Today we’d like to introduce you to Erika Cockerham Mulholland
Hi Erika, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My background is in classical music and musical theatre. I’ve played the piano since I was 7 years old, ended up getting a BFA in musical theatre and moving to NYC right after graduating college, and was also a classically trained mezzo soprano. The Lord moved me back home to St. Louis only 2 1/2 years after moving to NYC which was NOT my plan- my plan was NEVER to move back home! But I came home and taught private piano, voice, and acting for 10 years until I got married in 2020.
In 2015, in the midst of my umpteenth life crisis, I was completely brokenhearted that my dreams of performing never worked out and couldn’t reconcile the gifts the Lord had given me with the lack of opportunity to use them. But I was done with defining myself and my life by the failure I felt like I was. So I told the Lord…”if you decide to use these gifts someday, I trust you to do that in your perfect time and perfect way and I surrender them all to you…but what are you doing NOW? Because I want to be a part of THAT!” I felt like He impressed upon my heart, “Live a full life, love people extravagantly, and put beauty into the world.” (Let me clarify that to live a full life is NOT to obsess over the things you think you should have but don’t…like a career on the musical stage.)
Over the next several years, what the Lord taught me was that to live a full life IS to love people. It’s always been my intention to love people extravagantly. When people are in my presence, I want them to feel truly seen, truly heard, and deeply known and cared for. When people leave my presence, I want them to leave knowing that God loves them more than they can even fathom.
Why am I telling you all this? Because now we’re going to jump to November 2020 where my photography story begins….
It’s 2 months after I marry the love of my life, my amazing husband, Kodi. And for some reason I am STILL looking at Pinterest OBSESSING over wedding photography! And I caught myself…I was like, “Wait! What are you doing?! You only get to do this once! You’re already married! Why on earth are you still looking at wedding photography?!”
And then it hit me: But what I REALLY want to do is be a WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER!
And what God impressed upon my heart in 2015, “Live a full life, love people extravagantly, and put beauty into the world” came back at me in full force! Because the following impression in THAT moment in November of 2020 was “and the way you’re going to do that is through wedding photography!”
In that moment, I KNEW what I had actually spent my entire life preparing for was NOT a life on the stage, but a life of investing my heart in others, learning all about their love story and vision for their wedding, making sure they feel loved and cared for during the entire process leading up to their wedding and on the best day of their lives so far. I KNEW that what I am supposed to do is be a wedding photographer!
I went all in immediately. I enrolled in The Wedding Photography Masterclass with Marissa Morrison, my dad let me borrow all of his camera equipment (he has always loved and taken some part in photography ever since he was a very young man), and I also enrolled in some Katelyn James Photography courses. My goal was to learn as much as I could as fast as I could to become as good as possible as soon as possible. From the courses I took to the YouTube videos I watched, I had over 1,000 hours of education before I officially started my business and photographed my first wedding in 2021!
Since then, I have photographed almost 100 weddings and I truly could not love it more! I sincerely wish I had started 20 years ago, but I know the Lord doesn’t waste any time and that the music and theatre background I have only helps me to connect with more people and better be able to direct a wedding day. At 40, I FINALLY feel like I am fully immersed in my calling and living out my God-given purpose!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth is literally the LAST word I would use to describe this road! When you are an artist through and through but have ZERO business skills, that’s not a fun problem to have. Throw perfectionism and people pleasing in there and you’ve got the perfect recipe for being a starving artist with an anxiety problem! Lol! EVERYTHING except the actual art of photography and loving people and making them feel amazing has been a struggle. I’ve always said if someone could just run my business for me so I can just be an artist and love people, that would be great! LOL!
I don’t know how many people know this, but I assume it’s not the majority of people….photography is probably one of THE most expensive businesses anyone could have. There is a MASSIVE investment of money, time, and intellect up front, and the investments really never end. Nothing is cheap when it comes to photography. Cameras, lenses, a good lighting set up, a website, continued education, all cost thousands upon multiple thousands of dollars. So, unless you’re coming into photography from some other lucrative career, you don’t have the luxury up front of investing in what you need to in order to have a successful business. For years, I spent money we didn’t have on my business trying to get it off the ground and every single year we’d make it to the end of the year in the red. A year ago, we broke even. And 2025 is the first year in over 4 YEARS that we have gone into with more than ZERO dollars in the bank!
It’s been an incredibly slow start and there’s an ENORMOUS learning curve to EVERYTHING. As a photographer, you must be a MASTER of many things- light, composition, editing/consistency, the technical aspects of the camera itself, art direction, posing, communication, web design and search engine optimization, etc…and that takes TIME. Lots of time. My husband, God bless him, always knew it would take time, has always had patience with me and the very slow rate of growth my business has seen, and has generously and supportively allowed me to invest money we don’t have because he has always believed that we WILL see a return on those investments. My husband is realistic, grounded, steady, calm, and so wonderfully supportive. But I didn’t know (and didn’t believe) that it would or even should take as much time as it has. I’m unrealistic, idealistic, a dreamer, wildly ambitious, have higher expectations than anyone I’ve ever known, and because I learned from people who became 6 figure businesses in their FIRST year of business, that was absolutely the expectation I had of myself. And that goal, along with every other goal I’ve set that I haven’t reached left me crushed and sent me spiraling.
There have been more days than not where I’ve been beyond frustrated, where all I want to do is give up, where I cry and despair of life all day long because I have “no bookings and no inquiries” and don’t know how we’re going to make it through the month, let alone the year….where I can’t figure out the back end of the website or blogging or ads or (fill in the blank!)
But I’ll tell you what….even in the darkest of despair and seeming hopelessness that has threatened to overtake me over the past 4+ years, the Lord (and my husband) has never allowed me to give up and give in. There comes a point where one MUST decide to push past it all, dig in, and keep moving forward no matter what until the breakthrough comes. Cry if you must. Despair if you must. But DO NOT stay there! It’s hard. So what?! Do it anyway! Figure it out! Push past the hard until it’s not hard. Then you’ll come to the next hard thing and you’ll have to rinse and repeat! Sometimes it’s taken me 12 hours to figure out something someone else could’ve figured out in 12 minutes. But I figured it out and now I know how to do it!
This path has not been easy, but at the end of the day what I still have to say is: I could not love it more! I love the art of photography and I LOVE the people I am so blessed to serve and create art for. I could not be more thankful to be entrusted with so many couples’ most special day and to love and serve them and their loved ones is the greatest joy and privilege of my life! I’m thankful that the Lord will not allow me to quit even on the days I’m convinced I should. And I’m thankful for all He has provided for my husband and I as we continue to take forward steps and live out this dream.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an artist/storyteller with a camera and I specialize in making people feel amazing all the while capturing their wedding day with an artistic eye and loving heart. (Ok so I’m a wedding photographer! Lol!) While my couples have decided that they want the memories of their wedding day to look like my work, I believe that is only the secondary reason they choose me. I am known for the way I love and connect with people, and I believe that my couples not only choose me for my artistry, but that they first and foremost choose me because of the connection we have and because they feel cared for by me. And that is actually what I am most proud of. One of the greatest ambitions of my life is to love and serve my couples and others like the Lord Jesus Christ did when He walked this earth. Photography is not just a job to me…it is my ministry and the way I can share the Lord with others. The time and care and investment of my heart and life into all those I work with is also what sets me apart from most. I want to not only know my couples and their story, but I want to know their people and who they’ve chosen to celebrate their day with and why. I want to cheer them on as they enter into marriage and be someone they know they can come to if they’re struggling down the road. My goal for every time I work with (or interact with!) someone is for them to leave our time together feeling deeply loved and thinking, “No one cares more than she does!”
What matters most to you?
The Lord Jesus Christ matters most to me. I owe Him everything. He died for me and paid the unspeakably high cost for my sin on the cross so I would not be separated from Him for all eternity, but so I could go to heaven when I die because I accepted the free gift of salvation He offers to “whosoever shall call upon His name.”
Honoring and glorifying Him with my life and my business, loving and serving others the way He did….that’s what is most important to me. When I get to heaven, I truly want to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” And when I face Him at the judgement seat of Christ, I don’t want to see my entire life’s work burned up because I only cared about myself and the things of this world….but rather, to receive rewards at the judgement seat because I spent my life storing up treasures in heaven. But loving people well is also important to me purely because I believe it’s the right thing to do. This is why I like to spend a lot of time listening to people- listening to get to know them, to understand them and their story, to know how to bless, surprise, and delight them…it’s all a part of making people feel seen, heard, known, cared for, and valued. It’s the biggest purpose of my life and it’s what the Lord Jesus Christ did when He walked this earth.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Erikarenephotography.com
- Instagram: https://Www.instagram.com/erikarenephotography
- Facebook: https://Www.facebook.com/erikarenesingingphotographer/
