At 16, Addy (Mullin) Lehman unknowingly launched her career. With an affinity for filming and editing videos, she was asked to capture a local wedding. She researched to see what the process would be like and reviewed other wedding videos for an idea of different styles. 

Then she gathered her equipment for the big day. 

“I filmed it on a GoPro, which is so embarrassing now,” she said. “But it worked.” She was asked to film a few more weddings during her high school tenure, but ultimately, it wasn’t something she saw as a career. 

That is, until she went to college at Western Colorado University. A location where thousands of weddings are held each year. With scenic backgrounds of Telluride, Grand Junction, Breckenridge, and more, locals and tourists alike book the locale for their nuptials.

In the Gunnison Valley alone, where Lehman lived, there were 300-400 weddings annually. Notably missing were videographers to film them. 

While learning more about this gap in the market, Lehman realized college wasn’t for her and she decided to revisit her high school gig. 

“I started reaching out to wedding planners and sent them the videos I’d done,” she said. “I think I offered to do it for like $100 and got a couple through that.” It was not only a deal for the couples, she said, but a way for her to gain more experience.  

Next she found a mentor and shadowed a videographer in Utah before signing up for a workshop.

“Basically I just didn’t go back to school and reached out to a bunch of people in the Valley and asked if I could join their shoots. That’s how I built my portfolio.”   

By October 2020 she had gone public, sharing clips on social media and marketing her wedding videography services. She had also found her niche in emotionally-led films. Rather than directing couples or family members, she said the goal is to capture moments as they unfold. 

She uses a combination of equipment to capture both video and sound, including Canon Mirrorless cameras with a monopod, an old Canon super 8 mm, drone shots on a DJI Mavic Air 2, along with wireless mics. 

Lehman then pairs the movies with music to allow couples to relive their wedding day, rather than watch a forced rendition, she said. 

“I was featured on Rocky Mountain Bride, which is a huge vendor website,” she said. “They approached me and asked and that put my foot in the door. It was a huge surprise – I would look at their platform and think ‘maybe one day’ then one morning I got an email from them and was so shocked and thrilled. That gave me so much confidence moving forward.” 

Because Lehman enjoys weddings, she said it was a great fit as a career path that included her talent for videography. 

“I liked making videos and someone I really looked up to was a wedding videographer and here we are,” she said. “I also just love weddings.” 

By 2025, she was booking 27 weddings a year, many of which included multiple events in one weekend. 

“It was not ideal, it’s nice to be busy but 27 is just a lot,” she said. Now living in Kansas, she and her husband, Ethan, went to Colorado for the busy wedding season. They booked two months in an Airbnb and stacked weddings to make the most of their time. 

Lehman has worked in Kansas, but said there is just a larger wedding market in Colorado, plus the business she’s gotten there through word-of-mouth. 

“I was doing two a weekend and bunched them up so we could get the most in while we were there,” she said. Ethan works remotely as a software engineer. However, he helps Lehman as needed to film events. 

Next, she spends weekdays editing film, splicing cuts together, and creating a polished product. 

Each wedding video takes two to four weeks to edit, from combining shots, to adding music, to polishing cuts to make them cohesive. 

“It’s an art form,” she said. “I spend time and thought on every film and get to know my couples.”