Curating Like Hermès: Creating a Brand People Want to Buy From with Raphaëlle Granger
Release Date: 03/19/2026
Are Facebook Ads Still Worth It in 2026? with Claire Pelletreau
Play It Brave Podcast
Facebook ads have made me millions, and they've also cost me sixty thousand dollars in a single agency contract. After a year and a half of mostly not running them, I'm turning my ads back on, so I sat down with Claire Pelletreau, creator of Absolute FB Ads and the teacher my team learned from, to ask everything I wanted to know before spending my own money again. We talk about her one simple ad, why complicated targeting has given way to ads that do the targeting themselves, why cheap leads are so often the wrong leads, how long to leave an ad alone, and how a luxury wedding photographer with...
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Twenty Wool Throws and a Midlife Crisis: How Christina McGarvey Built Millcreek Manor
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Christina McGarvey grew up in a dilapidated Victorian farmhouse in Petersboro, Utah, watching her mother hang wallpaper, lay floors, and carve her own four-poster bed on a lathe. Decades later she built her own dream home, lost her sister, her mother, her father and her uncle in a single year, and somewhere inside that grief started selling the things she loved on Instagram. Today Millcreek Manor fills a 7,000-square-foot warehouse with antiques shipped by the container from England and Scotland, and a 440-piece container sold out in one weekend. We talk about whether good taste can be...
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You've Changed. Has Your Brand?
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For years, I recognized Pamela Anderson without knowing much about the woman behind the image. Seeing her differently made me question what I’d overlooked—and how often people do the same with us. In this solo episode, I explore what happens when your brand keeps introducing an earlier version of you. I share my own evolution from photography into coaching and writing, a lesson from helping rebrand a client, and three questions to help you see whether your brand reflects the work you want to do now.
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Your Talent Isn't the Problem. Your Brand Might Be.
Play It Brave Podcast
You can be extraordinary at what you do and still have a brand that makes strangers scroll right past you. In this episode, D'Arcy sits down with brand strategist and researcher Dr. Chelsea Shields to show you what a brand actually does, and it's a lot more than a logo, a palette, or a pretty website. They walk through real before-and-afters: a beauty brand that renamed itself so it could grow, a billion-dollar health company that traded its muscle-man logo for a story nobody can argue with, and the leadership brand D'Arcy and Chelsea rebuilt together, down to the one word on the homepage her...
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Healing the Collective Fear of Being Seen
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If your brand feels beige, the question may go deeper than fonts, photographs, or a new website. What happens when being unmistakably yourself still feels unsafe? After visiting Glastonbury, D’Arcy explores the fear of being seen through the archetype of the “dangerous woman,” the patterns women may carry through family and culture, and the ways we edit our gifts to remain acceptable. She offers a different understanding of safety: trusting yourself to meet criticism, misunderstanding, or rejection without abandoning who you are. For the artists, healers, intuitives, and women building...
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Stop Playing It Beige: 3 Brand Mistakes Making You Invisible
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There are more tools than ever to create a beautiful brand — so why are so many businesses starting to look exactly the same? In this episode, D’Arcy sits down with anthropologist and consumer researcher Dr. Chelsea Shields to unpack three mistakes they see even incredibly talented businesses making: playing it too safe, building from inside their own perspective instead of understanding the buyer, and creating a brand that may be beautiful but isn’t distinctive enough to be remembered. They talk about why your greatest differentiator may be the thing you can’t see in yourself, what...
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She Made Hundreds of Thousands—Then Walked Away: How India Earl Reinvented Her Business & Life
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What happens when you build the business everyone else dreams about—and realize you don’t want to live that life anymore? India Earl had become one of the most recognizable photographers in her industry. She traveled the world, had clients waiting years to work with her, built an enormous audience, and created an education business capable of generating hundreds of thousands of dollars. From the outside, it looked like extraordinary success. Inside, she was exhausted. India originally hired D’Arcy because she thought they were going to make the business even bigger: better funnels,...
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How to Multiply the Money From Every Job
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What if one job didn’t have to equal one payday? Most of us finish the work, get paid, deliver what we promised — and immediately start hunting for the next client. But there may be far more money sitting inside work you’ve already created. In this short episode, D’Arcy shares a simple way to look at every finished job through three lenses: NOW — the money it makes today. AGAIN — how the same work can be sold, packaged or used again. POSSIBLE — the referrals, reputation, relationships and future opportunities it can create. You’ll hear what this looks like for photographers,...
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How I Made $7,000 in Print Sales in One Hour
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I charged $4,500 to photograph the wedding. Then the mother of the bride logged into the gallery and, within about an hour, ordered $7,000 in prints. And she came back and ordered even more. That experience completely changed the way I thought about what happens after a photographer delivers the images. We spend so much time trying to book the next client that we often forget there is revenue, marketing, referrals and future business sitting inside work we've already created. In this episode, I'm breaking down how I've used galleries, physical prints, albums and vendor relationships to make...
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My Ode to Dolly
Play It Brave Podcast
What did Dolly Parton believe about herself before the rest of the world believed it too? In this tribute to Dolly, D’Arcy explores the beliefs underneath an extraordinary creative life: letting yourself want something enormous, refusing to tone down what makes you different, knowing when gratitude doesn’t require staying, continuing to create when the market moves on, and making something simply because it needs to exist. The question underneath all of it: what do you already know about your life that you keep asking the room to approve?
info_outlineThere comes a point in so many creative careers where what once felt exciting starts to feel heavy. The work may look successful from the outside, but internally, something feels off.
In this episode of Play It Brave, I’m joined by photographer Raphaëlle Granger for an honest conversation about what it really looks like to outgrow a brand, walk away from work that no longer fits, and rebuild from a deeper place of artistic truth.
Raphaëlle shares her journey from building a successful adventure elopement brand to realizing that the work she had carefully created no longer aligned with who she was. What followed wasn’t just a rebrand, but a full creative reinvention rooted in intuition, artistry, emotion, and a desire to tell richer, more human stories.
We talk about the difference between building a brand that performs well and building one that actually feels like home. We get into curation, luxury branding, portfolio editing, client alignment, and the courage it takes to stop shooting what you think you should shoot in order to make space for the work your soul is actually drawn to create.
In this episode, we discuss:
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Raphaëlle’s transition from adventure elopements to multi-day luxury weddings
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How burnout can be a sign that your brand no longer fits
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Why rebranding is often more about alignment than aesthetics
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How to know when it’s time to let go of an old brand
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What luxury clients are really looking for in a photographer and brand experience
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How to curate your portfolio more ruthlessly and stop diluting your work
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Why “less is more” is such an important principle in luxury branding
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How Raphaëlle communicates her artistic process to clients before they book
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Why studying luxury hospitality, design, and psychology can elevate your brand
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The importance of trusting your artistic voice instead of following trends
What I loved about this conversation is how deeply Raphaëlle trusts her own eye now. She’s not chasing what wedding photography is supposed to look like. She’s building a brand that is specific, soulful, elevated, and unmistakably hers.
If you’ve been feeling the tension between what’s working and what’s actually right, I hope this episode gives you permission to pause, reassess, and listen more honestly to what your work is asking of you.
Meet Raphaëlle
Raphaëlle Granger is an award-winning wedding photographer known for her refined documentary approach and her ability to capture the in-between moments that hold the most meaning. Named one of Rangefinder’s 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photography, her work spans Canada, Europe, and beyond, serving couples who value presence, artistry, and legacy. In addition to her photography, Raphaëlle is the co-founder of Les Annexes, an educational platform created to redefine support for wedding creatives through curation, communication, and visibility. Her mission is to guide artists not only in refining their craft but in building enduring legacies that resonate across markets and generations.
Connect with Raphaëlle & Resources
Raphaëlle’s Website
Raphaëlle’s Instagram
Acétate La Boite (Raphaëlle’s brand designer)
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
The Luxury Strategy by Jean-Noël Kapferer and Vincent Bastien