Case Study: Apollo Fotografie achieves streamlined workflows and sustainable growth with HoneyBook

Apollo Fotografie On Overcoming Self-Doubt & 8 More Growth Lessons

Apollo Fotografie, a San Francisco wedding photography and videography collective founded by Jonathon Dakarai in 2009, has grown from a one-person operation to a full team and has produced 1,000+ events. The central challenge was scaling reliably — managing high volume, client expectations and daily self-doubt — while pivoting toward higher-end weddings without losing quality.

Jonathon systemized the business by adopting tools and workflows (HoneyBook for leads, invoices and workflows, plus Trello, Timeline Genius and Adobe), running monthly auditions to build a vetted team, raising prices to 2–3x costs, and using targeted ads to attract premium clients. Those changes delivered year-over-year growth, operational efficiency for high volume bookings, and industry recognition such as the Knot Best of Weddings Hall of Fame.

Apollo Fotografie

Jonathon Dakarai

Creative Director and Founding Photographer