How to properly use AWS SES for a contact form?

Overall Goal: To have my contact form send me the details to my personal email

How do I want to achieve it?: Not using any plugins

Issue: When I use my custom PHPMailer function located in the functions.php, the console tells me that there is a

POST http://websitename.test/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php 500 (Internal Server Error) ...................... jquery.js?ver=1.12.4-wp:formatted:4206

I am using Laragon for my local server. Whenever I comment out my custom function that uses PHPMailer, Laragon catches the email. But whenever I add the custom function back in, it gives me with the error above.

Here is my custom PHPMailer function:

add_action('phpmailer_init', 'custom_mailer');
/**
 * Overrides the default PHPMailer to use STMP with AWS SES
 * 
 */
function custom_mailer(PHPMailer $phpmailer) 
{
    $phpmailer-isSMTP();
    $phpmailer-SMTPAuth = true;        
    $phpmailer-Username = 'USERNAME';
    $phpmailer-Password = 'PASSWORD';
    $phpmailer-Host = 'email-smtp.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com';
    $phpmailer-SetFrom('[email protected]', 'FName LName');
    $phpmailer-Port = 587;
    $phpmailer-SMTPSecure = 'tls';
}

The Username, Password, and SetFrom are of course changed here to keep them secure. I assure you that the username and password are exactly the same from the credentials given in the AWS SES Console.

The jQuery in my contact form is:

(function($){
    $('#enquiry').submit( function(event) {
        event.preventDefault();

        var endpoint = '?php echo admin_url('admin-ajax.php'); ?';
        var form = $('#enquiry').serialize();

        var formData = new FormData;

        formData.append('action', 'enquiry');
        formData.append('nonce', '?php echo wp_create_nonce('ajax-nonce'); ?');
        formData.append('enquiry', form);

        $.ajax(endpoint, {
            type: 'POST',
            data: formData,
            processData: false,
            contentType: false,
        
            success: function() {
                $('#enquiry').fadeOut(200);
                $('#success_message').text('Thank you for your enquiry!').show();
                $('#enquiry').trigger('reset');
            },

            error: function(error) {
                 alert(error.responseJSON);
                 $('#enquiry').trigger('reset');
            }
        });
    });
})(jQuery)

And the PHP code that deals with the POST/AJAX is:

/** 
 * AJAX for Contact Us Form 
 * 
 * */
add_action('wp_ajax_enquiry', 'enquiry_form');
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_enquiry', 'enquiry_form');

/**
 * Enquiry Form Function
 */
function enquiry_form()
{
    if (!wp_verify_nonce($_POST['nonce'], 'ajax-nonce')){
        wp_send_json_error('Nonce is incorrect', 401);
        die();
    }

    $formdata = [];

    wp_parse_str($_POST['enquiry'], $formdata);

    // Admin Email
    $admin_email = get_option('admin_email');

    // Email Headers
    $headers[] = 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8';
    $headers[] = 'From: websitename.com ' . $admin_email . '';
    $headers[] = 'Reply-to:' . $formdata['email'];
    
    // Who are we sending the email to?
    $send_to = $admin_email;

    // Subject
    $subject = Enquiry from  . $formdata['fname'] .   . $formdata['lname'];

    // Message
    $message = '';
    
    foreach ($formdata as $index = $field) {
        $message .= 'strong' . $index . '/strong: ' . $field . 'br/';
    }

    try {
        if (wp_mail($send_to, $subject, $message, $headers)) {
            wp_send_json_success('Email Sent!');
        } else {
            wp_send_json_error('Email Error');
        }
    } catch (Exception $error) {
        wp_send_json_error($error-getMessage());
    }
    wp_send_json_success($data);
}

Please Advise.