One of the questions we’ve been asked more than almost anything over the last few years has nothing to do with photography.
It’s this:
“How have you worked together as a husband and wife for over a decade… and still actually like each other?”
We laugh every time someone asks. Not because it’s a ridiculous question, but because we completely understand why they’re asking.
Most people assume working with your spouse every day would create constant friction. More disagreements. More stress. More opportunities for business to spill into your marriage. And to be fair…there have absolutely been hard seasons where that rang true for us.
We’ve had moments where one of us wanted to pull our hair out. Seasons where life required one person to carry more than the other. Conversations that aren’t always easy.
But after more than ten years of building a business together, we’ve realized something that has shaped almost every decision we’ve made:
We never built a business to become successful.
We built a business so we could build a life together.
That one perspective has changed everything.
Entrepreneurship Was Never the Dream
Long before we ever owned a business, we were just two teenagers riding a church bus talking about our future. We didn’t know the word entrepreneur. We didn’t have role models who worked for themselves. We certainly didn’t have a roadmap.
We just knew we wanted a life where we could be together.
Looking back, it’s funny because photography was never really the dream either. It simply became the vehicle that allowed us to create the life we wanted. That’s an important distinction.
Sometimes we become so focused on growing the business that we forget why we started it in the first place.
If your business no longer supports the life you’re trying to build, it may be time to ask whether you’ve accidentally made the business the destination instead of the tool.
The Goal Was Never Success
When Jon left his corporate job, it wasn’t because he hated working. It was because he hated spending more time away from his family than with them. He remembers coworkers celebrating Monday because it meant escaping their wives and kids. Meanwhile, all he could think was, “I just want to go back home.”
That was a defining moment.
Success didn’t look like climbing another corporate ladder. Success looked like building a life where our marriage and family came first. Ironically, pursuing that goal eventually led us into entrepreneurship. But entrepreneurship was never the destination, togetherness was.
Play to Your Strengths, Not Your Pride
One of the healthiest decisions we made early in our business was refusing to split everything fifty-fifty. Instead, we divided responsibilities according to our strengths.
Erica loves creating, connecting with clients, and leading photo shoots, so those became her roles.
Jon enjoys operations, systems, logistics, sales, and the business side of things, so those areas became his.
Neither of us wanted bookkeeping, so we took that off of both our plates and outsourced it.
It sounds simple, but so many couples unintentionally compete instead of complementing each other. Trying to prove you’re capable of doing everything often creates unnecessary tension.
Instead, ask: What does each of us naturally bring to the table?
When both people operate where they’re strongest, everyone wins.
Your Roles Will Change, and That’s Okay
One thing we didn’t expect over the years was how often our responsibilities would shift.
Business evolves. Families grow. Life happens. Sometimes one spouse is carrying more because the other is walking through something difficult.
We’ve experienced seasons of personal loss where one of us simply couldn’t show up the way we normally would. The beautiful part wasn’t that we had perfect systems. It was that we had enough trust to carry one another until the season changed.
There were moments when one of us stepped into responsibilities that weren’t naturally ours. Not forever, just for that season, because that’s what partnership looks like.
Separate the Marriage From the Meeting
One practice that’s helped us tremendously is mentally separating business conversations from marriage conversations.
When we need to have a difficult discussion about the business, we imagine ourselves walking into the boardroom. For that moment, we’re not husband and wife. We’re two teammates trying to make the best decision for the company.
That shift removes so much unnecessary emotion.
Instead of hearing criticism from your spouse, you’re hearing feedback from your business partner. Instead of defending yourself, you’re solving a problem together. It doesn’t make every conversation easy, but it keeps small business disagreements from becoming marriage disagreements.
Build a Business That Serves Your Life
One of the best pieces of advice we’ve ever received was to think of our family as the real company.
The business is simply one department, because life is bigger than work.
There are:
✔️ Kids to raise.
✔️ Meals to cook.
✔️ Friends to love.
✔️ Church to serve.
✔️ Memories to make.
The business matters, but it doesn’t matter more than the people it was meant to serve. When we lose sight of that, it’s easy to sacrifice our highest priorities in pursuit of lower ones.
What We’ve Learned After Ten Years
Looking back, we don’t think the reason we’ve enjoyed working together for so long is because we have perfect communication or perfect systems…It’s because we started with the right motivation.
We genuinely wanted to build a life together. The business became a way to live that out.
If you’re building a business with your spouse, or simply trying to pursue meaningful work while protecting your closest relationships, we hope this encourages you.
Success is wonderful. Growth is exciting. But neither one is worth sacrificing the people you started building for.
If you’d like to hear the full conversation, including more of our story and the practical lessons we’ve learned along the way, we’d love for you to listen to Episode 5 of Beyond the Camera.
Because after more than a decade of working side by side, we’re more convinced than ever of this:
The best businesses don’t compete with your marriage.
They strengthen it.
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