Vendor Spotlight: JTPerceptions Videographers

You may remember Aubrey and Te’Darryl’s rainy wedding from earlier this year. It was a beautiful day, and the vendor team was spectacular! Topping that list of vendors is Jesse and Hannah Travers of JTPerceptions, a husband-wife videography team who truly cannot be beat! They are the best! The wedding videos they create are timeless and perfect and truly allow brides and grooms to relive their wedding day in a powerful way. And, maybe the best part, they are two of the most joyful and genuine people you could ever meet. I can 100% guarantee you that you may walk into a meeting with them looking for videographers, but you’ll walk out of it blessed with two more friends than you had when you went in. I cannot say enough good things about them, so I sent them a few “interview” questions to answer. They graciously did, and I’m sharing them with you today; let’s let them tell their story in their own words!

1. Tell me a little about yourselves and how you got into the wedding industry.

 My name is Jesse and I’m originally from New Jersey. I moved to NC in my last year of high school back in 2003. When I graduated highschool I attended GTCC and earned my degree in graphic design. During college, I started working for my Uncle at High Point Gymnastics Academy, worked my way up to a coaching position and have done that full time ever since. One day, a friend of mine came to me and told me she was getting married and asked if I could film it for her. Seeing how I didn’t have any wedding video experience at the time, I accepted the opportunity, offered to do it for free, and in the end they ended up giving me $100 bucks for the job. Ever since then, I was hooked. I had been doing photography as a hobby on the side and had been looking for an opportunity to really test my skills and equipment, and give a product to someone that would really make them smile. I was still working at the gym full time so videography and photography were very part time, but I gradually started doing more weddings. I learned and studied videography and became better and more experienced at it. I started to take on other jobs such as gymnastics photography and videography, since I was in the field, and family and senior photography. Today, weddings is considered my #1/specialty. I love the endless possibility with editing a wedding video and seeing a bride and groom get so excited when they get to watch their video. It’s so rewarding. I had always filmed weddings/ events solo until I met my wife Hannah in 2011. Hannah was a homeschooled NC native. She was attending Nursing school at GTCC when we began to date. In her free time she would help me run photography booths at gymnastics meets and helped me film weddings. I liked her style and could really use the free help at the time so I figured, why not ask her to marry me? So I did on Christmas day 2014. Alright, so maybe I was kind of in love with her and couldn’t live without her too…but the important thing is she said yes! We got married on July 25th, 2015 and she was been my partner in crime ever since. As far as her nursing career, she unfortunately had to let it go due to health issues. She says that nursing honestly was never her passion, but rather a “secure” career. Her true desire was to be self employed and have the”freedom” to make her own schedule. Things were seeming to line up perfectly for both of us. She then found herself working a part time job and helping me on the side. Today, she handles the books, communication with our clients, helps film for weddings and other videography jobs, and poses our clients for photo shoots. Hannah says that “Even though photography wasn’t on my radar, it was on God’s. He gave me the one my heart longed for, as well as the life I longed for too.” God has been so good to us and we are so blessed and excited to both be interested in this career. I loved my job as a gymnastics coach, but it wasn’t my passion. So after 10 years of coaching I left my gymnastics career in September, 2018 to pursue videography and photography full time with my wife.

2. What led you to videography?

Jesse: In my younger years, I was into skate boarding. Yes that was me. Your typical skater boy with baggy jeans and sneakers. But skate boarding is actually what got me interested in videography. I would film my friends doing all these epic jumps on their boards and BMX bikes. I loved getting all the cool angles and editing the videos to show them later which they loved too. It really lit my fire and interest inphotography/videography and I knew that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my life if I could make it happen.

Hannah: What led me to videography? Jesse (haha)

3. What is/are your favorite wedding trend(s) right now?

Hannah: Jesse didn’t know what “Trends” meant so I’ll answer this one. 😉 I’m loving the rustic farmhouse themes. It is so beautiful and embraces how times used to be.

4. What is your favorite moment in the wedding day? 

Hannah: I love to watch the groom’s face when he sees his bride. It’s usually my job to film his expression, while Jesse films the bride’s. I love that responsibility!

Jesse: The first dances. Its such an awesome moment where the bride and groom look like they are the only ones in the room. Just completely caught up in each other. I love to film this with my gimbal, circling around them capturing their expressions and emotion.

5. If you could give engaged couples one piece of advice (marriage, wedding planning, anything!) what would it be?

Jesse: Be quick to forgive. Life is too short to stay angry with one another.

Hannah: When in doubt, bake her brownies. Brownies are always the answer.

6. What about your business sets you apart from others?

I think the fact that we are in this together as a married couple, makes it really awesome and unique. We both love doing this and I think our passion shows through to our clients because of it.

7. Anything else you’d like to add?

Don’t be afraid to take a chance. You’ll never know until you try. The worst that could happen is you have to go back to how your life was. You’ve got nothing to lose. Don’t live your life wandering”What If”. Take the leap.

Aren’t they the greatest!! For more information on Jesse and Hannah and JTPerceptions, check out their website.