So lucky to love what I do…

I am so incredibly lucky to do what I do. Alot of people say that, I know. This is literally a dream come true for me. For those of you just stopping in, and who maybe don’t know my story, I worked in Corporate America as an Event Planner for years and years. I loved events, but the crush that is Corporate America was killing me. Suffocating. Stifling. Like 4 walls of pressure closing in on my creative mind. Every day I woke up, parked in a parking lot, trudged across the street like everyone else. Sat in a cube 8-10 hours a day. Attended meeting after meeting, planned tradeshow after tradeshow. Ordered logo’d pens, notepads and golf balls. I remember thinking, this can’t be all there is.

I loved photography. Like thousands of others out there. I tossed around the idea of starting a little business but quickly pushed it to the back of my mind. Who would want me to take photos of their children? Their Wedding day? Please. What a laugh. Who would trust me to capture the most important moments of their lives, to hold their new babies before most of their family members. HA. Who would do that? I remember sitting in my room at night, setting my alarm clock for 630am for another day at the office, in the cube, and thinking, what if? What if someone would let me do all the above. To trust me to bring my camera into their most important times. If they would, I would be forever grateful. I would be honored. I would hug them and tell them thank you for trusting me. Thank you for allowing me to live my life the way I want to live it. To be passionate about what I do. To truly love and adore all of my clients. To never take for granted what I am doing, The power my camera holds, or the emotion that they allow me to see. I took a leap. Begged, I mean asked to photograph peoples children, newborns, pets. I photographed everything that walked in front of my camera. I followed amazing wedding photographers around their own weddings, capturing loves stories beside them. Learned my gear, attended workshops. Blindly throwing all of my heart and soul out there on the internet along with my images and words. People started asking me to photograph their children. Emails from incredible Brides asking me to please document their wedding day. Brides choosing their wedding date simply because it was a date I had open on my calendar. Brides, who weren’t technically Brides yet, but knew rings were just around the corner asking me to hold their date for them until the big proposal happened. Former Brides emailing me, before most of their families even knew, to tell me they were expecting and to save the date for their newborn and family sessions. It was simply, a dream come true. Not a second goes by that I don’t realize that.

I woke up today with a letter in my email box. A letter from The Knot telling me I had been chosen as a “Best of Wedding Pick” for 2012. This is a very big deal in my world. I remember flipping through The Knot Magazine and seeing those photographers names. Thinking, Wow, what beautiful memories these photographers have witnessed, what amazing service they must have provided for their clients. Today my business name will be listed amongst those photographers. I have worked for the past, almost 4 years, trying to build my business. But I have never seen it as a “Business”. I see it as relationships. Every single client is a relationship. I have never had 10,000 Facebook fans, or offered contest after contest like a lot of other photographers out there. I don’t pay thousands of dollars to magazines just so they will publish my weddings, or run my ads. I never wanted to run a business like that. I wanted relationships. I wanted Brides to come to me saying, my Best Friend/Cousin/Sister In Law/Co Worker used you to photograph her moment, and I want to also. I am so incredibly lucky to have all these wonderful clients in my life. I actually don’t even love to use the word client. It’s too cold. It’s to Corporate America. I prefer to call them friends.”My newborns, My kiddoes, and My Brides”. I take ownership of them. Simply because it’s up to me to make their moments last. My Brides that have taken the time to write reviews, incredibly sweet reviews that every time bring tears to my eyes. Why? Because it shows me that everything I wanted has come true. I wanted to give Brides images that they would treasure forever, that their grandchildren would flip through years down the road and smile at the love their Grandparents shared. I wanted them to trust me to photograph the most important day of their lives. To capture every moment. To even capture moments they didn’t know happened! I wanted them to welcome me into their lives, so that I could document every second of their day, as an old friend. Someone who gets them, their love, and the importance of their Wedding Day. I never wanted Brides to find me because of an Ad I placed. I wanted them to find me from their hearts, and from the hearts of others in their lives.

Not a day goes by when I don’t wake up thankful. Thankful for my career, thankful for my job that allows me to be me, that allows me to be creative, and loving, and kind to others. Work that allows me to meet incredible people who have changed my life and affected me in more ways than I could ever imagine. Thankful that I can laugh and giggle with my clients, watch hugs and kisses happen between couples and families. Peek in on what makes them who they are. What makes them fit. Thankful that I have made “My Brides” happy. That I have given them moments to physically hold onto, to enlarge, to frame around their homes, to turn into canvases to display on their living room walls. I have never just wanted to take a photo. I have wanted so much more than that. I wanted life, experiences, relationships, hugs from two year olds, kind words from Brides and Grooms. I have wanted to follow my heart, and all of you have made that possible. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to do what I love.