I've talked a LOT lately about my journey with this business: developing a niche, branding, and overall just a lot of lessons learned. It's easy to look like someone has it all together in a nice, packaged up, well-worded blog post with a bow, but believe me, I'm far from having it all together. There are times (often) that I let my organization fall by the wayside, which is truly key for balancing it all, and things feel like they're spiraling out of control, times where I don't respond to messages within my committed 24 hour policy because ten thousand other things came first that day, where I doubt myself and my work... And my God. I'm human.
Sometimes these human flaws present themselves on a given day and I just commit to making the next day better, it's the best I can do. But sometimes, it feels like I'm going through an entire season of things slipping through the cracks. About 4 months ago, I was in this season. I was coming off of 3 months of weddings almost every weekend, and I work full time... This was 6 day work weeks for months, and I was fresh out of maternity leave AND had taken a new job. I'm a planner to a fault, but one thing I had failed to do in preparation of that busy season of life was plan and I reaped the consequences of that. I didn't have time to slow down and get my feet under me. I didn't have time to do any focused education on things I felt I needed improvement. I didn't have time to step back and breathe, and as a result, I felt like I was really lacking creativity. I felt like God wasn't in my corner, which was far from true. Really, I had pushed him out of my corner in an effort to make it all work my way. Unintentionally, but nonetheless, this one was on me.
The best part about working with brides is that they're pretty much living on cloud 9 every time you see them. Andrianna is that girl that just radiates joy. I was in high school show choir when I first met her, and I remembered that she was always so fun to be around, and never failed to sport her bright, white, contagious smile. Cue the feeling of hitting the jackpot when she booked me as her wedding photographer.
Andrianna and I obviously share a love for pictures... Triple win. We did an engagement session, another slightly more formal engagement session, a bridal session, and then of course, their wedding. When it came time for their second session, we had plans to go downtown, golden hour, and she had a vision that I was tasked with bringing to life. After a series of events, the date wasn't going to work out last minute.
"It's not your fault, but I'm trying not to freak out. It just feels like everything isn't working out right now." Was the text I got from her. What I wanted to write back was GIRL, ME TOO. But I opted to encourage her and let her know that I had full confidence our plan B was going to work out perfectly.
Plan B: a totally new location, different date, not golden hour, the perfect day for anything but pictures, but kind of hot and a sun that was enough to blind you.
From here the details are kind of boring... We had our session, we left and I went home to edit. I loaded up the pictures on my computer and it was so overwhelming. This session was amazing. The look and feel was a confidence booster for both me and for her. It was nothing like what she had originally envisioned, and I was completely out of my element on the time of day alone, but God's plan is better. And it was that moment that I knew, as long as I trust in God and allow him to work everything out the way he intends, he will always provide.
To you, it might sound crazy that I'm using such a simple example to drive such a strong point home, but to me, it was confirmation that came right on time for the season of self doubt that I was in. If you're feeling discouraged today, just know that you're not alone. I'm preaching to myself on this one. We all experience seasons of dryness, but trust and believe that He's got a better plan for you. He does, I promise.
As always, thanks for following along on this little dream of mine.
XOXO, Taylor
A few more that I loved from this one!!
