Hi and welcome to our blog! We’re David and Meivys. We photograph weddings, portraits, and brands and we do it together! That’s right, we work together, every day! Most people think we’re crazy, but nothing has ever made more sense for us. We created this space to encourage and motivate you, to share business and lifestyle tips we’ve learned along the way, and most importantly to talk about what it’s really like to own a business with your husband or wife.
Y todo comenzó bailando…
Our story began all the way in 2011 when we met. It was pretty crazy that we met in Tampa, yet neither of us lived or went to school there. In fact, I went to Florida State and David went to Georgia State. We both came to an event hosted by David’s fraternity, Lambda Upsilon Lambda. My sorority sisters and I came to support the USF chapter event and that weekend was the catalyst for what is now our life, love story, and business.
That weekend David asked me to dance and I, thinking I could outdo him in Salsa because he looked like a gringo, happily accepted. Little did I know that David was un trompo – how we Cubans say he dances alot and very well! I couldn’t believe it and to be honest I was a bit embarrassed because he was soooo good! After the dance, we went our separate ways and as God would have it saw eachother again at a party the night after. From there, my sorority sisters and I invited him and his brothers to an FSU v UM game, one of the biggest and most important football games of FSU history.
Mojito what??
That day came around and guess who came to Tallahassee, none other than David! Plus about another 10 LULS…I remember we were having a get-together at my apartment – thank God for all my sorority sisters coming over to host! I was trying to bake mojito cupcakes for the tailgate the next day, when David came and wanted to “help”
I (David) knew this day would be the day I would finally robarle un beso. I knew this girl was for me the moment I saw her in the kitchen… She wasn’t in the middle of the party with everyone, she was baking! Well, that recipe seemed like it called for a couple more shots of Captain Morgan that it said it needed, so I lent my helping hand, but those turned out to be the worst cupcakes I’ve ever had! But those cupcakes were the start of our story.
From that day forward we traveled back and forth between Atlanta and Tallahassee and were long distance for 9 months before I told Meivys I was moving in with her to wait until she finished school – you read that right – I told her…lol and you want to know what she said? She said ok, let’s do it! So we crammed all our stuff together in a little room – we’re talking double the mattresses, double the desks, double the microwaves, you get it..
The aha moment
During the time she finished school I saw that she took pictures of her friends and had to ask how her business was going, her response was – What business? Ohhh, my eyes lit up and that’s when I knew this could be big! I graduated with a Managerial Science degree with a focus in entrepreneurship so this was my thing! I always wanted to own a business and this was the perfect opportunity to build something together.
Let’s take a quick pause because you might just think we’re insane, just been together for a few months, majority of those months we were long distance and now we’re building a business together, ok this is insanity.
But love makes you do crazy things…
We weren’t married, we were certainly not engaged yet… but what we were was committed. We were committed to making a life of love and business work and I (Meivys) knew this could be something magical. We merged my passion for photography with David’s business sense and we created our first business on January 2013. Boy was that a disaster!
David thought it’d be genius to photograph everything from babies to school portraits to weddings – and I trusted him, so that we did! But we started to get burned out and really weren’t focused on finding our ideal clients and booking sessions that were fun and that we enjoyed – this right here took a toll on our relationship and we knew we had to make some changes.
Being a couple and business partners is very challenging, especially for David and I because we are sooo different – he is logical and sales driven. I am totally right brain and creativity driven. We bumped heads alot and we contemplated quitting multiple times, but we realized that what we needed was to sit down and have a conversation around what we really wanted this business to be and how we wanted our lives to look. That changed everything!
Lo que está pa ti nadie te lo quita…
In 2015, David proposed and it was the most magical night of my life! I couldn’t not have imagined a more perfect day and celebration of us, but that’s a story for another time. This proposal meant that we were in this together, that we were going to start thinking about our business and our relationship as an investment for our future and that meant we needed to pour everything we had to make it work, including our dream of owning a business together.
So what made the difference you ask? The difference was organization, communication, reflection, acceptance, and love. We needed to organize our business and have systems so that we can begin each day from a place of order. We had to learn to communicate better and to reflect on the things we had already done. We had to accept what we each were good at and not so good at, and we had to remember that there’s a line between being business owners and being a couple. This life was for us, despite what obstacles we faced and what others had to say about it.
Business is hard, love is easy.
The entire year of 2016 we spent building ourselves up and communicating better, reflecting more, accepting each other, and loving one another. We came across lots of decisions and that’s when it all started to click. We educated ourselves on what an ideal client is, we started to think as a brand versus a business, we defined each other’s roles and accepted each other’s flaws and picked up where the other needed help, above all we learned that at the end of the day, no matter what happened in our business, we had built it on a foundation of love.
In 2017 our business took a crazy turn as we gutted it from the inside out and rebranded, changed business names, rebuilt our website, focused on our ideal client, and all while we planned our wedding.
Oh hey 2020
We’ve learned a lot in our business journey of 7 years ya’ll and 2020 came as a reminder that through it all, we’re stronger than we’ve ever been – as a business and as a couple. In 2020, during a pandemic we surpassed income goals – multiple months in a row, we traveled to multiple countries on our bucket list…and its not over yet!
So with that, we want to welcome you into this community and we want you to know that you can build a love, a business, and a life you are proud of – as a team – and be successful, happy, and empowered. This blog is made for the hardworking and the creative couple, the couple that wants to hustle and dream big, the couple that needs a nudge and a great job from time to time, a couple that enjoys their life together, a couple that wants to succeed alongside each other, and a couple who knows that their significant other makes them better, gives them strength, and loves them unconditionally.
Get ready for business and life hacks, silly and crazy stories, date nights, dancing in the kitchen, puppy kisses, travel vlogs, tons of photos, faith and motivation and a real life look into what it’s like running a business as a husband and wife team.
Welcome to the Spot! The Suarez Party of Two!
