Photo by Nathan Ballash Creative

Most people secretly hope they will find their soul mate in college if they don’t currently have a high school sweetheart. That wasn’t the case for us. Each year after college, we both wondered when and who our spouse would be, and the saying “you will find them when you least expect it” or “when you aren’t looking” was certainly relevant in our case. I was in a relationship when I first met my husband Brandon, but that didn’t stop my high-school friend Seth from desperately trying to set us up. Call it prophesy (I called it stubbornness), but he would not give up - not for 4 years!

Seth and I knew each other from high school, and when he went away to college at IUP, he met Brandon and was determined to get us together. Seth would invite me up to Indiana to visit him in his dingy college apartment where he roomed with Brandon, then “mysteriously” had urgent errands to run, leaving Brandon and I to kindle our forced relationship over some Guitar Hero. I would be lying, though, if I told you our loved was sparked over rounds of Even Flow on Intermediate. It was still a few years until I grew the confidence and self esteem to end a long-term relationship that wasn’t right for me and give Brandon a chance.

During that time, Seth got engaged and asked if I would photograph his wedding (because I took a shot at engagement photos and didn’t royally screw them up I guess!). With my $500 Rebel in hand, I shot my first wedding and guess who was in the bridal party? My future husband! Spending time together “on-the-job” re-kindled our interest, and a few months later I was once again visiting my newly-wed friend Seth in Indiana. And once again he had urgent matters to attend to with his new wife, leaving Brandon and I to grow our relationship, this time over trips to Walmart!

It was important to both of us that we took this relationship seriously, and I still remember standing on Seth’s porch one night, Brandon and I alone of course, when he said to me, “I want to make sure I want a relationship with YOU, not just a relationship. You deserve the be respected.” PUT A RING ON MY FINGER NOW!! Two months later, lots of trips to Indiana later, lots of sleepy, late-night trips home FROM Indiana (seriously, my dad kept a tow rope in his truck to pull my car out of snow banks when I fell asleep coming home and got stuck), we were FB official. Our first kiss was in front of Seth’s house, a desperate tactic on his part to stop me from driving home after my dad accidentally filled my windshield fluid reservoir with tire shine and my windshield was a greasy mess.

In those early days, it was important to Brandon to teach me about faith, and help me develop and grow a relationship with the Lord as we were growing our relationship with each other. Ministry has always been at the foundation of our relationship, and I started attending and serving in church for the first time because of Brandon’s example. His calling to be a pastor came young, we suspect - as young as elementary school when he was a VBS junkie, begging his mom to take him to all of the programs in town each summer. He turned his sweet, babe-luring guitar skills into something that glorified the Lord, leading worship in college ministry and then later at the contemporary service at our church. My first servanthood experience was on the soundboard after hearing his frustration with being able to hear his strings from the front pews when he played electric guitar. As we pushed the decibels up and grew closer together in faith and love, we started volunteering in the youth ministry, where we were leaders of our current pastor! How times change us all!!

I have fond memories in the church where I really found and grew my relationship with the Lord, where I learned about serving, and where we were eventually married. But as God grows us, there are growing pains as well. Our own made-up path of getting Brandon on staff was not the path God wanted to take us on, which lead us to another church in town in the Indiana Theater. Here we experienced the most amazing, life-giving support through some hard times in our marriage that led us to counseling, leaders that saw the potential in us, pulled the skills out of us and developed our gifts. To Ed and Brian I am forever grateful.

Now, Brandon is the pastor of this church, leading with clarity and gentleness, carving out time for me and our relationship, and balancing so many things while staying true to himself. So proud of this groomsman from my first wedding, this guitar-hero legend, this youth group leader that proposed at a youth group concert, this now pastor, this soul mate.

Photo by Jessica OH Photography

Photo by Jessica OH Photography

Photo by Jessica OH Photography

Photo by j.jae Photography

Photo by j.jae Photography

Photo by j.jae Photography

Adventuring in Lawrenceville with a beloved friend! photo cred: Mary Kuehn (the friend, lol)

Hi friend! This is a personal blog post, which I love to do every once and a while. Transparency means so much when getting to know your photog! If you want to see more portfolio-like content, click on over here!

When people talk about burn-out, it's generally meant that they feel overwhelmed, over scheduled, stressed out, in a rut, passionless, cynical, "over it", hopeless, on and on. It might seem like someone who's in a creative field - who's constantly CREATING something new, something fresh, something exciting - would find it hard to reach that place, right? Maybe you are a creative reading this, and find yourself comparing your work to others, struggling to find your passion, not looking forward to things you used to? Maybe you haven't blogged in two weeks (ahem) and you are just wanting a break to actually be at your house and spend time there, maybe even clean it? (that always gets pushed to the bottom of the list!)

Burn-out is real, and burn-out is relative. Not everyone can produce the same amount in a day, whether that be photos, social media content, articles, products, whatever whatever whatever! I often have to check my heart to not only stop myself from judging MY performance against others, but others against mine! How terrible does that sound? If you are treating others, and yourself, based on what you/they produce, you need to check that at the door. Give yourself, and others, grace! It's okay to leave a few things unchecked on your to-do list. Nothing is as urgent as taking care of yourself and your soul.

I feel that transparency and self-care, along with ALLOWING yourself to put on the brakes every once and a while is NECESSARY - and definitely something I struggle with a lot. Get coffee with me, and certainly you will hear the phrase "I never feel like I'm doing ENOUGH." And I know a LOT of other people that feel this way too. You set a standard for yourself, and if you don't meet it, you "fail." But I realized recently that standards HAVE to be fluid. Your "enough" is based on a million things that are NOT constant like time, energy, commitments, health, family... so why should your standards be rigid if the rest of your life is not? 

If you a religious person, you may have heard the phrase that "Jesus is enough." That sounds amazing and is probably on a t-shirt somewhere, but what does that actually, tangibly mean and how do I live my life showing that I believe that? I'm sure the answer is different for everyone, but what I've found is that to embrace that God is enough and not rely on yourself means that first you set realistic standards of what you CAN do. Be honest with yourself. Then, you do what you CAN in a day given all the factors against you. At the end of the day when you're looking at all the things you didn't get done but wanted to, you then CHOOSE to not worry, be thankful for what you DID get done, and literally just relax and take time to recharge. Some pastors call that "resting in grace" - and I had to figure out what that tangibly meant. I spend so much time and mental energy thinking about what I HAVE to do, that figuring out what I WANT to do with my free time (that I have to MAKE) was a challenge. But now, I realize that's what "resting in grace" means for me: just rest, and stop freaking out, because God's got you and it's going to be okay.

You may know that almost 3 years ago now I lost my father to a really aggressive cancer. I often think about how he worked so hard as a mechanic his whole life, with the goal of retirement and adventuring with mom, taking trips, and filling his time with memories. Luckily, dad also knew how to enjoy life right where he was, and often took trips and had adventures (not to mention a million hobbies) to enrich the everyday life instead of just grinding away for that "someday." It took me way too long to realize that this is the key to happiness for a "type A" like myself - make time for rest and fun in the here and now.

Before he passed, I inherited his old Canon A1 film camera, and recently committed to learning how to use it and shoot on film. It's a completely different beast than digital, and the thing I've loved most about film is that it FORCES you to go slow, wait for the moment, notice all the details, and value the experience. Digital cameras can rapid-fire off shots like a machine gun, and while that's definitely my go-to for client sessions to ensure I don't miss anything, film has been an amazing antidote for burn-out for me because of all the reasons above. Any time I go on an adventure, the film camera comes along - not so I can "work", but so I can be more present. I'm still not perfect at it, but I'm having a great time with it, and it's a way to keep dad with me in those adventures he loved so much too.

If you are experiencing burn-out, I encourage you to tap into your curiosity. Learn something, pick up a new hobby, inject some "different" into your life. It will give you a distraction, a spark, a reprieve, and you just might discover one more thing that you're awesome at! Hope you enjoy these highlights from a few of my adventures this summer, all shot on film and with dad's A1!

My husband Brandon in the Greenhouse at The Frick in Pittsburgh.

Brandon waiting to board the Assateague Adventure boat on our trip to Ocean City.

Skimming for critters in the bay at Assateague.

Found a lot of minnows!

The bay side of Ocean City, Maryland.

Fenwick Island lighthouse in Delaware.

Pier at Ocean City.

My best friend's amazing daughter who let me braid her hair in a crown 'cause she's a princess!

My mom Judi and her grumpy pup Digger.

Eclipse Bridge at Buttermilk Falls in Armaugh.

My gorgeous friend Mary and I (behind lens) being silly creatives together in Lawrenceville!

More gorgeous Mary laying on the ground by ice-cream-esque lines in a cemetery because why not?

The street art in Lawrenceville is pretty colorful and amazing.

A note before you dive in: this is a personal post intended to show you a bit of my life and my heart. My life is more than photography, and I am passionate about sharing everything I learn that gives me joy in hopes that it can bring you joy in your life too, whether you're a photographer, a fiancee, a senior, a mom, or just a fan. If this kind of touchy-feely stuff isn't for you, hop on over to my Blog Archive to find just what you're looking for!

WHY YOU NEED MARRIAGE COUNSELING

There is so much out there to prepare us to get married. We can plan every detail of our day out down to the napkin color. We take pre-marital counseling and learn how many kids our spouse wants to have or ways to "fight nice" if you're lucky. But no one ever teaches you how to BE married after the GET married part is done. And once you are married, you understand why that is - it's a difficult, individual, and evolving process. This is year 5 of wedded bliss for my hubby and I, and while I am certainly no expert on love, and while I haven't been married all that long, I have learned some big lessons along the way that I'm all too happy to pass on.

WHY I NEEDED COUNSELING

Do you know what the word stigma means? It means there's a pre-conceived idea, or judgement, about a certain thing. The stigma with marriage counseling is that it's for couples that can't make it on their own, who's love life has crashed and is burning before their eyes. That simply isn't true. Counseling can make a good marriage great, and if your spouse wants to go to counseling, it is one of the most selfless acts of love he or she can show you. It means he's in it 100%. That she is  willing to do whatever it takes to stay strong. 

Our marriage was definitely good, but we weren't doing whatever it took to stay strong. In fact, the world weakened us more and more each year we were married. We weathered things like job loss and unemployment (both of us). Shattered dreams when the careers we prepared our lives for were met with shut doors over and over as interview after interview didn't pan out - again, for both of us. Surgeries and illness from people that depended on us for their care. The death of both of our fathers and the financial stress that put on us when we were left with a funeral to pay for. None of this is a plea for pity. It is simply to say, how amazing is the God we serve to give us exactly what we needed to strengthen us?! He gave us the strength to pick ourselves up and reinvent ourselves over and over until we landed on something great.

One afternoon, we had one of the most real, heart-wrenching conversations we ever had. Our marriage, and we both agreed on this, was weakening more and more each year. And because we believe that marriage is a covenant and that God wants us to be happy, we decided to go to counseling. Year 5 was going to be great (and it has been!)

SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT

I had a lot of bitterness in my heart. I'm a perfectionist, impatient, quick to get annoyed. Or at least, I was. Our counselor, after a few sessions, put the frank and honest impression on me that if we wanted things to get stronger, I had to do a major heart check. So I went to the one thing that was always right, always true, always good enough: my faith. Psalm 34:14 reads "seek peace and pursue it." It was so hard to do. When I got disproportionally annoyed at something, I had to seek peace and pursue that peace. Seek it, meaning shut my mouth and LOOK for it in my heart, in the memories we created together, in the "forever-ness" that my anchor tattoo was to remind me of. And it was hard. When you seek and FIND, you then have to pursue. That meant choosing not to react, not to let my uncontrolled emotions out. And like the true magic of scripture, heeding the Lord's advice began to transform me. I wasn't as annoyed. I was happier. It was working.

REACTION VS. RESPONSE

What I was essentially doing was teaching myself to respond, not react. It's a concept I didn't think about much until out counselor spelled it out. It applied to Brandon too - I had to allow him time to react, and ignore that reaction, and take his later response as truth. We both learned a lot of grace for each other in this season. We learned to communicate difficult things, "hot-button" issues, and allowed each other to react, to work through those raw emotions, before dealing with how we truly felt, or responded.

LEARN HOW TO FIGHT

When you're dating someone, you learn so much about them. Preference, tastes, history - but did you learn about his or her emotions and how he or she deals with them? Now that my husband and I made space for our emotions to play out in a safe way that wouldn't hold weight or inflict damage, we had to figure out what triggered the bad ones have a plan to deal with them. We had to learn how to fight.

During a fight, do you come after your partner guns-ablaze, wanting to shout down every detail? Do you want to just run away and not be bothered or even looked at? We were one of each. And it took actually talking about how we prefer to fight, and then pursuing a compromise (space at first, with a promise to talk after our emotions were in-check) to really learn how to take fights from DEstructive to CONstructive.

WHAT ISN'T YOUR LOVE LANGUAGE

One of the newer revelations I've had is that it's not only important to know what your spouse's love language is, but perhaps more importantly for YOU, what isn't. If you haven't heard of Dr. Chapman's love languages, they are 5 ways in which people typically feel loved. They are, in no particular order, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Gifts, and Quality Time. While Brandon and I know that Quality Time is both of our love languages (how lucky!), and we intentionally schedule coffee dates, devotionals, bible studies, and set aside one day a week just for fun plans together, it took a few years to figure out the implications of honoring what WASN'T our love language.

I would get very upset when I spent hours cleaning the house or prepping meals, only to have a "thanks so much" in return. It seemed like I just put in the effort to climb Mount Everest, and the response I got was a seemingly flippant "cool" and not the overflow of excited praise and gratitude I was expecting. Understanding what holds weight to your spouse, or in other words what their love language is,  will greatly shape how enthusiastically they respond and how deeply it will affect them. I finally chose not to be offended, but rather to understand that the gratitude is there, just not expressed as strongly as I was expecting it because he just isn't wired that way. And that's ok!

LOVE BEARS ALL THINGS

So if you are in the throws of Pinterest board building to prepare for your upcoming wedding, or if you have been married years already and find random socks all throughout your house too, I truly hope this advice can strike a chord and make your marriage great. I highly encourage counseling, which teaches us above all else, to pay attention to our emotions and talk them out. I love love. I'm in the profession of love as a wedding photographer, and there's nothing I want more than to help people remember why they love each other. One of the greatest pieces of marriage advice actually came to me just yesterday as I was reading "How's Your Soul" by Judah Smith. I'll leave you with this truth-bomb as Judah explores the 4 characteristics of love, found in 1 Cor. 13:7:

“The first term is bear.... The term literally means ‘put a roof on.’ Figuratively, it has the idea of covering or keeping something confidential; it can also mean putting up with something. Paul was telling the Corinthian believers that love is a roof and a cover. Love protects, shields, and conceals the weaknesses of others.... This doesn’t mean we ignore sin; it means we don’t use people fault’s and failures to expose or shame them. We publicly cover them and privately restore them with the goal of bringing about health in their lives.”

— Judah Smith, How's Your Soul?

Wedding ring tattoos are becoming more and more trendy with couples opting trend to skip the wedding bands and get a wedding ring tattoo. While it's certainly a cheaper alternative to shelling out $$$$ for a sparkly stunner, there are definitely some things you want to consider (and that I wish I knew) before getting inked.

There are actually quite a few of our friends that have wedding ring tattoos. You can see Brian's diamond on the left, Brandon and I have the anchors, and our friend Dom has an "E" for his wife Emily. 

DECIDING ON A wedding ring TATTOO

So why did we take the plunge? When we got married, Brandon and I were both about 50lbs heavier, and while I could get my beautiful rings (pic below) adjusted as the weight came off, his Tungsten Carbide ring was not able to be resized. (Did you know that TC rings can't be resized?! Because we didn't when we bought it! Don't say I never warned you!) For our 4 year anniversary, I rallied for tattoos instead of a hubby with a naked finger.

WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GET a wedding ring TATTOO

I am obviously not a tattoo artist, so I preface this with a "Call and ask your tattoo artist first!"

• What does it cost? I called a LOT of tattoo shops and most told me that finger tattoos would be charged "shop minimum" (to my understanding, it's the baseline fee that covers your needle, the time, etc.). It depends on the shop of course, but ours were $60 each at Ikonic Ink.

• Did it hurt? Yep. But it's over so fast that it's no big deal. I have tattoos on my wrist and feet, and this one was the worst.

• How well does it heal? My tattoo artist warned me about this (and some shops won't even do finger tattoos because of this), but finger tattoos often won't stand the test of time. Between hand washing, friction from gloves/rings/etc., and other ways we abuse our hands, finger tats often wear more quickly than other tattoos and will need to be touched up. *edit 6 years later and it’s a little fuzzy but still looks great (see below)*
   

can you still wear rings with a finger tattoo?

Getting a tat doesn't mean you have to give up your rings. In fact, I still wear mine over top of my tattoo. Plus, it is a precious family heirloom that can be passed on to your children (and rings are REALLY fun to photograph!)