By Barry Wise Smith Photography by Brittany Sturdivant
Growing up, Brittany Sturdivant didn’t plan on becoming a wedding photographer. “I never considered photography as a career,” Sturdivant says. “I grew up dancing my whole life,” she says of her years spent at Birmingham Dance Theatre.
SWhen she graduated Vestavia Hills High School and moved on to Birmingham-Southern College (BSC), Sturdivant majored in dance on the pre-health track with a plan go to physical therapy school and be a PT for dancers. But when Sturdivant did a physical therapy internship, it wasn’t what she had imagined.
Then, BSC discontinued the dance major, and Sturdivant needed a new plan. “I took a business class and fell in love with it,” she remembers. “It turned out my mind worked better in the business classes than it did in my science classes.” BSC allowed Sturdivant to finish her dance major, she changed from pre-health to business, and the rest is history.
Sturdivant had always been the friend in her group with a camera in her hand, and she had taken some photography classes in high school. “I saved all my graduation money from high school to buy my first DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera,” she remembers. At BSC she met her good friend Elizabeth Pettey, who was doing photography, and “she showed me a way to make money doing it.”
During BSC’s popular Jan Term, Sturdivant started looking for a professional photographer to learn from. “I sent emails to more than 20 photographers asking to shadow them,” she says. “Most either didn’t respond or responded to say, ‘I don’t want to train my own replacement.’” But Kelly Cummings, an established local wedding and lifestyle photographer and owner of Spindle Photography, interviewed Sturdivant and offered her the opportunity to assist her on shoots. “It was one of the biggest gifts of my career,” Sturdivant says. “For her to give me a chance was amazing, because hands-on experience is so crucial.”
By January 2011, midway through Sturdivant’s sophomore year, she had assisted Cummings on numerous wedding shoots. “She taught me how to use Lightroom (photo editing software) and let me start doing some photo editing for her,” she says. Sturdivant also got a first-hand look at the business side of photography—developing client relationships, vendor networking, billing, taxes. “It’s one thing to major in business but a whole other thing to see the reality of it, Sturdivant says.
By her junior and senior year, Sturdivant started shooting weddings on her own. “Kelly really pushed me to start doing it solo,” she recalls. “It was pretty gutsy for a college kid to be shooting people’s weddings.” But shoot weddings she did, doing about 10 by the end of her senior year. “It gave me a lot of experience and confidence that I could do this.”
Sturdivant graduated from BSC in 2013 and went to work at Trinity United Methodist Church in Homewood before taking an admissions job at BSC. During her time at Trinity, pastor David Thompson taught Sturdivant how to shoot video. “He taught me how to use Final Cut Pro (video
editing software), and I upgraded to a professional camera that shot photos and video,” she says.
In 2015, after getting married the previous year to Robert Sturdivant, the youth minister at Trinity, and working at BSC, Sturdivant shot 20 weddings. Being married, working a full-time job and traveling to shoot weddings every weekend started to wear on her, and she knew it was time to make photography her full-time job. “I’m really grateful for that time because it pushed me to a point where I had to make a decision,” Sturdivant says of pulling the trigger on going full time with photography. She and her mom, Sherri Arias, who had recently retired, signed a lease on a space in West Homewood that could function as Sturdivant’s photo studio and office, while also hosting events. Studio BHM was born.
At her peak, Sturdivant shot 35 weddings in a year, traveling across the country to weddings in Nashville, New Orleans, Cape Cod and more. When the pandemic hit in 2020, and the wedding world changed, Sturdivant pivoted and started shooting videos for non-profits, which took her to Africa and Haiti on mission trips. “I loved getting to travel,” she says.
In 2021, Sturdivant changed the name of her business from Love Be Photography to simply
Brittany Sturdivant to reflect the breadth of work she was doing. “But weddings are always the main focus,” she says. While Sturdivant shoots a more documentary style of photography, capturing special candid moments throughout a wedding day, she also knows that there are some pictures that must be taken at every wedding. “Being in the South, there are those classic pictures and poses that every bride still wants,” she says.
Today, Sturdivant limits her schedule to 12 weddings a year as she is now mom to her daughter Addie with a new baby on the way (baby #2 is due in July). Sturdivant is known for her calm, steady presence on wedding days so that brides and grooms can revel in their day knowing that she will capture the images they’ll want to look back on for years to come. “It never gets old,”she says. “Every wedding is different, even though there’s a familiar rhythm and heartbeat to them. It is the highest compliment and the biggest privilege to have a family entrust me to capture the images on the most important day of their lives.”
Brittany Sturdivant’s advice on choosing a wedding photographer:
“There has to be trust,” Sturdivant says, so interview multiple photographers and get recommendations from people you know and trust to select the right photographer for you.
Establish a clear budget, and create a shot list with photographs you want to be sure are taken during the day (if you want a picture of your grandmother with your dog, be sure to discuss this in advance!).
Determine what type of pictures you want. Are you more traditional and want posed shots, or do you want a more documentary style that captures candid moments throughout the day? Or a mixture of the two? Make sure and have conversations with the photographer so you get what you want.
Invest in experience. The more experienced photographer will be more expensive, but they have been there, done that and know how weddings go, so find someone who has experience.
Let the photographer do the work on your wedding day, so you can enjoy without having to think about whether things are being done or not.
For more information and to see further examples
of her work, visit brittanysturdivant.com.
