Celebrating yourself, accomplishments, and mile markers as an entrepreneur. My journey as a photographer.

10 Years Strong Celebrating Yourself and Milestones

Today is the day, the most special of days, and it calls for a celebration. Celebrating me and celebrating friendship. I should probably go make myself a margarita even though it’s 7 am.

Today is Josh & Danielle’s 10 year wedding anniversary!!!! Do you know what that means? Obviously other than the fact that some of my very dearest friends are celebrating the success of keeping their marriage strong, beautiful and together!

Today is my 10 year anniversary as a wedding photographer! YEAH! This is how I feel about that.

In The Beginning

Josh & Danielle were my very first wedding clients. They believed in me even though I had just graduated less than a year before as a fine art photographer. Until this point I had not even touched a digital camera, everything I had done so far was on the side and mostly for fine art fairs, I had done a few families, kids, seniors, odd ball bands, and headshots but mostly street photojournalism, landscape, and general fine art only,(all in film by sneaking into the art lab at ISU to process thus mentioned film). I knew nothing about weddings or organization or really even enough to keep up with the crazy world of wedding photography. It was a new concept, one that my degree had not prepared me for at all. They believed in me even when I didn’t think I could do the whole wedding deal. I thank Josh & Danielle for that because, after that beautiful day, I fell head over heals in LOVE with wedding photography and have built my business for 10 years in that field mostly.

I have shot 106 weddings since, not to mention the 600+ clients I’ve had outside of the wedding industry. The best part? I still just adore my job.

Why I Do What I do

I love that I get to meet new people all the time, but especially people in love. It’s amazing that my job is to simply capture that love for all time. With my photographs, they can always remember the special new love of engagements, and the committed lifetime promise made on the wedding day. I get to be an intimate part of it all, then I get to grow with most of my clients as they hire me for maternity, newborn, monthly kiddos growing and birthday parties. Soon these babies will be seniors and I’ll get to photograph that too. What’s not to love?

Mostly, I am grateful that I’ve been able to make a living doing this for almost 10 years. I’ve met over 100 couples and been apart of these special moments in their life. I can’t wait for the next 10!

So today I am blogging about myself -I am celebrating me. I am really bad at celebrating me, but as a mom now I have begun to realize it’s to my own detriment as well as my families that I don’t take time for me.  I have officially started my Greece & Spain tour fund. It is happening. Give me 5 years… lol.

Enjoy a tiny peek at my first wedding { Josh + Danielle -May 19th, 2007)

Remember not to judge because I can’t help but judge myself. On my 10 years later- the scale of quality, these images are coming up VERY low, but I know that Josh & Danielle treasure them and that makes them beautiful. Everyone starts somewhere, this is where I began. This is my story and theirs. I love that it gets to be celebrated together. I couldn’t have picked better people to share this journey with.

Can you leave a giant congrats to this couple in the comments? I know they would appreciate it. It’s very hard in today’s society to stay married and present in today’s society. Josh & Danielle remain some of my closest friends that I can rely on even half a country apart, I know they are there with kindness, truth, and beauty. Danielle is a soul like no other, the safest and most loyal place for a friend. A person who is incredibly beautiful inside and out, a God send. She is constantly bringing life into this world with art and hilarious commentary. She was a great roommate in college and a loyal friend since, my life wouldn’t be the same without her.

Can you tell they are the cutest couple full of life and spirit? lol.

A beautiful face to match a beautiful heart! 

Thank you to Kari Cox, for playing dress up and taking each others portraits at the Desert Botanical Gardens. (Thus the self portraits:)