Thanks Monica Brown for taking this behind the scenes shot!!

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been interested in photography. I would always ask to take pictures on my parent’s camera and felt like a million bucks when I held it in my hands. Throughout the years, my sister and I had our pictures taken by local studios. When it was time for her senior pictures, Bethany, my sister, was a rep so she had a few different sessions. I wanted to go to all of them and helped in any way that I could (even if it meant holding a reflector til my arms hurt). I thought that it would be fun to get a summer job at a studio, but I didn’t really think more about it. I thought that in order to be a successful photographer, I would need to work at a studio. To be honest, I didn’t think that I would be abe to make a living off of it, so I put that dream aside.

Fast forward to high school and I realized that I was actually pretty good at event planning, I helped plan a variety of large-scale events and knew that I had the strengths and natural skill set that I would need to be a successful event planner. To be honest, after I saw the movie “The Wedding Planner” with Jennifer Lopez, I thought “that’s it! I’m going to be a wedding planner!” It wasn’t long after that, that I again realized that I most likely wouldn’t be able to make a living being a wedding planner in Ohio, of all places. I thought, who on earth would pay me to plan their wedding?? Nevertheless, even through the first few years of college, when someone asked me what my dream job would be I said without a doubt, I want to be a wedding planner!

Halfway through college, I decided to buy a camera. I thought, if I can just pay this off in a year, it would be worth it. To be honest, I don’t even know why I thought that because I had no intention of starting a business!! But, halfway through that first year, people started paying me, and I started booking more sessions, and I booked my first wedding! I hadn’t even been to a wedding myself in YEARS, but my sweet #kelsielynnbride trusted me to capture it for her. After wrapping up the first wedding, I was hooked!!

During that first year, I legalized my business and made myself “official.” I began to realize the potential of owning my own business and the possibility of making a living as a wedding photographer. There was so much more to being a photographer than my middle school self thought. In case you are wondering what that “so much more” is, I wrote a blog about that last week! Anywho, at one point in my life, I dreamt of being a photographer, and just a little bit later, I wanted to make my way into the wedding industry. Now I have the best of both worlds as a wedding photographer, and I wouldn’t imagine it any other way!