Oh hi friends! It’s officially the time of year where you become inundated with posts looking back at the previous year. For some people, that feels so good and right — to celebrate all of the blessings from the year before. Other people are over here just saying, “bye Felicia” to 2018.
If I’m being honest, there was a big part of me that wanted to wave bye to 2018 and skip over reflecting back.
2018 was such an incredible year for me in business! The couples I got to work with and celebrate, are literally just some of the BEST! Even better, I’ve knocked off a ton of business goals this year that I wasn’t even expecting! For that I am SO grateful!
But for us personally, as much as it was mixed with so much joy because of our little girl, 2018 was also full of a ton of hardship. As a generally happy-go-lucky person, admitting that to the internet is kind of out of my comfort zone. We experienced a lot of loss this year, between losing people we love and the hurt that comes from some of the broken relationships we’ve spent much of the year trying to repair.
The reason I’m sharing this is not to be a debbie-downer, but more so to just be honest. This real life, and not some highlight reel, and as much as I think it would be really easy for me to write this post and focus only on the good things, it doesn’t feel honest. I don’t think it’s fair to pretend that hard stuff doesn’t happen too.
What’s the cheesy saying about how plants don’t grow without water?
(For the record, this is a fact, that I accidentally like to regularly test on my own plants — oops!)
Well, for us, 2018 was a year full of rain. If you’re from Maryland, too, you know that it quite literally was a year of rain! (I read a statistic that said we had 145 rainy days last year — yikes! It was record breaking!)
But I think that the rain in life we experience only makes the sunshine feel more magnificent.
I don’t know about you, but sticking with our illustration, if I have too many sunny days in a row, I start to take them for granted. Instead, each sunny morning lately, I’ve woken up so grateful for sunshine!
And that leads me to directly to where we all thought this post was going. It’s easy to sit in the muck and mess, and forget all about the sunshine. But for me, this year, I’m going to count my blessings, and take you along for the ride too ;)
Top 3 in Business
Like I said, this was definitely a huge bright spot for me. Putting in to words what it was like to work with so many incredible couples and vendors, would be nearly impossible! I created work that I am so proud of and knocked off some pretty major goals too. Here are a few highlights, with photos included obviously.
Allll the weddings and celebrations I was a part of this year!
They were so wonderful and you can be sure I’ll be sharing some of my favorite images with y’all next week to celebrate. This requires its own dedicated post, because to be honest, I don’t want to break your internet with all the photos.
Getting to travel for so many fun sessions!
New Orleans, Newport Beach, Boston, and Bald Head Island to name a few, were some of my favorite destinations this year! It is such a blessing that my work lets me combine my love for travel with my work, too. This has been a goal of mine since the beginning of my business and I love that this year I really got to see that come to fruition!
Plus, I got to explore with the cutest travel partner to most of those places too ;)
Being recognized by some pretty major publications!
From being named a Rising Star from Washingtonian Weddings for the second year in a row to Greg and Melanie’s wedding landing on the front page of Style Me Pretty, and having my images shared by Martha Stewart Weddings, it was such an honor!
Top 3 in Life
Sharing with the world we were expecting our baby girl!!
I don’t think we’ve ever felt more loved or supported! We were beyond overwhelmed with gratitude for all the people who love our girl so much already! My favorite comment by far was from our friend Tyler when instead of guessing boy or girl he just said “what sort of tiny human falls between ‘I’m a creative and like plants’ and ‘I drive firetrucks and eat adrenaline on my toast’? I pick whatever that is.”
Celebrating my SIL marrying the love of her life and welcoming Jeremiah into the family officially.
This was such a special day and one we’ll all be forever grateful for! … and believe it or not, it rained the whole time! Haha! #TheYearofRain
Renovating the downstairs of our home!
It was such a labor of love, mostly by Morgan, and having it come about was SO fun. I’ve been dreaming about washing Reese in our new kitchen sink since we picked it out, and was in absolute heaven about the fact that all of those times I’ve said “we could just tear down that wall” finally paid off! Eek! Plus, it’s a fun little hint towards a new project I’m working on in the beginning of this year, too! Stay tuned ;)
So while I may have been tempted to just say “Bye, Felicia” to 2018, and felt like I couldn’t relate more to all the memes saying “thanks for trying to kill us 2018,” I am sitting here reflecting back instead, grateful for the year of rain, and all the ways it made the sunshine feel that much sweeter.
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