Earlier this week, I had one of those moments of struggle. They come in every business. Little thorns get under your skin… frenemies, jealousy, the feeling of not being appreciated by your peers. These kinds of things can eat away at you if you let them.

But my dear husband is always there to remind me that everything we do is a choice. We choose not to wrap ourselves up in “the biz” and the other people in it, because we want to stay fresh and uninfluenced by the crowd. We don’t prioritize memberships in associations, and we don’t buy ads just so we can win contests to have a badge to put on our website. We don’t often submit our work for publication.

And the thing is, these are all really awesome things to do. I see the value in all of them. The public accolades would be nice. Publication would be awesome (and we do submit with that goal, every once in a while).

But all of these activities and hullabaloo take time… and time is something we don’t have just a ton of. So when we sit down and think about how we’re going to spend the limited hours in each days, time spent trying to impress the industry around us gets pushed WAY down to the bottom of the list.

Because you know what? We don’t work for the industry. Sometimes I fantasize about us being that power couple… we could walk into a room of other photographers and it’d be just like when “that couple” walked into a party in high school. (Clearly, you can see I was a nerd in high school as well. 🙂 )

That fantasy doesn’t last long, though. As cool as it would be, I can’t have that right now, and still be able to prioritize my life with my little family. And Mack, once again, is the voice that pulls me back to what matters.

What matters is that our clients are happy. SO happy. Because that’s who we work for, right? I don’t work for the industry, or for wedding magazines, or for my peer’s admiration. I work for these brides & grooms… these awesome people that we meet, and everything just clicks, and we know we’re the perfect team for them.

We work to capture their wedding day as perfectly as possible, and we work to make sure their reaction to their pictures is joyful and effervescent and magical. THAT is our reward.

These words, taken from some of my more recent client feedback, are the reward that matters most to me right now. It may not be a cool little button for my blog… but it means a whole lot more to me.

Do you ever feel like Santa Clause? ‘Cuz getting our wedding pics in the mail today was better than Christmas. I may have to work through the weekend to make up for the lost hours of work today but it is so worth it b/c seeing all your stunning shots for the first time is like reading your favorite novel for the first time… I have to cherish the fact that each picture is NEW and exciting and AMAZING. Sigh. I’m jealous that you have a job that spreads so much happiness. You are HAPPINESS spreaders! Thank you thank you!

Aside from choosing to marry each other, you are the best decision we’ve ever made!

You can only deem someone/thing “perfect” so many times, right? But that’s how I feel – like the images in these posts are perfect representations of our wedding. It was so important to me to be intentional about every little detail… we intentionally chose Chelsea & Mack first, chose them before we chose a wedding date, and I couldn’t be happier with that choice. The two of you brought our wedding dreams to life, and gave us fairytale celebration. Thank you for investing in us, and in our story. We love y’all SO much.

The pictures have us reliving the day over and over again. You captured all our favorite moments…

I never felt more beautiful than I did on my wedding day… until I got these pictures. I feel beautiful all over again. You have some sort of magic way of capturing people’s spirit on camera. I look exactly how I felt that day. PERFECT.

Thank you to all our fabulicious, wonderful, gorgeous, generous,  encouraging clients for constantly making us feel like rock stars. You guys are the perfect pick-me-up for a down day!!!

Posts without pictures are laaaaaame, so here’s a fun bit of animated goodness from a recent wedding photobooth!

Come back tomorrow for some sneak peeks from the recent boudoir marathon, and news about when the next mini-sessions are coming!!