i have not been here on the blog for awhile.
i know i said i was going to be
but january was a mix of finishing up weddings
and tearing my kitchen apart to reorganize
AND getting completely lost in
snuggling on the couch with that guy i love
fuzzy pjs with blankets & diet coke & popcorn
watching true detective and the 100...
soooo good.
and so gawd damn addictive....
(both the shows and the snuggling)
heeheehee

so, to celebrate finishing and delivering the LAST of my weddings
for 2016:) :) :) :)
i decided to completely reorganize my little "corner".
SIDENOTE: one of the things i love about S. is that he does not care
at all
when i take over a quarter of the living room
to house my pencil crayons, markers and smurf collection.

SIDENOTE #2: i know have at least 80 smurfs...almost 99!
but, i have like 5 smurfettes so really, they don't all count.

i had totally forgotten about my ceramic mushroom
until i was cleaning out the kitchen cupboards...
the woman that owned our house had a ceramic studio
in the barn and had a ton of ceramics stored there...
when i saw the smurf mushroom house in the barn,
i took that as a direct sign that S was right,
we had to buy this house...it was meant for us.
she let me keep the mushroom...
but not the kiln...which i would have loved to have kept! :)

and yes...i know the smurf on the mushroom is wearing red
but shouldn't really be wearing red unlesssssss
he is a young papa smurf before the beard...
so...that's the theory we are going with.

i absolutely love how this looks now...
i didn't have enough space on the desk before
& i needed to find a place where i could put my camera
that would be both
accessible to me without too much work
but
NOT accessible to the cats/feline destruction team...
now that the weddings are over,
i want to try to get back to
actually using my cameras again
without being scared
something may happen to them
with a wedding coming up...
and now i can use them without fear!

so now instead of brides and
wedding bouquets, i hope you are ready to be
bombarded with photos of smurfs and pugs,
my feet, the felines,
and a multitude of sunrises/sunsets...
:)

here's a cute pug to start the bombardment off right....

yesterday, i shot my very last wedding
for a very long time.

it was a bittersweet day for me.

i remember the first wedding i shot...
i charged 60.00 for it because
i was terrified that i
was going to suck.

i drove to the church probably 6 times
before the big day at different times, in different weather
so that i could gauge the light...
as if i could prepare for that.
i knew nothing about shooting a wedding,
i barely knew anything about weddings.

back then, i didn't even have a camera bag.
i had a backpack...and i kept my one extra lens in a winter hat
inside the backpack for protection.
no external flash.
no extra batteries.
just a wing and prayer and a gut full of passion
and fear....a lot of fear.

that was in 2009.
i have shot roughly 100 weddings since then.
i have cried during the father of the bride speeches
(and most recently a mother of the bride almost brought
me to a sobbing cry as she talked about her little girl
always saying she was going to leave home sometime but never did...
until the day, of course,
that she actually did...
and my girl's move was still very fresh),
i have shot in churches and gardens, on beaches and decks,
in apple orchards, on golf courses, in hot sunshine and in rain...
i have said the phrases -
"just one more...well...i lie when i say just one more...it's always at least 3 more"
"get nice & close, like you like each other"
"one, two, three - JUMP...that was a good practice run...now lets do it again"
"perfect! that is perfect!"
countless countless COUNTLESS times...

i love when i feel like a relationship has been built between us,
when i don't just feel like the photographer paid to do a job
at the end of the day, but as a friend.
and i especially love the weddings that connect to a past wedding...
the family with 3 sisters that i was lucky enough to
shoot weddings for...and best friends of theirs...
so many times a couple that i shot for will be in the wedding party
of a new wedding...and seeing them there automatically feels less scary.

because yes, even after 100 weddings
it was still as scary as hell.

it is huge responsibility that i take very seriously...
to capture that once in a lifetime day for a couple.
that's worth a stomach full of butterflies &
checking & double checking that batteries are charged
and the bag is packed and ready to go.

but now...i know that i need a break.
i am sad to let go of this part of my life
but i am also very excited to see what comes next.

a huge thanks again to everyone
that has taken a chance on me
over the years...i can't tell you
what that has meant to me.
i do have a wedding booked for 2020
so it's not goodbye forever...
just a "so long for now".
♥ ♥ ♥

(& you'll still see me posting on the FB page for the next couple of months
as i catch up on my editing!!)