Five years ago when we started our business while hanging out at Spoons on New Years Day, one of our dreams was to travel more. We figured if we started a business, we might earn a few extra dollars that we could use to travel the world.

Here we are, five years later, and we can confidently look back and see that starting our business has definitely given us the opportunity to travel more! ;) Not necessarily because we have been able to earn a few extra dollars (when we went full time, those dollars became the necessary funds to live off of! ;) ), but because our business has taken us on crazy adventures! If someone were to tell us five years ago that we would soon be photographing couples in Paris, Barcelona, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Jamaica, North Carolina, Vermont, Maine, California, Arizona, and all over the mid-Atlantic region, we probably would have said in disbelief, “ha, that would be AMAZING!” And if someone were to tell us when we started our business that in five years we would find ourselves on a tour bus traveling the country with incredible friends on a life changing journey, we probably would have fallen off our chairs! (In fact, last year when we received Justin and Mary’s email asking us to come along, that is pretty much what happened! ;) ) haha.

Over the past 5 years, we have learned so so so much. Seriously, it is incredible to think about. But one of the biggest lessons that we have learned is if you say your dreams out loud and work really hard to make them happen, they will likely happen in ways beyond those wildest dreams!

This year has been so incredibly adventurous! It started with the What’s Next Tour… three weeks and 10 stops on a bus across the country with friends. That in itself would be reason to call 2013 one of adventure! ;) It definitely set the tone for the crazy year ahead with travels to Puerto Rico, California, Maine, Oregon, Michigan, New York City & the Finger Lakes of NY, New Jersey, Nantucket, the MD Eastern Shore x 20 (haha!, probably more and we loved every single one of those trips!) Virginia, South Carolina, and so many places in between!

I wanted to create a map so that we would never forget these crazy adventures, but I quickly became overwhelmed because I couldn’t find a program that would allow me to color code it and add in flights like I was hoping! ;) So I did my best to include the road trips and then I added in some of the other locations we explored this year! What an adventure!

We are excited to be looking ahead to 2014 knowing that the adventures are continuing! We currently have plans to travel to Utah, California, Arizona, North Carolina, Maine, AND Africa! And who knows what other adventures will come up (if you have any fun adventures in the works and are looking for friends to document it along the way- let us know! We are always up for a fun adventure!)! We are certainly excited to think about the possibilities and we never stop believing in Oh The Places You’ll Go!

Wishing you all an AMAZING last day of 2013! Here’s to new beginnings and a happy and healthy New Year!

(Side Note: We are working on some super AMAZING things over at http://www.amazinglifetogether.com for a great year end review and dream planning for 2014! Definitely check it out and be sure to sign up for the newsletter! Our first one is coming out January 1 (that is tomorrow!!!!) and we don’t want you to miss it!)

Ahhh! ;) This post just makes my heart happy! ;) It is so much fun to look back on the year and think about all that we have done, everywhere we have been, and all of the AMAZING couples we have met along the way! When we are in the middle of our crazy busy season (which seems to be an ongoing season that really doesn’t end! ;) Grateful for that.), we don’t often take the time to reflect on the craziness! I mean, we don’t take enough time to do it, anyway!

It is not uncommon for Ryan and I to finish a photography session and not only have photos of our AMAZING couples, but also have at least one doozy of a photo of one another! ;) When we are checking our light or scouting out the perfect location, we usually use each other as models! We often capture each other at the moments we least expect and that always results in some super fun ones! And Ryan… ohh Ryan. He likes to photobomb me every once in awhile! ;) He usually is pretty quick and I just capture a blob in front of me. Haha. But every once in awhile I capture his AMAZINGNESS! ;) haha!

As we are doing some reflecting on this absolutely incredible year, we thought it would be super fun to revisit that folder of photos that we store away as “photos of us in action!” We are so truly blessed to do the work that we do and the smiles on our faces definitely shows how much we are in our element while we are on the job! ;) I am so grateful for the these images and the AMAZING reminders of just how happy our hearts are when we are surrounded by AMAZING couples and get to capture their magic with photography!

We hope you enjoy a little sneak peek into the behind the scenes of us in action! ;) And believe me, we are laughing right along with you! ;)

Haha… you could come up with a great caption for this one! ;) Actually, you could probably come up with a great caption for many of these! If you have anything in mind, please do share! We will enjoy the laugh right along with you! ;)

Yep, there is a camera in there! Anything for the shot! ;) And I am pretty sure Ryan was not too upset about what he had to do to get this one from Laura and Richie’s Day After Session!

This is Ryan pretending he is being proposed to as we scouted out the best location for TJ’s surprise proposal to Carol!! ;)

Ok, honestly… lol. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here! ;) All I know is that it was at the very end of the night after Kait and Adam’s AMAZING day… and truthfully, my heart was happy, Kait was admiring her ring, and Adam was quite tired! ;) lol!

We are so blessed by the adventures our couples take us on! ;) Seriously… the variety of our “offices” is just incredible! (Camden Yards, docks in Annapolis and Chesapeake Beach, the waters of the Chesapeake on the Eastern Shore, Rehoboth, Baltimore, NYC, the mountains of PA, Federal Hill, Loyola University, Sherwood Gardens, Washington DC, and the list goes on and on! ;) ) So grateful!

This year we had the AMAZING opportunity of photographing some of our closest friend’s weddings! What a gift for us! Those smiles never left our faces!

Haha… I have no words. ;)

I think I was so excited about Susan’s dress that I just wanted to get as close as possible! ;)

How handsome is he?!? ;)

Ahhh! This is happiness.

Best photobomber ever! ;)

Ahh! So much fun! Please do share those captions, friends! ;)

It is the most wonderful time of the year! Ahhh! So much excitement, I feel like I have everlasting butterflies just thinking about it! It is such an incredible time to reflect on the AMAZING blessings that surround us and share our gratitude with the world!

We hope you are joining us to take some time over the next few days to truly reflect and take the time to appreciate the love that surrounds you! We will certainly be doing just that!

In the meantime, here is a little love from our hearts to yours! We wish you an absolutely AMAZING holiday season! Merry Christmas, friends!

*Time got ahead of us and we never got the chance to send out holiday cards this year! However, if we did, they would probably look a little something like this! ;) Let’s just say we are being environmentally conscious and have decided to send it electronically this year! ;) Merry Christmas!!

If you are interested in seeing more photos from our super fun Christmas Tree searching adventures, definitely check them out over at the AMAZING Life Together site: http://www.amazinglifetogether.com/date-nights/making-the-holidays-special/

Sending you so much peace, love and AMAZINGNESS! Happy Holidays!!!

For the longest time, literally for years, we have had Charleston, SC on our list of places to visit! We have no idea what it was that was drawing us there, but we knew we wanted to visit! Maybe it was all of the talk of the AMAZING restaurants or just the idea of a southern city on the water… it was definitely all of the above!

Over the past year, we have heard so much about Charleston. Literally, I feel like everyone that we chatted with said something about Charleston. lol. Okay, that may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously everyone was talking about it! ;) And every time we heard about Charleston, our hearts perked up a bit and we knew we needed to make that trip a priority! ;)

So, as Ryan’s birthday approached, we brainstormed something fun to do to celebrate, ya know like a beer tasting party or maybe even a scotch tasting… All great options! ;) But we decided to go crazy and make the trip to Charleston! It was the perfect excuse to gather friends and have the time of our lives exploring a city that we all really wanted to visit! We are so grateful for our super adventurous friends, Justin and Mary and Ashley and Jeremy (the What’s Next Crew) who are always up for being crazy with us and helped make #RyansDapperBirthday one we will never forget! (Check out the Instagram hashtag for more photos!! ;) )

We started Ryan’s birthday celebration the night before his birthday with an absolutely incredible dinner at Husk. The food was AMAZING and the service was definitely purple cow remarkable! ;) I called about an hour before dinner to share the news that we would be celebrating Ryan’s birthday. They said “great, we will make a note of it.” When we arrived to the restaurant, they had Happy Birthday at the top of our menus! Incredible! Husk is a definitely must visit for anyone going to Charleston in the future!

Ohh… and another must visit is The Gin Joint. We actually went back there twice during our visit because it was the perfect low key bar to enjoy tasty drinks and AMAZING conversation! The best part about The Gin Joint is the choose your own adventure type menu! ;) You can choose 2 words out of a list of adjectives and they will make you a drink based off those words! ;) So much fun!

A trip to a new city would not be complete for us without finding the most AMAZING coffee shop in town! ;) After doing some searching, we found Collective Coffee just outside of the city. It was so worth the adventure to seek it out!

Ahhh! Okay, I must admit, we definitely were not aware of the absolutely gorgeous plantations that make Charleston so charming! We were so excited about the food that we didn’t even think about anything else! ;) However, Mary recommended that we go check out a Plantation for the afternoon. So we did just that. We went to the Boone Hall Plantation and I am so happy we did! It was just gorgeous! And this was our very first time seeing a cotton field in person!!! Ahhhh! Seriously gorgeous!!!

Our day was already AMAZING! But there was still more to come! ;) Ryan had dreamed of going to a Holiday s’mores event that a waterfront resort was having in Charleston while we were visiting. We had it in our plans, but then it rained! I had been watching the weather and had a feeling that event was going to be rained out. So I thought it would be fun to try to find a way to have our own little campfire on the beach! Why not, right?!? ;) This has definitely been a bucket list item for us for the longest time! I did some research and found that we could get a permit for a campfire on the Sullivan’s Island beaches! PERFECT!

We made a pitstop at Lowe’s to get campfire supplies and then made or way to the beach just before sunset! Gosh, Charleston is dreamy gorgeous friends! We really couldn’t even have dreamed of a more perfect night! (Ok, it was a bit chilly… but other than that, it was pretty much perfect!)! We celebrated Ryan’s birthday (again) with a birthday candlelit Peanut Butter Cup s’more from our beach campfire! ;) It was… AMAZING.

Gosh, I love this guy! ;)

And this AMAZING group of friends! ;)

Ryan’s dapper birthday was definitely a birthday we will never forget! For all of you with Charleston on your list of places to visit, we would definitely recommend it in a heartbeat!!! And let us know when you go so that we can get super excited for you too! ;)

One of Jill and Tripp’s all time favorite things to do around the holidays is go to NYC and take it all in! When they suggested a Christmas engagement session in NYC, you can only imagine how excited we were!!! There is nothing quite like NYC around the holidays and we could not wait to be able to capture the magic with Jill and Tripp!

As the day got closer and we watched the weather closely, we started to get a little nervous. They were calling for a snow and ice storm the day before (which also happened to be the day Jill and Tripp were driving to NYC!) and another snow storm the day after the session. The day of the session, it was suppose to rain. It takes a lot for us to get nervous about the weather, but this is one of those moments where we definitely refreshing Accuweather a little more than normal! ;)

After a crazy long day of travel for Jill and Tripp the day before (think 10 hours instead of 3 :( ), we were saying our prayers that the weather would clear for them! And that it did! The cloudy skies definitely created a dreamy atmosphere and a picturesque day that we will never forget!

Jill and Tripp, we had an absolute blast with you in NYC! When Ryan said my excitement was like I was a little kid in a candy store, he was absolutely correct! This was a dream for us to be able to capture the magic of your love right along with the magic of the holidays! We loved every minute of it! Thank you for being so adventurous with us and walking so much that our bodies reminded us for the full week after! ;) It was worth it! We hope these images always remind you of that special magic you two share!