2019 is the year that all of my original bookings are coming to an end…what do I mean by that? All of the weddings I booked within my first year in business, the OG #erinmariecouples if you will 😉 , when I became brave enough to start accepting weddings back in December of 2017, have either happened already or are happening this year! Looking back from that very first wedding to now, I am so proud of how far I’ve come, not only in my skills and knowledge on the technical side of my business, but also on the client side. Pretty pictures are one thing, but the experience they have with me is a whole other ballgame. You can have great pictures, but if you didn’t feel great when they were captured, you won’t feel great looking back at them. I’ll be honest in saying on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being no clue what I was doing and 10 being a professional wedding photographer, I was about a 3 when I shot my first wedding, but guess what? I loved it, and that sweet couple loved their images! It’s the wedding that made me want to start accepting weddings, (I’m looking at you Ari!!) From that moment on, I slowly started accepting wedding bookings as they came in, which is where Mikaela and Tyler come in! Mikaela inquired in July of 2018 for her August 2019 wedding. I knew we would be a good fit from the very beginning, just based on her answers to the questions I initially send out to inquiring couples. They seemed like a dog loving, adventurous but down to earth couple which is exactly the type of people I love working with! 🙂
I can’t believe how fast these weddings sneak up on me. I remember telling Mikaela and Tyler at the end of their engagement session how happy I was we got to spend that time together but how sad I was that I wouldn’t be seeing them for a whole year, yet here we are! Their Vesco Vineyard wedding was gorgeous, and true to form, they made the most out of the rain that made an appearance just as dancing was underway. It was so great and some of my favorite reception images to date! But I think the one thing that I’ll never forget from Mikaela and Tyler’s wedding aside from how much fun the entire group was, was the father daughter dance. Mikaela and her dad danced to Darius Rucker “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” and while I photographed this sweet moment and listened to the lyrics, I couldn’t help but relate on such a deep level. The song is about the different challenges each phase of life brings in having a child from newborn to young adult, but to cherish every phase because it won’t last forever. Yep, I was balling behind my camera. Lyrics like that just hit me in such a soft spot now that I have a daughter, so watching Mikaela dance with her dad, just hit me right in the feels. I’m crying now just remembering it…
Mikaela and Tyler, thank you so much for being one of my very first couples and trusting me from the beginning. I’ve had so much fun getting to know you both and spending time with you and your loved ones on your wedding day was such a gift. You two are a perfect match and I look forward to seeing where your future takes you. The sky is the limit! Congrats you two, enjoy reliving your day through some of my favorites from your day! 🙂
