Our Story

In The Beginning…

One of the questions I get asked the most about my business is how The Velvet Trunk got started.  Here’s a bit of that story… =)

In December of 2006 I was working as an office manager for a radio station in Franklin, TN, and one day I was called into my bosses office along with his assistant (that’s never a good sign). I found out that the Corporate office had decided to let me go. As my wonderful (now “ex”) boss sat there earnestly telling me he would do anything he could to help me find another job I suddenly turned to him and slowly said, “Actually…I’m ummm ahhh not going to look for another job….”

At this declaration all three of our mouths were hanging slightly ajar and both he and his assistant looked utterly crestfallen – as if they thought that letting me go had traumatized me to the point I’d never be able to work again.

But in that moment, I knew with incredible clarity what the Lord was telling me to do.  I hadn’t even remotely dreamed about it five minutes earlier, but in that instant I turned to them and said “Umm….I think I’m supposed to do photography full time?!”  Slowly the color seeped back into their faces and their eyes lit up as they breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t pushed me over the edge after all.  Or maybe…they had?!

The next day I skipped like a crazy person around my new place despite having no savings, no clients, the saddest excuse for a website you’d ever seen, and no idea what kind of photography I wanted to do or having any clue how to run a business. And now I had no income. And on top of that I had no training of any kind with photography. (Unless you count a summer camp I did at ten that I don’t remember due to a massive amount of darkroom chemicals.)

All I knew is that the Lord had told me to do what I loved full time which meant that somehow He was going to make it work.

Right????

Even technically “jobless” I was overwhelmed at the Lord’s gentleness with me. He knew how much I loved photography and He also knew that had He not forced me out of my comfort zone, there was no chance in you know where that I would have ever jumped…ever…  To this day I have no earthly idea how I made it that first year, battling Lupus and trying to start a business that I frankly had no idea how to start. So as cheesy as it may sound, I just prayed. I prayed for a creative way to launch my business and the idea for the Baby Book, a leather bound book featuring the whole three or four baby and children shoots that I’d ever done, was born. (No pun intended. )

So I took my first baby book to a local high-end baby boutique in town, dropping it off with the staff in hopes they’d like it enough to allow me to put my work in the store. Within thirty minutes I got a phone call from the owner. Evidently the girls at the store had called her at home and told her she needed to come to the store right away to see the book I’d dropped off. “Melanie, I’ve had photographers approach me for years to see if they could place their work in my store and I’ve never agreed to it. But I’ve never seen work like yours before and even though I don’t know you, I want to do whatever I can to help you launch your business.” I sat there speechless, tears pouring down my face. Now that was either the nicest person on the planet, or the kind of favor only God can bring? Maybe both…

So that’s how it all started… I could sit for days and tell you the opportunities that have come my way and everything that God has done over the last four years. He has been my provider, my manager- even my scheduler.  I never fail to be amazed at how He has carries me and this business. And on top of everything- I have the best clients a girl could ask for. Life is good…Really really good… 

“The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as He did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert.
There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”
-Deut 1:29-31