Maye.Be Take A Photo - Colorado Elopement Photographer & Planner

Answers provided by: Samantha Maye (she/her), Founder of Maye.Be Take A Photo

Introducing Sam, who is an elopement and micro-wedding photographer and planner. She’s based in Colorado, but travels all over the country (and sometimes, the world!) capturing incredible, nontraditional wedding days. You’ll be in awe at the photos throughout this blog. I hope you enjoy!

One thing Sam really prides herself on in her business is that she’s not “just” a photographer, she helps couples plan elopement and wedding days from start to finish that feel completely authentic to them, no matter how unique or out-of-the-box. Sometimes that means backpacking or off-roading to the middle of nowhere, and sometimes that means a super relaxed day somewhere beautiful. Sometimes the perfect wedding day for a couple involves their friends and family, and sometimes it’s just the two of them having fun together!

Sam’s first priority is getting to know who her couples are as people, what makes their love story unique, and what’s important to them, and then translating that into an unforgettable experience. And then finally, she gets to deliver amazing photos that perfectly capture that experience, so 20+ years later her couples can look at their wedding photos and be brought right back to that day!

I hope you in enjoy this deeper dive into who Sam is and her business Maye.Be Take A Photo. Sam I am grateful to work alongside you and your work!

Samantha Maye (she/her), Founder of Maye.Be Take A Photo

1. Tell us about your journey. how did your queer-owned business come to life?

Sam has always loved traveling, being outdoors, and taking pictures. Photography started as a hobby for her, but slowly grew to be a bigger and bigger part of her life. She was eventually drawn to capture other people’s adventures as well as her own, and she started Maye.Be Take A Photo. At the time, she was just doing photography on the side while in a graduate program. But she quickly realized that photography was a much stronger passion, and decided that after grad school she would put her all into Maye.Be Take A Photo.

Sam quickly narrowed in on her niche: photographing and planning nontraditional wedding days for nontraditional couples! Most of her couples don’t feel like a “typical” wedding would fit their vibe, and want to adventure somewhere beautiful instead. Now she gets to spend her days in gorgeous nature, capturing the genuine joy of all kinds of people madly in love!

Image taken and provided by Samantha Maye

2. What mission or values guide your work and how does being queer-owned shape that vision?

Maye.Be Take A Photo is centered around creating authentic, often super nontraditional wedding days for couples. Sam never felt like a big, traditional wedding fit her. For a lot of reasons and a lot of queer people feel the same way. She found her calling when she realized that there are other ways to get married, and that the most important thing is doing something that feels true to you as a couple.

Being queer-owned shapes the vision for Maye.Be Take A Photo because Sam is very intentional about treating every couple the exact same way, regardless of their gender or sexuality. She takes a lot of pride in reviews she receives from queer couples that say she just made them feel normal and not “other” in any way on their wedding day. Sam strongly believes that everyone deserves to feel normal, welcome, and respected, especially during such an intimate and important experience!

Image taken and provided by Samantha Maye

3. What challenges have you faced as a queer entrepreneur, and how have you overcome them?

One of the biggest challenges Sam has faced as a queer entrepreneur is being afraid to tell couples or advertise to potential clients that she’s queer. She’s faced situations where she’s felt uncomfortable with clients because she knew their views didn’t align with her identity and literally her very existence. For example, she had a couple who realized that a pride flag had been in the background of several of their wedding portraits and insisted she retake them. 

Experiences like that make her incredibly uncomfortable, especially because she values creating a safe space for every couple on their wedding day. Because a couple’s wedding day is such an intimate experience, Sam often doesn’t feel like she can call out uninclusive views and behavior at that moment, so she has to hide who she is.

Learning from those experiences, Sam has worked to share her queer identity more outwardly. By doing so, she’s gained more confidence in herself, found clients that align with her values, and gotten the opportunity to capture some amazing queer weddings and elopements.

4. How do you foster inclusivity and community through your business?

Image taken and provided by Samantha Maye

Sam fosters inclusivity and community in her business by treating all of her couples the same, regardless of their gender or sexuality. She doesn’t treat a queer wedding or elopement as something different or outside the norm. She values all her couples and their love stories equally. Sam also makes an effort to use inclusive language everywhere she can, and she never uses “bride and groom” as a default on her website or any materials for clients.

Sam also tries to recommend only vendors and spaces that are as inclusive and accepting as she is, not just for her queer couples but for everyone, because that’s a quality that’s really important to her in the people she works with!

5.  What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other queer folks looking to start their own venture?

Image taken and provided by Samantha Maye

Sam would tell queer folks looking to start their own business to not be afraid to be outwardly queer. It can be hard when you’re just starting out and struggling to find customers, because you feel like you have to take any business you can get. But the best part of running your own business is the moment when you find your niche and your people. It’s so much better to prioritize working with people who support you than to spend time catering to people who disagree with a fundamental part of your identity.

Image taken and provided by Samantha Maye

6.  What does "queer joy" mean to you, and how do you create or celebrate it in your space?

To Sam, queer joy means experiencing moments of happiness, joy, and love where you’re completely free from judgement. It’s getting to celebrate who you are without any fear or worry.

For queer couples getting married, literally just inquiring with wedding vendors can be scary, because you don’t know what kind of reaction they’ll have when they realize you’re queer, or if they’ll even want to work with you.

Experiencing queer joy on your wedding day means not having to worry about any of that. Sam wants the queer couples she works with to know that the people around them during such a special and intimate event will treat them as human beings and be completely supportive of whatever they want their day to look like.

Sam believes your wedding day shouldn’t include anybody who isn’t supportive of you. She prioritizes creating a safe space for all of her couples and making sure they know that she supports them entirely, so they’re free to experience queer joy and have an incredibly fun wedding day.

7. Who are some queer creators, leaders, or businesses that inspire you right now?

Image taken and provided by Samantha Maye

One queer small business that inspires Sam is Ginger Tea Tattoos, a private queer-owned tattoo studio in Denver. The tattoo artist, Jess, has only been running the studio for a couple years, but did a great job of being her authentic self in her social media and marketing right from the get-go, never hiding who she is and actually making it a key part of the business’s identity. Her goal was to create a safe tattoo space for queer people, and she’s been doing exactly that and it’s been really successful!

A bigger creator that Sam admires a lot is Pattie Gonia, a drag artist and environmental activist, because they’re so outspoken about what they believe in and not afraid to be who they are. Sam wishes she was better at being as outwardly queer in her business and sees them as a big inspiration. She also really admires how Pattie Gonia brings together several causes that are all super important to Sam. Environmentalism, outdoor recreation, and queer activism and how they advocate for queer people in outdoor communities.

Follow Sam on Instagram and learn more/book via her Website!