The Girl Behind the Blog

Hello, dearest kindred friends!

I’m finally able to relax, put work away for awhile, sip some tea, snuggle with my puppy, and write to you girls. 🙂 My first post was a tad hasty so I thought I would make this one a little longer and actually tell you who I am (ya know, besides all my Instagram photos. :)). So here we go!

I’m 26 (just two weeks ago! Holey moley, time flies!), born and raised in the Twin Cities (St. Paul) of Minnesota but now reside in the country with Paul, my best friend, husband, & soul mate (they exist for everyone, I just know it). We met when I was 19 and he was 21. I had known of him for many years; my sister went to middle school with him before he moved out-of-state for high school, our best friends dated each other and my best friend (Rachel) hated him because her boyfriend spent “too much time with him” (although I had never met him, I hated him also. Solidarity, sister.), and I was really close with his best friend (John, the one who dated my best friend – are you following me??). Finally, at John’s house one night (him and Rachel had broken up by this time) I met him and instantly liked him. A month later we went on our first date (picnic in the park, stroll around the lake, walk through the zoo – all the usual romantic spots) and that night I knew I was going to marry him. It was like knowing 1+1=2. And I’ve been on Cloud 9 ever since. We got engaged exactly a year later (same park, same picnic, same zoo, same lake) and married 2 1/2 years later on a gorgeous, fall day fulls of reds, oranges, and dark greens. Swoooooon. 🙂

Shortly after getting married and buying a house, we bought our little puppy, Rusty. Omigoodness girls, he is just the bee knee’s. He enjoys his paws massaged daily, he has to be completely smushed against you when sleeping…he’s just perfect and is, of course, my other best friend. 🙂 

Let’s move onto hobbies, shall we?? As you may already know, I am a wedding photographer in Minnesota. I actually graduated with an Elementary Education degree and thought that is what I would be doing with my life, but of course things do not always go as planned, which in my case, I cannot complain. When Paul and I got married I had planned on having many, many, many kids (I wanted an entire baseball team, so 9 or 10 – call me crazy, I know). So, if I was going to be having kids right away I knew I wanted to also be a stay-at-home-mom (just like my momma). But I also wanted to be helping with income so I thought, why not give photography a try? And then I fell in love – head over heels in love! I graduated with my degree but unlike everyone else in my class, I was not planning on using it; I already had my business steam-rolling ahead and I have never looked back. The having-kids-part-of-my-plan never happened and probably never will. I recently had to have a major surgery, something I knew I was eventually going to have to have. But Paul and I are completely fine with life, just the two of us (three, counting Rusty). This is our 3rd wedding season (Paul is also my co-shooter – it’s too much fun working with him) and I absolutely love my job and my brides and grooms. We have many goals for our life, many places we want to travel to, things to try, etc. We can’t complain. 🙂 We love our nieces and nephews an extraordinary amount and I plan on showing them all the magical things this world has to offer. 🙂 I’m more than honored to be their Mary Poppins, their Auntie Mame. 🙂When I’m not photographing weddings I love to read (children’s classic literature, old books, Susan Branch, Harry Potter, just to name a few – perhaps another post will be dedicated to my favorites :)), write in my diary, sip tea, watch the sun go down, decorate, bake, cook (pasta, pasta, pasta), take walks to the lake with Paulie and Rusty, paint (I started water-coloring a year ago and I can’t believe it took me so long to begin – I’m in love), create Photoshop Actions for other photographers, garden, clean (don’t laugh – I think in my past life I was June Cleaver or Lucy), spend time with my two main squeezes, my parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, and my little loves. 🙂 We’re a pretty tight-knit family.I cannot tell you girls how thrilled I am that we found each other (I don’t even remember how!) and that we started this blog and #kindredspiritsclub. Right before I “ran into” Sarah on Instagram I had written in my diary (me and my diary are best friends, too) that I just really wanted to find some people in the world that valued the same things I did, worked towards similar goals, enjoyed similar things, etc. Working from home doesn’t give me a lot of chances to do so, especially in today’s society anyways, so I just could not have been more thrilled when Sarah commented on a photo of mine and I discovered how much we had in the common – the rest is history! 🙂 So cheers to us, girlfriends! 🙂

Wedding Photography Website

My Blog

Resources for Photographers

PS. I was talking about our blog to Paul last night and he actually asked me, “So, when are you and the girlfriends going to meet?” AH! How wonderful that would be?! Someday, girlfriends. 🙂