I started Serendipity Videography 15 years ago in 2005. It is so crazy to believe it has been that long!!! What a beautiful and serendipitous journey it has been… The word “serendipity” means to find something great by accident and that’s exactly how Serendipity came about and how the brand has evolved through the years. While parts of the journey of owning a business seem like it was decades ago other parts of it seem like it was yesterday… My son was 6 months old when we got started… My daughter wasn’t even thought of yet… and I was married at that time. We were branded as a husband and wife team. We filmed my best friends wedding as our first wedding film and we fell in love with the process. I loved telling her love story, I loved creating a wedding film and I loved working with her through the planning process to help understand her vision for her day. I was hooked… After we completed her film I knew this was our path… and before you knew it she had friends who had sisters who had friends that were calling Serendipity to film their wedding!!! A few short years later my daughter was born and we had gotten so busy that I needed to quit my lucrative and secure job in pharmaceutical sales. I walked away from six figures, an amazing 401k, incredible benefits, company car, expense account, safety and security… all to chase the dream of owning my own business… Everyone thought I was crazy… they kept saying to me “No one leaves these jobs…. you are going to sell what???” I replied back “Wedding films” with this dreamy look in my eyes. And I leapt… and never looked back…

Well a few shorts years after that my marriage deteriorated. Our business was on top of the world and we had even launched another brand, Simply Cinema, simplified videography for the budget minded couple. But our marriage couldn’t be in worse shape. And we were over…. So here we were, branded as a husband and wife team telling couples incredible love stories while weathering one of the biggest heartbreaks of a life time. Super fun to watch wedding films while you are nursing a broken heart… Everyone knew us as that happy couple… so it was shocking to most when they learned we were divorcing. Ex husbands and ex wives shouldn’t work together so at the end of the divorce Serendipity became mine… and it was time for rebrand #1…

I came out as a new single self and as Serendipity Cinematography. I was 22 when I got married so while everyone else was doing the single thing and the bar thing I was a wife… and then I was a mother at 27. So at 34 I couldn’t exactly go and do what everyone else did when they were single because I had young kiddos. But I did need to find myself… at 34… which is no easy thing… So Serendipity the brand reflected who I was at that time… Fun, flirty, empowered and a female owned business. Still a deep believer in love and but ready to find myself. I spent the next many years building my brands and healing from the inside out. Finding me. I launched www.taryn-pollock.com and started speaking at conferences around the country about building a second brand and shooting in teams. It was a blast!! I met so many cool people in my travels. I felt inspired, I felt purposeful… and I had fallen in love again. It was a beautiful time in my life.

I was riding the high. My business had never been doing better and then boom… life handed me a series of curves balls that I did not see coming… They say the relationship after your divorce is far more intense than your marriage and therefore the breakup of it hurts worse than your divorce… awesome… because my divorce damn near killed me so when my relationship unexpectedly ended I was in complete shock. We had been together a number of years at that point and I couldn’t wrap my head around how this happened. I had a ring on my finger when it ended… I went into collapse. Total auto pilot in my day to day life for a while there while I tried to even process what had happened. Unsure of how to even put the pieces of my life back together… again… And watching couples loves stories and wedding films while nursing a broken heart… again… awesome…

Cue the PANDAS… not the black and white furry animal… but Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Strep. My daughter and I had come down with strep throat and I was hoping my son didn’t get it and a few weeks later my son woke up one morning and it was like his personality had been snatched in the middle of the night. He had become panicked, riddled with anxiety having about 10 massive panic attacks a day, he had developed a laughing tic, he wouldn’t let me leave his side, he was convinced he was going to choke if he ate. It was insane. I had no idea what was going on with him and it was bizarre. At one point I thought I was going to have to have him committed. I was broken, lost, alone and scared. Not even sure what to do next. I took him to see my naturopath and he knew what this was!! Hallelujah!!! Briar was diagnosed with PANDAS. Basically it is a strep infection that the body misinterprets and the immune system starts attacking the brain causing encephalitis of the brain which was causing all of the weird neuropsych symptoms I was seeing. So naturally growing my businesses moved to the back burner. I needed to get my son well. I spent the next year studying PANDAS, learning everything I could, getting him in with every specialist to treat this awful syndrome. I became his medical advocate and fought the fight against doctors who didn’t believe in it, teachers who thought I just had a crazy child and helping others whose kiddos were suffering get diagnosed. I sat in rooms with doctors who knew as much as I did about it and that’s scary… Getting Briar well was a year long journey… Unfortunately PANDAS is horribly misdiagnosed and often times not even recognized by the medical community. I got Briar into a pilot program at Banner and with the help of that and his Naturopath he has reached remission, but it took a year. It was not without countless specialist appointments and trying many different treatments. PANDAS treatment is not one size fits all I learned.

After the breakup and my son being sick I was spent… I just needed some “me” time. I needed to take a breather… I needed to figure out my life path, recover, heal from the traumas I had sustained and figure out my next steps… What did I want for myself? Where was my life headed? I wanted to feel whole again. I wanted to do something that would fill me up with joy. Find happiness within myself despite the rough trials I had been handed. One day I was reading one of my kids school newsletters and it said they needed a cheer coach. I had seen the posting two weeks in a row. So I inquired…. In high school I had done competitive cheer and I was an All American and even explored going to college on scholarship for Cheer. I had always had a passion for the sport so this was my chance!! I took it… and I started coaching at first Junior High Cheer which led to coaching JV Cheer at my local high school and then last year I took over the program and am coaching Varsity Cheer. I had gotten my groove back. I felt rejuvenated. I had been through some incredibly rough stuff but I had found my way. I was happy and for the first time in a long time truly fulfilled.

All in all I had pretty much taken a step back from my businesses for 2 years. I needed to heal myself and my kiddo and once again was confronted with finding me again… Going through those trials and coaching helped me do just that. And a few months ago I woke up and knew I was ready to come back… Serendipity had always been what I considered my third love behind each of my children and after 15 years I knew it was time for her to get a fresh look. For her to evolve with the changes in my life, the changes in me and the market. In the 8 years since I had gotten a divorce I had changed so much, been through so many things, leveled up in my response to heartbreak and adversity. I had adapted to my life circumstances and overcome them. So I needed my brand to reflect the new Taryn, the wiser Taryn and the Taryn who was ready to jump back in and own wedding cinema in Phoenix and all of Arizona.

Meet Serendipity Cinema, rebrand #2. I wanted my rebrand to be timeless, elegant and romantic and truly embody me, my evolved style, my evolved personality and the person I had become. No longer flashy, flirty and fun but sophisticated, confident and still fabulously fun but wise. A true classic… I’ve learned the lessons, been through the things, but most especially learned gratitude for the lessons. I have earned my stripes and I am back better and stronger than ever and I mean serious business now.