A lot of times I get asked about the how. How did this whole thing start? When I tell people that I am a wedding photographer, more times than not their follow up question is “so that’s what you do full time?” which is totally a valid question! To be entirely honest, bringing myself to even say “I’m a wedding photographer” when asked what I do for a living took up until this point. I’d otherwise answer shyly, saying that I’m dabbling with photography and doing a little substitute teaching (which didn’t happen very often, but the need to connect back to my degree made me feel more legit.)

For starters, with having an Art Education degree, we were able to pick and choose classes and media that we were drawn towards, photography, painting and ceramics being the emphasis’ for me. I was an assistant to a photographer throughout college, which was my income at the time and to be totally honest, we had a ball! I loved the atmosphere of weddings, the people, the joy. I had an okay camera, but rarely used it to its full potential. As graduation grew closer and my passions for the arts grew larger, I knew the degree I chose was a good one, even with all the politics that was swarming around educators at the time. I knew I always wanted the arts to be apart of my life, but plans on how that would happen changed slightly.

I had my eye on open teaching positions, worked my butt off on my final exams and exit binders and student teaching. Before entering college, the only way I thought I could stick with the arts and make a decent living was to become an art teacher. As much as I loved the field, I quickly learned that there were more options out there, you just really had to create them yourself. Upon graduation, I had a choice. There was one teaching position that I would have loved to fill, one at the high school level at my very own high school. I used this as my decider, to let fate take the reigns on this one because I loved both career choices too much. If I got that job, that is what I was going to do. If I didn’t, I am all in on this photography gig. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job and it was the biggest blessing. A scary one, but one indeed. I didn’t know the first thing about being an entrepreneur, but knew all there was to know about the stages of development and analyzing student work and discipline and classroom management and ect. ect. ect., but accounting? No… how to becoming a legal business? Nope… all the documentation and spreadsheets and information for taxes? What? Blogs and websites and social media? I knew what Facebook was…

I knew that I had a passion and I had to give it a go. I had nothing to lose, I was freshly graduated and so determined to try. I learned about a career all over again and am having a blast learning something new each day. This industry can be tough, but oh so rewarding and fulfilling. I love how this happened, how I have more than one passion and how I have met so many of the best people. I love how I can always push forward, how I can always be learning and be inspired. It’s a really cool job and I am so lucky to call it mine!