Rising Stars: Meet Tré Hunter of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tré Hunter.

Tré, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My father, Anthony Hunter, was the ordained minister of the family. And just like any father with a son, he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He began officiating weddings for couples in 2019. For quite a while, he had been trying to convince me that this work would suit me very well. My answer was always, “Dad…no. You’re the family minister — that’s your thing.”
At the time, I was working at Apple as a Creative Pro. I taught the instructional sessions in music, art, and photography. I was content with where I was, and it suited me quite well at the time. This is also where I got comfortable with speaking to crowds of people.
Then… COVID happened. Everything slowed to a halt, and everyone was essentially locked in their homes. However, once the lockdown lifted and it became somewhat safe to be in public again, there was a noticeable spike in the number of couples getting married. It was likely a combination of “pandemic couples” developing strong bonds after sheltering in place together, and couples who were already planning their wedding having their plans delayed due to COVID. Nonetheless, my dad stayed busy with weddings and used this to his advantage.
There was one particular couple who was getting married on Monday, February 1st, 2021. Just a few days before — on Friday — I got a surprise visit from my dad (I had an apartment in Sandy Springs at the time). Apparently, he woke up with a master plan on his mind that morning, and raced to my apartment to tell me what his scheme was. He told me about the couple whose wedding was coming up that Monday, and he got the bright idea to call the couple and tell them that he unexpectedly fell ill from COVID. Fortunately, his son was a “phenomenal wedding officiant who would love to step in on his behalf.” None of this was true. I had never officiated a wedding in my life, and I did NOT want to do his job. I didn’t even have a proper suit at the time. I was as unprepared as you could be.
Thankfully, everything fell perfectly into place over the next couple of days. For example, I randomly got a call from my best friend at the time the following day. He happened to be in the neighborhood, and he had a freshly dry-cleaned suit that he no longer needed. He wanted to know if I’d like to have it. He stopped by later that evening with the suit. I tried it on, and it fit me like a glove. I took that as a major sign that perhaps there may have been some divine guidance at play.
When the big day came around, I was scared out of my mind. The imposter syndrome began to set in, and I began regretting ever agreeing to step in to officiate this couple’s wedding. The first wedding that I ever officiated was at the couple’s house in Powder Springs. As I neared their home, I called my dad and threw every excuse at him as to why this was a mistake. But he calmed me down and reassured me that I could do it.
When I arrived, I could feel my heart about to burst through my chest. All the thoughts began running through my head. “What if my mind goes blank? What if they think I’m a fraud? What if I ruin these peoples’ wedding?” I then took a breath, and remembered my dad’s encouragement. I stepped out of my car, straightened my posture, and walked up their driveway.
“You must be Minister Tony’s son!” It was the groom who answered the door. He seemed to be excited to see me, and there was lively music playing throughout the house. Instantly, I realized that I wasn’t in danger. It had set in that I was supposed to be here. They were expecting me and were genuinely excited at my arrival.
“[The bride] is still getting ready, but we should be ready to start in about 10-15 minutes,” said the groom. He invited me to sit and wait on their cozy living room couch. I observed that this was a tight-knit family unit. There were kids dancing around the house in excitement, family murals on the walls, and the couple’s siblings doing their best to orchestrate all of the moving pieces on behalf of the bride and groom. After a few minutes, the bride’s sister walked out from a back room. “She’s ready.”
The time had come. I stood up from the couch and remembered my dad’s words. We gathered at the front of their living room, and something phenomenal happened. All of the self-doubt, uncertainty, and imposter syndrome just vanished. Despite standing before a room full of strangers who all had their eyes on me, it felt like I was at the Apple Store, letting my personality shine and guiding everyone through a shared meaningful experience. It was then that I realized that despite all of my self-doubt and nervousness, I was actually better equipped than I thought. The wedding ceremony turned out beautifully, and the couple and their family ended up thanking me profusely and even left me with a generous tip.
That experience of stepping outside of my comfort zone taught me three very valuable lessons. First, it turns out that our parents actually do know a thing or two. My dad was right: I was good enough to follow in his footsteps and do the work that he does. Secondly, we’re usually more prepared for what’s in front of us than we know. Our experiences are constantly preparing us for what’s coming next, even though we don’t realize it. Lastly, being “ready” to take a major step isn’t a feeling. It’s a decision. You usually never “feel” ready to step into the unknown. You must consciously decide that you’re ready to take that step.
After that first wedding, I never looked back. I called out of work the very next day, and spent the entire day building the foundation of Weddings by Tré from the ground up. I picked a name to represent my brand, came up with my service offerings, and designed my website. I must have been sitting at my computer from the time that I woke up until far past midnight.
About three months later, I was fortunate enough to grow my business relatively quickly, and left my full-time position at Apple in order to focus on weddings full time. Since that decision, I’ve gained five years of wisdom and experience in the wedding space, I’ve worked with over 1,000 couples, and I’ve become one of the most in-demand wedding officiants in Georgia. And the best part about it is that I’m just getting started.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely wasn’t always a smooth road. Leaving Apple to start my first business came with a lot of sacrifice, mistakes, and trial and error.

First off, leaving a stable job with a steady paycheck and benefits to go off on my own and start this brand-new business with so much uncertainty… there were many times when I questioned whether or not I made a mistake. There were certainly times when things were slow, and I didn’t know how the bills were going to get paid. I felt the pain of not being able to just call out of work when I didn’t feel good. For the first time, I tasted the full accountability of maintaining a business and having to take on all of the responsibility that came along with that.

Then there was having to build my credibility completely from scratch. My first clients had no reviews to read, no portfolio to browse, and no track record to trust, so I had to fully rely on my dad to help me get up to speed.

It’s funny looking back on it now, but I actually used photos from my dad’s website to post on Craigslist ads and then on my Thumbtack profile. These two platforms were sort of the proving ground for me and where I really got my start once I began doing things on my own. Craigslist was where I began building my brand. Can you believe that?

It was very important for me to be intentional about cultivating relationships and social proof by collecting reviews and developing a portfolio early on. Once I was able to get enough reviews and nice photos under my belt, I was finally able to stop relying on my dad’s credibility and start using my own.

There were also matters of pricing and self-worth. I remember that summer of 2021 when things started to dip a little bit, and I had to get creative to figure out how to get more bookings. I came up with this bright idea to run a promotion for the entire month of June, and I was charging $99 for personalized wedding ceremonies. For context, that same package now goes for $700+.

I didn’t yet understand how to price services, and I didn’t know my worth at the time, either. I felt like I needed an offer so good (a.k.a. dirt-cheap) that it would be foolish for a couple to say no, even if I was undercutting myself. Big lesson learned there, because I gained a lot of difficult, low-quality clients thanks to that “promotion.”

I think, for me, one of the biggest struggles was the personal cost. Weekends are always my busiest time. Weddings tend not to happen on Tuesday mornings, so my schedule has demanded a great deal from my personal life, relationships, and downtime. I can’t even remember how many birthdays, baby showers, and special occasions I missed on weekends because I was busy working at somebody else’s special occasion.

Sometimes it’s hard to look forward to enjoying a Saturday afternoon with your loved ones when you know that, while everybody else is off and enjoying their weekend, you have two or three weddings to be at that day. Mondays ended up becoming my day for downtime, which is the day that everyone else dreads. I say all of that to say that this work did come at a considerable cost to being able to enjoy my weekends with my friends and family. My current challenge is figuring out how I can create more balance in that regard.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Most people think a wedding officiant just shows up and reads words. They imagine someone reciting a clichéd script before telling the groom, “You may kiss the bride.” But that is only a fraction of the experience I provide.

My je ne sais quoi is personalization: the kind that makes each ceremony feel wholly specific to the couple standing in front of me. I believe every couple has a love story worth telling, and that story deserves to be brought fully to life at the altar in a way that makes the room understand exactly why this love is special.

I take tremendous pride in the full experience I provide, from start to finish. It begins with the Couple’s Questionnaire, a curated set of thoughtful prompts designed to help me understand who they are and how they love. It ends on the wedding day with storytelling and delivery that captivates the room, drawing the audience into something full of personality, emotion, and genuine intimacy. When a couple hears those words spoken aloud, you can see them internalizing every one of them, arriving at a deeper appreciation for everything that led them to this moment.

One of the patterns I see most consistently across my 200+ five-star reviews is guests pulling the couple aside afterward to ask, “How long has he known you?” They ask because the storytelling tends to be so intimate and detailed that it sounds like it came from someone who witnessed the entire love story firsthand. That, in a nutshell, is my style.

What I’m most proud of is running into couples years later, at an anniversary dinner or at a mutual friend’s wedding, and hearing that people still compliment them on their ceremony. That the words still mean something. That the day still lives in them the way I intended it to. Knowing that I play a meaningful role on one of the most important days of someone’s life is what brings me the deepest sense of fulfillment in this work.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
The first thing that comes to mind is how genuinely surprised people are when they learn that, before this, I worked at Apple as a Creative Pro. Nothing about “wedding officiant” signals former Apple employee. But that background actually laid the foundation for everything I do now. It’s where I developed my public speaking instincts and my storytelling voice. I would step up to a mic in front of a store full of 100-plus people, talk about the things I was passionate about, and connect them to the technology and to whatever that particular audience cared about. That’s where I built my comfort in front of a crowd, my instinct for reading a room, and my ability to guide a group through a shared experience. Most people have no idea that the skills driving my work in the wedding space were built in a completely different industry.

Then there’s this. And it genuinely makes me laugh every time I think about it. Most people who book me or follow my brand assume I pursued this deliberately — that it was a calculated decision years in the making. Nope. I was essentially conned into it by my dad.

In my own mind, I was the worst possible person to officiate anybody’s wedding. It just so happened that I was pretty good at it, I enjoyed it, and somehow it all worked. Here we are, five years later, still officiating weddings. The irony is that one of the most in-demand wedding officiants in Atlanta almost never became one at all.

The third thing that surprises people is the contrast between the brand they see today and where it actually started. I take a lot of pride in having a polished, premium brand. So, the fact that it began with borrowed photos on a Craigslist ad is hilarious to me. What people see today leads them to assumptions that couldn’t be further from where this all started. I went from Craigslist ads and a borrowed suit to over a thousand ceremonies and 200-plus five-star reviews. The brand is not something I was handed. It is something I built, piece by piece, from the ground up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.weddingsbytre.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weddingsbytre
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weddingsbytreatl
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trehunter/