To even begin to explain how Golden Hour Images began, we have to take you back, way back, to Spanish class. Hannah and I went to the same middle and high school, but it wasn’t until Sophomore year Spanish class that we actually connected. You could say we bonded over verb conjugation confusion, typical high school drama, and movie quotes. 

After we officially connected in Spanish class, we decided to get together after school one Friday for a movie night. We planned to get food and hang out on the couch with a movie while all of the other kids were probably doing something else all together, but we didn’t care. If I can remember correctly, we got Greek food at a new restaurant we had in our small town and watched the movie Unstoppable. Anyway… movie nights became a die hard tradition in our friendship. It was a weekly occurrence for pretty much the rest of high school.

After graduation, we split up and went to different colleges. Hannah started out at Nashville State Community College and I headed to Belmont University, both of which are in Nashville so we were pumped to still be in the same city.

A few months into Freshman Year, we started missing each other. It’s hard going from seeing your best friend every single day to only a few times a month! What was our solution? We started a blog. A Fashion Blog. We both loved fashion, and we both loved Nashville so we thought we could use those things to create something together. We ended up running our blog for a few years. We went to events, like Nashville Fashion Week, and made connections with people and brands that we never dreamed would happen. There came a time, however, that we got so busy with school and work that the blog became more of a chore. We both still loved it, but we needed something that was going to be more profitable if we were going to continue to pursue a creative business together. 

I (Chelsea) started taking pictures for people on the side. We both got pretty good at working a camera during our blog days so we decided to put our skills to good use. Eventually, I started getting questions about bigger projects (like weddings) that scared me to death. I turned people down a few times, and finally asked Hannah to come on board with me. 

A few months into my photography venture, I finally said yes to a wedding– Hannah’s! I said no at first because I didn’t want to mess up her big day, but I ended up caving in and shot my very first wedding. (You can read more about our experience at Hannah’s wedding in a blog post coming soon.)

After shooting Hannah’s wedding and posting the photos on social media, the wedding inquires began filling our inbox, and we’ve been fortunate enough to grow our business even more. We are doing so many things behind the scenes that we are very excited about, and we are so very thankful for the support and love we’ve gotten from people all around us! Most of all, we are so thankful for the friendship that we’ve created with each other. Some people may tell you to never go into business with friends or family, but I must say that our relationship has strengthened exponentially with each crazy idea that we’ve dreamed up, and we can’t wait to take Golden Hour Images even further in the future. 

Thanks for reading! 

-Chelsea & Hannah