Meet Julia and Ken Lu

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia and Ken Lu.

Julia and Ken, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We can’t tell you how our business started without telling you first about how our love story started! I have just moved from Germany to southern California to spend an academic year at Cal State Fullerton. In the first couple of days, when looking for accommodation, I came across Ken’s house, stopped by one day to check it out and sort of never left. Ken helped me move from the hostel down the road into my new home. We both noticed pretty quickly that we’re getting along very well and long story short, we started dating not too long after. I have always loved creating things, so when I discovered Ken’s DSLR, I naturally wanted to learn everything about it. Ken, being the mechanical engineer, is the tech guru of our company. There is nothing he doesn’t know about gear or how to fix a technical issue on the cameras. I just felt so drawn to learning more about how to use it and create beautiful images. From my first photo of the lemon tree in our backyard to now shooting beautiful weddings, I’ve come a long way. Ken taught me everything from properly exposing an image, to aperture, and shutter speed.

When my academic year came to an end, Ken moved to Germany with me! It was a big step since he didn’t speak the language and has never even visited Europe. After moving back to Germany, I continued to learn and started using our camera to take photos of the only model I knew: my sister! Followed by portraits of other family members and friends. Until one day Ken’s coworker told him that his brother is getting married. He heard that we have a nice camera. We got the job, and never ever will we forget how we felt sitting in the car, driving to photograph our first wedding. We were so nervous!! That was over seven years ago. After four years of living in Germany, we relocated back to California. Because which German has never dreamt off living overseas and so close to the beach? We were so grateful that all the hard work has paid off and I was able to go full time with the photography business. The move to Colorado brought us to where we are today.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Being a full-time wedding photographer is a lot of hard work. As rewarding and fun as the job is, it also comes with a lot of challenges. Wearing different hats in the business is one of them. You’re never just the photographer. You’re the entrepreneur, the bookkeeper, the photo editor, the planner. That’s a lot of hats for one person to wear. You’re the only person responsible for getting things done. Working long hours is the norm and you’re really never totally off the job. But it’s fun and so rewarding, and we are very fortunate to do what we love for a living.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Julia & Ken Photography – what should we know?
Being a husband and wife photography team on a wedding day means that we are able to see things from two different perspectives and making sure that nothing goes undocumented. We always work together as a team and sometimes by just reading each other’s facial expressions we know exactly what the other person is thinking.
Since we’ve been through wedding planning ourselves, we know how important it is to have vendors that you can trust. From creating a wedding day timeline to studying your bride and groom questionnaires and providing engagement session style guides to our couples. We don’t provide just beautiful images, but also a great experience. Every wedding is so special, unique and a once-in-a-lifetime moment so we always want to make sure that every single one of our couples is well taken care of.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Even though our business is Julia & Ken Photography, we wouldn’t be where we are today without an amazing support system. Our families have been on board with us since day one, and our friends have always been our biggest cheerleaders. They understand our busy weekend schedule and know that we’re going to be MIA during the wedding season. But perhaps the biggest champions of our growing business have been our clients themselves. Because our growth is primarily organic, we got to where we are today as a result of their rave reviews and having them recommend our services to just about everyone they know!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jandkphoto.com/
• Email: mail@jandkphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jandk_photography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jandkphoto/

Image Credit:
Allie and John Photography, Cori Delgado Photography

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