This is going to be a pretty candid blog post. For over a month, we have not been able to take any sort of photos. Our last session was March 8th, and since then, I've just been trying to get a grasp on this changing landscape due to COVID-19. I very recently had a couple of people reach out about at home sessions and, unfortunately, I'm not opening up my calendar again until (hopefully) July. It really is heartbreaking to tell people I cannot take their photos until possibly the middle of summer. That's extremely weird, uncomfortable, and downright depressing. However, I RECENTLY (4 days ago) started trying to make the best of it. I want to give business owners the opportunity to still get photos to update their website and social media. Photography as a tool is absolutely necessary, even though phtoography as a career is considered non-essential. With that in mind, I started thinking of ways to help people take their own headshots from the comfort of their homes and with the ease of their cell phones. I was inspired to create this post by a photographer named Graceful Designs Photography. She gave amazing instructions to new parents on how to take their own Fresh 48 photos while we are all currently social distancing. I wanted to kind of expand on that for entrepreneurs, which is why I created a quick step-by-step post that will hopefully keep your website updated and social media game strong! Turning your...

About three weeks ago I decided to step up my Instagram game. I wanted to post more and earn new followers organically. I started posting whenever I thought about it, usually at lunch time or just after dinner. Eventually, I decided I needed to determine the best time of day to post so I could maximize the return on each post. [I want to preface that my following is relatively small, so the numbers that I receive are not astronomical at all, but still large enough for the data to be accurate.] My first post on my Instagram plan was just before noon (specifically at 11:45 am). Within the first hour I had received about 15 likes on the photo. I was pretty proud of that number, so that night I decided to post at 8:00 in the evening. My thought process for that time was people would be home, finished cleaning up from dinner, and ready to scroll through Instagram. Sounds plausible, but my post at this time only got 5 likes. Frustrated, I started looking at articles on Instagram post timing and found a Huffington Post article that really matched exactly what I was looking for. The best part about the article was that the research was done using Latergramme, which is an amazing scheduling service that I now use regularly. However, I wasn't sure if their analysis of times would be accurate for me and my readers. I wanted to find my best times to post...

It's kind of funny how last weekend, during the blizzard, all Shawn and I wanted to do was be snuggled up in PJs and drink hot cocoa. But this weekend all we wanted to do was be outdoors, bundled up, and snowboard. We traveled to Snowshoe, West Virginia on Friday and met up with my best friend, Christy, and her husband, Nate. Christy and Nate live in Charlotte, North Carolina, so the last time we got to see them was for their wedding last April. This weekend trip was something Christy and I had been super excited about since we started talking about it in September. Snowshoe is a very interesting mountain with its hotels, shops, and restaurants being located at the very top. Everything we needed was all in one spot, with a spectacular view. It was - quite literally - the top of the world. The evening we arrived was right before sunset and (except for Turks and Caicos) this mountain had one of the most gorgeous sunsets I've seen. It was also super windy so I almost ended up with a frozen hand because of my need for pictures XD. The four of us got to hang out, play board games, spend most of Saturday snowboarding, and drink fruity drinks :P. A quick tip: if you are going to play Dead of Winter - the best theme for a game being stuck up on a snowy mountain - be sure to read the instruction manual at least...

As part of the process for getting to know our couples, I give all of our brides and grooms a questionnaire to fill out at their leisure in the weeks leading up to their big day. It has all of those technical questions about addresses and times, but the questions get a little deeper and more personal, too. One of my favorite things to read from the questionnaire are the tips that my couples give others who are in the beginning stages of wedding planning. Some of the tips are incredibly practical, like "make a budget and take one thing at a time." But some of the couples took the question to heart and provided a very thought provoking response, which made me start thinking about creating a series where I can share some of this amazing advice. My plan for this series is to focus on all of the great suggestions that my brides offer to help other real brides. Shawn and I have worked with all of these couples, and their heart really shows through in their words. My goal is to give you, my readers, some very useful information if you are -- or someone you know is -- in the thrilling journey of wedding planning! I'm so excited about kicking off this new series on my blog. I hope that it is informative and inspires people to evaluate their own planning process to maximize the awesomeness of their day. I plan on releasing the...

With the switching over of years comes making new optimistic promises, because a new number means a new start. I'm usually in that group of people, creating more things to do and vows to keep. Except for this year; this year, I am not making any new starts. My main focus is going to be expansion on what Shawn and I are already doing. I fell in love with all that 2015 has brought us and I don't want that to "end." Sure, we didn't buy a house, or check off a million things on our list of "things to do as an adult," but we were together. We got to fully start on this journey of being business partners and accomplishing so many great things. For Shawn, he got to have a few of his papers for his Ph.D. accepted into some huge conference. We also adopted our first dog together named Pony. He has brought nothing but joy and millions of laughs to our lives. I got to slow down a little bit and enjoy more time with my mom, drinking tootsie roll hot cocoa and crying over Hallmark movies. Together with Shawn's family we have set up family game nights that I really love, because I love getting to bond with my new family. Those family nights are very, very special to me. I also got to attend my first conference this year, which lit a crazy fire under me to...

Taking it back to Charleston! Last month I posted about my adventures in South Carolina for the Creative at Heart Conference. It was an amazing time learning more about running my business and how to appeal to new friends (and spoil the friends I already have ;P). What wasn't seen in that blog, though, was that fellow photo-friend, Marlayna (www.marlaynaphotography.com), and I had a little portrait session around this AH-mazing city! Charleston has so much to offer in terms of backdrops and perfect lighting. We spent about 30 minutes getting knocked around by the wind just so we could photograph the sun peeking through the trees. A truer #photographerproblems has never been spoken until just now, haha. The level of fun that we had while practicing our "posing" was hysterical. We both have plenty of goofball photos of each other to last a lifetime. I'm so happy to have spent a great day in a beautiful city that offered so much to us as photographers. It was even better that I got to spend it with a wonderful friend who is just as obsessed with buildings, trees, and sunlight as I am, haha! :D   ______________________________________________________________________________ Lols SUNNY TREE! ...

We met up with Kati and Chris on a cool November morning at St. John's College in Annapolis. Though it was a sunrise session, these two showed up with bright smiles and a wonderful positive glow around them. They also brought along their sweet goldendoodle, Dempsey, who is so goofy and charming that you cannot help but laugh when you see him. We were just into the first few minutes of the session when the cops came and hauled us off to campus jail... Just kidding! Although we did have to take Dempsey off campus grounds, the security guard was totally nice about it and even hung around for a little to talk to us about how adorable dogs are. (Shout out to that awesome guy!) Once we stepped off campus, Dempsey he made his triumphantly adorable return for the rest of the session :). Shawn and I loved wandering around downtown with these three, chatting about how nice of a day it was and about their proposal. Kati and Chris showed us just how crazy their height difference with a reenactment of Chris on one knee (so funny!). We made stops at the State House, Ego Alley, and then the William Paca House and Gardens. There was some construction  going on out front of the house, which meant that the workers on this fall day got a nice little glimpse of romance, haha. Kati and Chris are so cute and fit together so well that they look...

I'm not sure if it was the bright leaves or the crisp fall air, but Samantha and Doug's engagement session at Patapsco Valley was fantastic! These two are such an adorable pair. Samantha and Doug were constantly laughing and having fun with each other. It was so cute to see them interactj every time I would tell them to look at one another their faces would light up with huge smiles. Shawn and I could easily see that they just enjoy being around one another. One of the many great things about this session was that it was at my favorite park. I know I've talked a lot about Patapsco in the past, so I won't waste too much time, but the amount of stuff that this location has is unmatched by anywhere else. For Samantha and Doug's engagement we got to check out a new spot, the Cascade Falls, and it was insanely beautiful! We definitely had a lot of adventures on this session, especially around the falls. Given that it was a new spot, I wanted to cover every nook and cranny around this area, so we attempted to safely climb a little bit up the side of the waterfall. I say attempt because Samantha and Doug had no problem getting into their spots, but I stumbled and almost rolled off the edge - typical Britney, haha! It's a much funnier story since I didn't fall and break anything :P. I cannot wait to photograph these two sweethearts...