Just before leaving the house at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday morning, I did a double take. I had walked past the book I was in the middle of reading and at the last minute decided I should bring it along! I typically always bring books on our travels… however, most of the time I never even pull them out of my bag! Our flights are usually the perfect opportunity for me to cuddle into Ryan’s arm and just let my mind wander!
Saturday morning was a bit different. I was more awake than normal and I was so ready to be in Portland. I was definitely a bit anxious… or maybe excited is the better word? ;)! Let’s just say, letting my mind wander would have just resulted in a very antsy flight!
I pulled out Kevin Hall’s Aspire and opened it to the chapter titled Ollin. Ever since hearing Kevin speak at Showit United earlier this year, I have been looking forward to exploring this word a bit more. I had never heard “ollin” used… but I certainly liked the way it sounded (“all in”)! It pretty much means exactly that… but on Saturday it meant even more. The words on page 195 stood out to me in a way that I never wanted to forget. “…much of what we want and seek in life that is meaningful and significant is just beyond the edge of our comfort zone. If we’re not willing to venture ‘out there,’ we will never find and have all that we truly desire. We will never fulfill our complete purpose.”
As you may have already discovered, Ryan and I are dreamers! ;) We are the kind of people who blurt out “crazy” ideas when they come to our minds and then we find a way to make them happen! Sometimes that is a good thing… well, actually all the time that is a good thing! ;) It doesn’t necessarily make this life easy or without challenges along the way! In fact, very recently we had a life chat… and we found ourselves craving simplicity… as soon as the words came out of our mouths, we knew immediately that we likely would not be as happy or fulfilled if we didn’t do the “crazy” things in our lives.
Our trip to Portland was a long time coming. We had a few months to pull our thoughts together on this “crazy” project and get our minds around what was to come. However, with the extra time to think came extra time to fear and doubt and second guess. Every time those doubts came to mind, we ALWAYS came back to the feeling in our hearts of knowing we are on a mission to fulfill a greater purpose! We have a passion to live this life in a meaningful way. “To reach our goals and dreams, to experience life in full color, to soar to dreamed-of and hoped-for heights, we have to expand our comfort zone.” Reading Kevin Hall’s words reminded me of just how grateful we are to be on an adventure of always expanding comfort zones! ;)
As I think about what I want to write in this post, I am truly at a loss for words. I went to Pinterest in search of some inspiration for a quote or two on following your dreams. I found many… of course! ;) (Thank you Pinterest!) But with each one, I was feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that I would want to say.
A few months ago, Ryan and I had this crazy idea… The AMAZING Marriage Project. The goal was to photograph 15-25 married couples and learn as much as possible from them about what makes their marriages AMAZING! As the nominations rolled in, we quickly realized that our crazy dream just wasn’t crazy enough. There was more to it, for sure! The stories that many of you shared with us blew us away! They touched our hearts in a special way and we knew they had to be shared with more than “just” photographs! Our passion quickly grew and our dream exploded into something that we see as a mission to touch the hearts of others and hopefully make a big difference in people’s lives! From that very moment where the crazy idea popped into our minds, our dream evolved into a plan to create an AMAZING Marriage Project Documentary.
Ahhhh! CRAZY! ;) We have been talking about it among family and friends over the past few months, but I do not believe we have said it out loud on the Internet! ;) Eeek! That is a big deal, friends! ;) This is a crazy dream for us because we really do not know much about cinematography- let alone the world of documentaries! ;) We have so much to learn and over the last few months we have dove right in! The one thing we do have right off the bat is an amazing amount of passion to make a difference in the lives of others! This dream to touch people’s lives through this documentary is one that we pretty much have not stopped thinking about from day one! And every time the thought goes through our minds, a huge smile fills our hearts!
Along with the excitement, the past few months have reminded us that with crazy dreams also comes crazy fears! Believe me, the fears are incredibly present and it has already not been easy! ;)… and likely will only get harder! lol. One day we have no doubts and then the next, every single possible fear is being thrown at us like ping pong balls in a really bad game of ping pong! (Believe me, without hand-eye coordination, I have been on the receiving end of many of those bad games! ;) lol!) Here’s the exciting thing though… the beauty of dreams is that there is ALWAYS a way! Through every fear and every challenge we face, we can make it happen! (I say this as a reminder to ourselves to always follow that happiness in our hearts and the drive from above.)
On Sunday we have a crazy important meeting that we have been looking forward to for months! ;) We are making our way out to Portland (again) to meet with our AMAZINGly talented friends from Stillmotion! We are praying that this meeting leaves us with even more clarity in our pre-production plan to make this documentary happen!! We will definitely be sharing more details in the near future!!! (especially with all of the AMAZING couples who have been nominated!) We will definitely be seeking your help and encouragement along the way too!! If you are praying friends, we would so appreciate your prayers for safe travels and clarity in knowing our next steps towards making this crazy AMAZING dream a reality! And if prayers are not your thing… maybe you could send positive vibes?!?! ;) Please! ;) We would so appreciate it!
Here’s to making dreams a reality and saying really scary things out loud! ;)
P.S. This is another perfect opportunity to just say Thank You! I know this post has been a little bit all over the place… because honestly, our minds are a little bit all over the place right now! ;) We are excited and scared, but we know you all will be by our sides to help along the way! THANK YOU for always being that support for us! We are so grateful for you!
The countdown to their wedding began the very first day they set their date. With 374 days till their wedding day, Amanda and Bobby sat on our couch enjoying some wine and chatting about their love story! We remember hearing about the fun pink and orange details they had planned for their Oaks Waterfront Inn Wedding, but what we remembered most was how clear their love shined through from that very first minute we met them. They have this gentle way of enjoying every single moment of this AMAZING life together… and that was so evident from the very beginning!
Just less than 100 days later, we spent some time with Amanda and Bobby at Veritas Vineyards for their engagement session. Amanda and Bobby share a love for wine and they just happen to have the most AMAZING taste for fun dates. ;) They planned a picnic among the gorgeous vines in the rolling hills of Charlottesville for their engagement session! They introduced us to Veritas and we will forever be grateful! ;) But, here’s the thing… we could have been anywhere… in the middle of nowhere… and Amanda and Bobby’s love would have shined through and made for some pretty awesome engagement photos!!! (Veritas was just the icing on the cake!) We remember driving home from their AMAZING engagement session feeling so incredibly blessed by their love and their presence in our lives!
Fast forward almost 279 days later and I turned to Ryan and said… “I cannot wait for Amanda and Bobby’s wedding.” Seriously, I almost started a countdown just for us! ;) We knew this day meant so much to them and it was such an honor to know that we were the lucky ones to be able to capture it! From the emotional First Look, to the private moment they took for prayer, Amanda and Bobby’s day was certainly one we will never forget!
Amanda and Bobby- you are such an incredibly special blessing in our lives. We are so grateful for the opportunity to celebrate your love and marriage alongside your AMAZING family and friends! What a treat! Thank you for being YOU and being a beautiful reminder to us of the AMAZING gift that marriage is! Congratulations Mr. and Mrs.!
HUGE thanks to all who were there to help make Amanda and Bobby’s wedding day so special! Amanda and Bobby wrapped up our 3-week stretch of weddings at the Oaks Waterfront Inn! ;) We are totally grateful for the opportunity to photograph at such a beautiful venue with a staff that certainly knows how to serve up a great wedding day! ;)
If you follow along our adventures on Instagram (Liz_and_Ryan) then you know we had a lot of fun completing our 21 Random Acts of Kindness last Wednesday. We joined over 500!!! people doing sweet things on July 17th in AMAZING honor of the 21 beautiful people from Montoursville, PA and all of the others who lost their lives on TWA Flight 800. Leading up to Wednesday, we had a list of things we wanted to do in hopes to make that day extra special for people we crossed paths with! We woke up that morning with an extra big smile on our faces knowing the impact we might be able to have! My mom even said this in a blog comment (thanks for reading mom! ;) ) and we couldn’t agree more, “If you wake up with the plan to do 21 acts of kindness the tone for the entire day is positive!”
It is AMAZING how incredible the day can be just by starting it off knowing your goal for the day is to go out of your way to do something special in hopes to make the day brighter for someone else… now multiply that by 21 and the day is pretty much magical! ;) At one point on Wednesday, I was literally skipping down the street with a huge smile on my face. I told Ryan I felt like a little fairy with a wand that was sprinkling joy all over!!! It was so much fun! And actually a really big challenge too.
The challenging part was a little bit disheartening to us… or maybe the better description of it would be eye-opening! There were a few things we did throughout the day with so much excitement… and then we watched from afar to observe how people would act on the receiving end… and for some… they just didn’t act. For some, the reaction was surprise and wow… for others, they were too busy to even notice. We created a hop scotch down the street to encourage people to take time to have fun. We watched about 20 people walk right by the hop scotch and never skip a beat. It was as if they didn’t even see it. They didn’t even take note to the message that said “have fun today.” That was kind of crazy to us… but totally eye-opening! The reality of our busy lives is that we often walk right by acts of kindness that are right in front of us and never take a moment to even recognize it or appreciate it. For those that walked right by the reminder to have fun, they didn’t even take a moment to let the smile appear on their faces!
Ryan and I sat outside on our stoop for about 30 minutes. We were about 18 random acts of kindness in and we were observing people walk right over one of them. We sat in silence and I think our minds were just working in our hearts. We knew this was a lesson for ourselves… a lesson that sometimes we just have to slow down and take it all in. And a lesson that we have a really big responsibility to help spread kindness and happiness around… because honestly, I think we could all use a little more of it in our lives! (Both giving and receiving!)
We got up from our stoop and I decided to go clear some clutter from our closet and give some of our clothing to those who need it more! On the way down to the donation box, I saw a McDonald’s Big Mac Box littered in the middle of the road. I slammed on my breaks and literally stopped the car in the middle of the road. Ryan looked at me like I was crazy and said, “what in the world are you doing?!” Once he saw the trash that I picked up, he knew exactly what I was doing. Saving the Bay, obviously! ;) It was like a no brainer at that point.
21 Random Acts of Kindness in and our hearts have definitely changed! Those beautiful friends, family and neighbors who lost their lives on July 17th, 1996 have touched the lives of so many people. Here on earth or watching down on us as beautiful angels from above, they are making this world a better place! We are so grateful for their hearts and the life lessons they are teaching us along the way!
We are so incredibly excited to share Jess and Chris’s Oaks Waterfront Inn Wedding with you all! As I scroll through the photos and reminisce about their special day, the words vintage elegance with an Eastern Shore flair come to mind! Sounds just perfect, right?!? ;) Complete with oysters and a raw bar during their cocktail hour, and of course Smith Island Cakes for dessert, Jess and Chris know how to throw an Eastern Shore party!
However, the best part of their day was seeing the love and support that surrounded them! I can’t even count the number of times I overheard people talking about how gorgeous/handsome and how helpful their bridal party was! It’s true… they were pretty AMAZING! ;) As we were setting up the Photo Booth, we met one of Jess’ family friends, who was lending a hand with the decor and then we met another friend who was putting the flowers together for the day! Everywhere we turned, there were friends who would have done anything to help make Jess and Chris’ wedding unforgettable! And I am pretty sure they did just that!
The love and support that surrounded Jess and Chris on their wedding day is a true testament to the kind of people they are! It was mentioned over and over in their toasts… Jess and Chris are the loyal ones who would do anything to help their friends and family! They are beautiful inside and out and we could not be more grateful to have been able to be a part of this AMAZING time in their lives!
Jess and Chris- thank you so much for the opportunity to capture this special day! We had a blast and loved celebrating with you!! Congratulations Mr. and Mrs!!!
Huge thanks to all of the wedding professionals who helped make Jess and Chris’ day so special!
