The best thing about being a Wedding Photographer…

When people find out what we do for a living, the first question/statement is often “Oh you must have some good stories!”  I am guessing most people want some juicy, bridezilla-esq thriller that makes them thank our creator that they didn’t marry that person… But let me tell you what is the best thing about being a wedding photographer…

I could tell you about the people we’ve met.  The stories. The families.  OH MY WORD.  Never in all my years would I have guessed that we would come to know all of these amazing people.  People who have faced extreme odds, beat cancer, came out of comas, endured the death of a parent years or months before the wedding, loss of siblings, heroes and heroines – truthful tales that just warm and melt my heart in good and sad ways. I love people.  I love getting to know people and hearing their stories. I LOVE STORIES. {okay so this might be my favorite part…} 😉

I could tell you about the places and travels our job has taken us to.  Like Sonoma, Mexico, Santa Rosa, Hawaii/Maui, Tucson, the Redwoods, Florida, Utah, NYC and Chicago {times 2} – and of course other hotspots all around the midwest 😉  We LOVE to travel and are so blessed to have a job that lets us tirelessly be on our feet with passports ready to take us where our work goes {as long as my awesome parents can watch our beloved pups!}

I could also tell you about the honor, blessing and amazing undertaking it is to know that we are capturing moments that people will forever carry with them.  Moments of laughter and tears and joy and love.  Moments that, 50 years down the road will be cherished and reminisced on when our couples hold their grandchildren in their laps, showing them their {then archaic looking} pictures from their wedding day that WE took.  DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT?

Hardly.

But, I want to tell you about the money.

No…. Not about some scheme to get rich or how awesome money is.

I want to tell you about my house. Or maybe about this bowl of yogurt that sits empty next to me as I type.  You see – this bowl of yogurt was paid for by you.  Our clients.  As was this fleece I’m wearing because this wonderful fall chill is in the air.  My phone. Computer. Make up and even these darn baby gates we had to buy because Maizy has a torn ACL… Was all paid for by our sweet clients.

Yes I know – everyone’s checks come from somebody – but EVERYTHING we own comes from the hardworking people who look at what we do as valuable and use their hard-earned money to pay us to capture their sweet memories.

Our checks don’t come from Target or Best Buy corporate.  It comes from the bank accounts of hardworking people and I will forever be grateful for that.  I will too forever be grateful for the people and the stories and the friendships and the travel.  But knowing that everything we have and own and eat is because of people using their earnings to allow us to be part of their lives is so unique it just blows my mind.  It is humbling.

So thank you. To all of you who have ever chosen DnK Photography to be part of your lives. Your love and value for great photography and desire to include us is not lost on me.  Every day I am humbled by the lives we have, where God has brought us and how He continues to use us in the lives of so many others.

We can’t thank you enough <3