Meet Miranda Suess

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Miranda Suess a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Miranda, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I found my purpose by accident, and honestly, through a lot of loss and a lot of little nudges I didn’t recognize at the time.

When I was a teenager, I took pictures of everything. The kids I babysat, my friends, my family, even the illegal high school parties I proudly threw onto MySpace like the FBI wasn’t watching. I never thought it meant anything. My dad did. He kept telling me I had an eye and eventually convinced me to apply for a job at the Walmart portrait studio in Phoenix. I was seventeen, walked in with a binder of printed photos, and somehow they hired me on the spot.

But at that age, I didn’t think photography was a real career. My grandfather was a photographer too, but he was also a full-time cop. So in my mind, photography looked like a hobby you squeezed in, not a path you built a life on.

I stepped away from it, went to business school, waited tables, worked office jobs, and just tried to figure out my life. Even then, I kept packing the camera my grandfather gave me for graduation. I barely used it, but I never left it behind.

Then in 2014, everything changed. My grandfather died. All I wanted was the camera he gave me. I started taking it to the beach just to sit, breathe, and feel close to him. It became this quiet ritual. The ocean, the camera, my journal… it grounded me.

And then life hit again. My car was broken into and the camera was stolen. It felt like losing him all over again. It took months to process that. But instead of walking away from photography, something inside me pushed forward. I bought a new camera. It felt like reclaiming a piece of myself.

A little later, my boyfriend at the time invited me to his cousin’s small wedding. They didn’t have a photographer, so I offered to bring my camera. It was nothing fancy at all, just a clubhouse room. But the people were full of real emotion. The hugs, the laughter, the moments before someone smiles. Capturing them felt natural, almost easy, like my body had known how to do this long before my mind caught up.

When I got home and edited those photos, something settled in my chest. For the first time, something felt right. Really right.

Greg looked at the photos and said, “You should charge for this.”
And for the first time, I believed it.

So in 2017, I launched Suess Moments with a simple website and an Instagram page. I decided to call myself a photographer and actually mean it.

Photography gives me purpose. It gives me energy. It connects me to people in a way nothing else ever has. It never drains me. It never feels forced. It feels like home.

So how did I find my purpose?

By paying attention to the thing that kept coming back into my life.
By losing something important.
By realizing the “little hobby” I kept brushing off was quietly leading me exactly where I was meant to be.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

’m a wedding photographer, but more specifically, I create the kind of images people feel when they look at them. My work is heavily inspired by the things that shaped my imagination growing up, like Disney classics, romantic films, and Thomas Kinkade paintings. I love the way those stories and artworks make the world feel a little softer, a little more magical, a little more full of light. That is the energy I try to bring into every wedding day.

What excites me the most is knowing that I get to document moments that people will hold onto for the rest of their lives. The nervous deep breath before walking down the aisle, the goofy laughter between friends during portraits, the blink-and-you-miss-it reactions from parents and grandparents. Those in-between moments are where the heart is, and they’re the ones couples come back to years later.

I also love the challenge of creating images that feel whimsical and cinematic, even in the most ordinary spaces. Give me a parking lot, a hallway, or a patch of sunlight, and I’m already imagining how to turn it into a scene from a storybook. I want my couples to look at their photos and think, “This feels like us, but it also feels like a fairytale.”

What’s special about what I do is that it never feels like work. Every wedding is different. Every couple is different. And capturing the way people love one another is something I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of. My goal is always the same: create photographs that feel timeless, emotional, and a little bit enchanted.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Curiosity: Let yourself experiment before you try to be perfect. Play with your camera. Take photos of everything. Try ideas that feel ridiculous. Curiosity leads you to your style long before skill does.

Emotional awareness: Slow down. Watch people. Practice reading emotion, not just posing it. The more you understand human behavior, the more meaningful your photos become.

Reinvent: Your journey will not be linear. Let yourself pivot. Let yourself fail. Let yourself relearn who you are. Every step, even the messy ones, carries you toward your purpose. Just don’t quit when things feel hard. Growth hides in the parts of the journey you don’t post on Instagram.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

A challenge I am currently facing is attracting my true dream couples.The couples who value storytelling, emotion, and the whimsical, romantic style I pour into my work. I know they are out there, but it takes intentional marketing and consistent self-reflection to call them in.

I am learning that the more I show who I am, what inspires me, and how deeply I care about the experience I create, the easier it becomes for the right people to find me. So this season of my business is really about clarity, confidence, and owning the kind of photographer I actually am, not the one I think the industry expects.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.suessmoments.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suessmomentsweddings

Image Credits

@suessmomentsweddings