So after two nights of my first BIG vendor parties I got to thinking about how BIG everything feels.   I felt really motivated to keep improving and keep booking, and hope to see my weddings in print one day…. we all dream of this!   So many vendors, and I really only met a few.   It was fun, exciting, crazy, and BIG.   My little world that consumes my life all of a sudden felt like a needle in a haystack…. YIKES!!!    When I got home my mind was in a million places.    After scanning all the pics on instagram, and processing it all, I kept coming back to one conversation.

Why we really do this…. why we chose the vendors we do.    Amanda Hedgepeth (who photographed my wedding) and I sat next to each other for a while, and we started reminiscing about my wedding.   She was early in her career, and I booked her because I knew her, and I trusted her around my family.   It was important to me that she fit in with my special crowed, that she made people laugh, and that she felt like another friend at my wedding.   THAT part was important to me, which is exactly why I booked her.

Tonight she said “Do you remember that picture of you and Mark, the one where you are wiping the tear from his face..?”   And I immediately responded with “YES, and the one of him and his mom dancing where they were both crying!?”

And it was this moment where all of us at the table remembered…. THAT is why we do what we do.   Not for the perfect bouquet shots, or all the details that will get us published…. but for those moments.   The moments that even if the picture is not perfect….. the moment is perfectly captured.

It makes my world feel small again to remember that.   If I can always remember that, then the BIG stuff won’t feel so overwhelming.   Everyone in this industry loves weddings, and loves “LOVE”!   I’m so lucky to have met so many great people!  However, it is hard not to feel like the newbie, especially at such big events….. but remembering the “why” always brings me back to such a good and confident place in my business <3

Thank you Amanda for that conversation, and for these pictures from my special day in 2012!

Is my husband handsome or what!?  🙂