Our wedding season is about to kick into high gear and I am ITCHING to get shooting again! I’ve missed being behind my camera and hanging out with my wonderful couples and am so excited to shoot all 16 of my weddings this year, plus a ton of Engagement Sessions! As my first wedding of the year approaches, I wanted to narrow down all the goals I hope to achieve in this year of business. A lot of my goals this year really have to do with my shooting and editing and a lot of them are more about challenging myself to think outside the box and get really creative. I want to approach each wedding day differently, since every wedding day and couple is unique and capture my couples authentically so I don’t want to do the same shoe or ring shot at every wedding. I want to think “how can I represent my couple and their day perfectly today?” I’m SO excited to see what comes of it! I promise though, I’m not going to go CRAZY. I know my couples booked me because they love my work already so I’m not going to suddenly go changing my shooting style! Just turn it up a notch and I promise this means nothing but good news for my brides and grooms 🙂

Sharing goals and dreams can be a bit scary. It’s always nerve wracking putting something out there, saying you’re going to do it and then hope you actually go through with it. But I’ve set so many goals for myself in the past that seemed SO scary and unrealistic at the time and than I actually accomplished it! I remember last January I wrote down my goals and shared them with Jose when I was done. One of them was “Purchase 3 news lens'” and I’m not going to lie… he looked at me like I was NUTS. Lens’ are not cheap and when I wrote this goal down, I barely had enough money saved to purchase ONE lens! But sure enough last October I was able to invest in THREE Lens’! I immediately thought back to that moment and really wanted to scream “TOLD YA!!” But instead I just felt SO accomplished and proud that I actually did it! It was exhilarating and I hope to feel that way again this year! So here’s a look at just some of the goals I hope to achieve for my business in 2015 🙂

– Perfect Bridal Portraits. This means making sure I get portraits of JUST the bride at EVERY wedding and take my time with them. I’m not going to be afraid to be super type-a about these because I think my brides and grooms would greatly appreciate having a beautiful shot of the bride on her day of the wedding. (this doesn’t mean I don’t take photos of my grooms, guys! You are never forgotten!)

– Book 15 weddings for 2016. 4 down – 11 to go!

– New Head-shots. I think this is something to always keep new and fresh so it’d be nice to refresh my head-shots on all social media and the blog 🙂

– Complete and send out the Bridal Guide!! (If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen the sneak peek of this! This is going to be SO beneficial for my late 2015 & 2016 brides and I am working SO hard to get this out asap!!)

– Learn & implement Off-camera flash for Receptions. This is something Jose talked about this weekend that we agreed would step up our shooting game BIG time. It’ll brighten reception shots AND give us the opportunity to take unique night shots of our couples… which leads to my next goal.

– Take night shots of my couples! I’m not talking silhouettes. Silhouettes are not something I’m into. I’d like it to be a bright, beautiful shot of my couple OUTSIDE of their venue, if it’s a shot worth taking 🙂 This is something a few of my couples have expressed interest in this year which makes it even more exciting 🙂

– Invest in a Telephoto Lens. This is one of the last lens’ I have yet to purchase for myself and still rent. I would like to purchase it so I can be done with renting for good but these babies are NOT cheap so we shall see!

– Keep up with Album Design! About 80% of my couples this year have purchased an album (YAY!) so I want to make sure I design their albums quickly and order them as soon as possible to get those beautiful babies into their hands within a month after their wedding day.

Doesn’t seem so scary to share my goals right now, whew! Though I’m not going to lie… this post took me a few days to write. EEK! 2015 is a very exciting and busy business year and I am so excited to see how it all unfolds.

Also, do you love the little itty-bitty look into our apartment? That’s our entryway table that we just got last month that has made me SO happy. Seriously, a table right by the door when you walk in does WONDERS! Plus a vase of happy budding tulips makes me even happier 🙂 And that picture of Jose and I?? My gosh… I think I took that selfie on a disposable camera (before anyone even called it a selfie!) almost 8 years ago!! EIGHT! Where does the time go!? I think that’s why it’s one of my favorite photos of us. It perfectly captures us when we were super young & right when we started dating. So many memories in that one little selfie. Let me know if you love that little photo and would love to see more of our Apartment! Besides photography, interior design and decorating is my other favorite hobby 🙂