Kim and Kyle Farris, the owners of Heart Happy Films, find joy in providing valuable experiences to their clients by not just doing a job but by creating authentic friendships in the process.
In this week’s episode of the WHOA GNV Podcast, the husband and wife keepsake creators share their story about meeting in the third grade and how their filmmaking business started by accident.
While Kyle was finishing his degree in digital media at the University of Central Florida, Kim transferred to the University of Florida to pursue the college’s architecture program. In 2008, Kyle graduated and started as a software developer at InfoTech, where he still works today. Two years later, Kim graduated with her master’s degree, and two weeks after that, they were married.
Kim knew she wanted a wedding videographer to capture their special day, so they did a trade of services and built a website for a friend in return for a wedding video.
“Once we got our wedding video back, I was like wow this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, being able to take you back to that day, being able to hear loved ones and their voices, being able to hear well wishes from my grandmother who’s now not with us anymore. It was just super cool.”
That same year, Kim’s cousin was getting married. After arriving at her stunning wedding venue, Casa Monica, and hearing she didn’t hire a wedding videographer, Kim realized someone had to video this day. She grabbed her iPhone 3G and Kyle grabbed his Canon camcorder, and Heart Happy Films created its first film.
With no thought of ever filming a wedding video again, Kim shared their finished video on her wedding blog, GatorBride, and they received their first inquiry. With the encouragement of her husband, she agreed to the job. They charged $500 for their services and used the money to invest in a better camera, a Nikon D7000. Because one person admired their work, their lives have been changed forever.
Along with the emotional, fast-paced and little spontaneous moments that happen on-site of a wedding, Kim and Kyle have been able to grow their business and invest more time into commercial work. Unlike weddings where ideas are present but nothing is planned, with commercials, everything is pre-planned. They love both parts of their profession and can’t pick a favorite.
For almost 10 years, they have captured love stories, crafted collections of moments, and created relationships between themselves and their clients that last a lifetime.
“They spend most of their wedding day with us,” Kim said. “We wanted to build an experience where when we show up on their wedding day, we’re already friends.”
Listen to the 107th episode of WHOA GNV podcast to hear more about Kim and Kyle’s journey to what Heart Happy Films is today.
