Leanne is Mark’s wife and the studio manager at Mark Jay Photography. Leanne takes on a number of roles within the business – managing our client enquiries and bookings, our social media accounts, filming our Live Weddings and assisting Mark and our brides and grooms on their wedding days. Read more about how Leanne got involved in weddings and what to expect from the Mark Jay Photography service in Part 1 of our interview with Leanne below:

Did you ever think you would work in wedding photography?

Truthfully, no, although I can see now how suited it is to me. I am a lawyer and have been for the past 10 years so my skillset and background is completely different to a wedding photographer. However, I’ve always been artistic and have always loved photographs – I was responsible for organising our family photo albums growing up and took lots of pleasure in getting photos developed and framed and in creating photo collages as gifts for my friends or to decorate my bedroom. I have also been a bridesmaid 10 times, so it’s fair to say that weddings have been a central part of my life and also led to me meeting Mark!

Leanne on the far left, the day she met Mark!

How did you meet Mark?

Mark and I met at my brother’s wedding when Mark was the wedding photographer and I was the bridesmaid! Mark was such a professional so I never noticed his interest in me on the wedding day itself but I learned later that he had been trying to work out if I was single and when he noticed during the dance bracket that I was dancing with my aunty and cousins, he was pretty confident that was the case. Mark played it cool and added me to Facebook a week later and even then I initially thought this was because he wanted to tag me into photos! But when he asked me out for a coffee I cottoned on, and since that coffee date – which turned into dinner and ice cream because we couldn’t stop talking – we’ve been inseparable. We were engaged a year later and married ten months after that on 16 May 2015.

How did you get involved in Mark Jay Photography?

I love Mark’s photos and I am his biggest fan. I know how much work, love and pride he puts into what he does because I see it firsthand and so I am incredibly supportive of that. I became part of Mark Jay Photography when I decided to create and manage our Instagram and Facebook pages because I could see Mark had so much amazing work to share and he didn’t have time to manage it himself. At first I was secretly pretending to be Mark while failing miserably with girly captions and emoticons, but I think most people now know that it’s me. As we got busier and busier, I started handling all the enquiries and bookings and once we were married in 2015 and my time was no longer taken up with organising our own wedding, I began attending weddings with Mark as a photography assistant. Mark works as a wedding photographer most weekends and I work during the week so I could see the benefit of us working together and we’re lucky that we’re a great team. Teamwork makes the dream work!

What do you love about wedding photography?

Having married Mark, I know how joyous being married can be. I also love to imagine our couples continuing to admire their wedding photographs in 10, 20, 30 years time. It’s that heirloom aspect of wedding photography and the thought of those wedding photographs being passed down to children and grandchildren that appeals to me most. To be able to take part in documenting one of the most significant days in a couple’s life is really special.

What can we expect from the ‘Mark Jay Photography’ service?

We are a boutique wedding photography studio so when you deal with Mark Jay Photography, you’re working with myself and Mark directly. Because Mark and I know what it’s like to plan a wedding, we understand firsthand how important it is to have service providers that are organised, reliable, and willing to go above and beyond. It’s why we aim to make life easy for our couples – not only on the wedding day but in the lead up as well – and that applies to simple things like replying to emails quickly as well as aiming to ‘wow’ every couple with the photographs we create. All our couples are special to us – I can recite the names and wedding dates for each one – and this is also reflected in the friendships we have formed with our couples and in the beautiful testimonials our couples have left us. Our business has grown quickly and it’s mostly due to word of mouth which is such a compliment to us.

How is Mark Jay Photography unique and different from other wedding photographers?

The Sydney wedding photography industry is crowded so it’s really important to us that the quality of our work stands out. We are constantly refining our approach and pushing to do it better and better and this is where the magic happens for us – we are not complacent and I think our couples can see how much we put into giving them a great experience and beautiful photographs to treasure. We consider our couples as friends so we are genuinely happy and excited to see them enjoy a beautiful wedding day. We love nothing more than when they receive their wedding photographs and are overjoyed with the work that we’ve done.

The feedback we received from Ivan + Rose who were married 14 January 2017 is a good summary of the results that we aim for each and every time, so I’ll leave that here:

To the most amazing and beautiful team!!

Where do I even begin? Saturday was the best day of our lives!!! And I can honestly say, having you there sharing our special day capturing all the moments, made the day even more incredible!

You made us feel so comfortable and we all felt at ease. You went above and beyond to capture every moment, and it wasn’t just capturing the moments, it was all the small things too. Like grabbing us that water bottle or helping us with the dress or holding the bouquets. We loved sharing every moment of that day with you. The photos look so beautiful and amazing! We cannot wait to see them all. You have such a talent and it shows in every one of those photos. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Lots of love, Ivan and Ruža.

ps. Mark is a very lucky man to have you Leanne. You really are a gem! Thank you for helping all of us out!

Get in touch

We’ve got more questions for Leanne to answer in future articles on this blog, but if you have any questions for Leanne, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at info@markjayphotography.com