Video biz is dream come true

Ten years ago, Matt and Jenny Baker were young marrieds barely into their 20s, just stepping onto the ladder of life, liberty and the pursuit of bill-paying.

He had a master's degree in technology and was selling timeshares; she was working as an office manager at a rental car company. Their first child, Alex, was 1 year old.

And they wondered: How do we live the dream?

Their definition of the dream was this: an occupation that they both enjoyed, that they could contribute to equally, that they could do out of their home, that would give them the freedom to take time off when they wanted, and, oh yeah, pay the aforementioned bills.

Matt was good at selling timeshares because he's yet to meet the person he doesn't want to talk to. Jenny was good at office management because she's yet to meet the office she couldn't manage. She could run a small country.

On some level they intuitively understood that their whole would be much greater than the sum of their individual parts.

One day either Matt or Jenny — maybe it was simultaneous — came up with the idea of combining their God-given gifts and … shooting wedding videos.

There were a few businesses that shot weddings — recorded the big day on film, edited it down and produced a keepsake documentary. But they typically cost several thousand dollars and priced most couples out of the picture.

Matt and Jenny decided they'd try to capitalize on the new technology and do it at a price people like them — "young couples who couldn't afford it" — could afford.

For about $5,000 they bought a video camera, a computer and editing equipment and shot their first wedding for a favorite but very cheap uncle of theirs for free.

I know this because I was the uncle.

If it turned out badly, no one could ask for their money back.

It turned out the opposite of badly. Kerri and I got married. Matt and Jenny got started. "Happily Ever After Video" was born.

For the next couple of years, neither Matt nor Jenny quit their day jobs, but they kept shooting weddings on the side, getting more bookings as word of their business spread.

Finally, they quit everything else, stopped commuting, transformed a guest room in the basement into an editing bay and turned their home in Sandy into world headquarters of Happily Ever After Video.

They've been shooting weddings full time ever since. They passed the 1,500 mark a couple of months ago. On average they do 225 weddings a year, and in the busy season — April through September — they book about 30 weddings a month. And they advertise mostly by word of mouth and their Web site, www.happilyeveraftervideo.com.