between $150 and $300.
- Our collections range from $849 to $4,999. Offerings include wine and coaster sets, photo boxes, heirloom albums, and a wide range of wall art.
- In total, our clients typically spend between $3,000 and $4,500 on their experiences and art purchases.
Contact Info:
- Email: jill@onesoulboudoir.com
- Website: https://onesoulboudoir.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/onesoulboudoir
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/onesoulboudoir
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/onesoulphoto
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkWb436YKwOQ_tjvGb9eRIA
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/one-soul-boudoir-marietta
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/groups/onesoulVIPGroup
