Summer & Pete ~ May 11, 2012

SUMMER! PETE!

What an incredible start to the season I've been waiting for.  I feel like the universe sent Summer and Pete to me for complete reassurance that I'm on the right track. A dream couple, focused on the reality of how fantastic love is.  All perfectly giddy and overflowing with joy.  When you see them look at each other, you can almost feel the butterflies in your own stomach.  Summer told me while she was getting ready that during the weeks before the wedding, she and Pete felt like their relationship was brand new. At a time when stress and chaos are at their peak, Summer and Pete managed to remain head over heels.  A week or so before the wedding Summer wrote me an email that made me cry. I cry easy so forget that. She wrote me an email that changed my view, brought me back, redefined my mission. For that, I will always be thankful. Thank you so much Summer and Pete. Thank you for being so wonderful to me, for being so incredibly, visibly in love, for the moment after moment, for filling the room and the jersey shoreline with emotion, and making my job not only so easy but so enjoyable. 

Gavin

This baby really exists. This beautiful, awesome, brand new human, completely packed with personality at just one week old... is real. I generally love babies but Gavin is different, way cooler than the average baby. It makes sense though because Alana and Travis are way cooler than the average grown up. Thanks guys for letting me be there to hang out with such a magnificent little person. 

This is personal...

I have always been creatively disorganized. I like to have 7 projects going at once and thought it would be easy to apply that approach to my business. Truth is, it's impossible for me, but for years I've still attempted, repeatedly hitting invisible walls face first. Album design, edits, facebook, website, purchases, new tools, new software. Not to mention the fact that recently my love of photographic art finally resurfaced and for the first time since college an array of personal projects are rocking my mind. I saw today that my last blog post was from September and before that, June. For shame. There should have been 30 posts in between but my head is spinning. I feel busy when I'm not, I never feel caught up, I feel like I'm letting my brides down by not having designs out fast enough. So now, thanks to a good friend (and groom), Mike Federici, I am going to have a brand new office. An organizational mecca of design and creativity. Everything in it's place and a really good stereo for dance breaks. I am reinventing myself but I'm sure clarity will only increase creativity, not stifle it and I haven't been this excited about work in so long.

I went through a divorce this year. A good one, not quite Demi and Bruce, but close. Still the task of designing wedding albums while waiting for my court date was a little daunting. I fell behind, I hid my left hand when I met with brides, I referred to him as my husband even though he didn't live here anymore. I was ashamed, loving marriage and commitment and weddings as much as I always have, I still couldn't make it work. I worried that I would become permanently jaded, that I would no longer find value in marriage, that couples would not feel comfortable involving me in their weddings.  That's not what happened. Instead, I respect marriage even more. I appreciate the gamble we take, putting ourselves out there, never certain of the outcome, but filled with faith. I think what most people really want is to just share the massive amounts of love stored in our chests, right? Weddings, marriage, vows, are outward celebrations that make that affection tangible. It's such an incredible feeling to adore someone, to feel adored, that's something that should be shared.  I am deliriously in love. Restored. Renewed. Thankful. Grateful. Overjoyed.

I am ready for this season. Here's to doing it right!

With Love.