The exhaustion is worth it!

So I've been totally MIA this week (and lets be honest, I've kinda sucked at blogging this year in general), but it's for good reason. If you read this post last week, you know we've just had a lot going on! Last weekend we photographed two out of town weddings back to back, and every night after work this week consists of our church's annual Sports Camp. Then tomorrow, we have a half day from work to go shoot our last wedding for a while (we actually get somewhat of a "summer break", woo!)!

I haven't hit the bed before 12:30 any night this week. I've had the same thing for dinner every night. I've consumed more coffee this week than probably all of last month. I've got weird tan lines, a ton of bug bites, and my eyes are hardly staying open.

But you know what? It's been totally worth it.

It's worth it because I see these kiddos learning who Jesus is, some for the first time. It's worth it because of the absolute JOY I see on each of their faces all night long. It's worth it because I get to witness 100+ volunteers work together to pull this event off. It's worth it when you hear some of the kids talk about what's going on in their lives, and we realized we can truly make a difference.

Another perk? Getting to see my adorable husband head coaching basketball. You guys, he has such a way with kids. He's always making them laugh, but he's also tough when he needs to be. It's very cool to watch!

Here are just a few of my favorite moments I've been able to capture this week!

I'm so thankful to be surrounded with people who want to serve others! It's such an encouragement.

I hope you have a great rest of your week friends. Maybe I'll get my act together with regular blogging again someday, or maybe not. For now? It's what works. Happy Thursday!

Another fun, but busy weekend!

Friday evening we had no real plans, but we wanted to drop something off at Erin & Jared's house quickly! So we stopped by, then they asked us to stay for dinner (so sweet!) which turned into a full blown game night! We loved it and had such a blast!

Saturday morning Caleb and I got ready for a wedding we had been really excited for! It was in Lawrenceburg, IN (which was surprisingly less than an hour drive), and Libby, the bride, was a sister of one of our previous brides. She said that choosing us to photograph her wedding was a no-brainer, and we couldn't have been more excited!!

It was COLD outside - but these ladies were troopers!!!

That adorable couple on the right is Katie and Seth, and we photographed their wedding a few years ago! Libby, the bride, is Katie's younger sister. I was beyond excited when I found out Katie & Seth welcomed a sweet baby boy into the world just 6 little weeks ago! How precious is he??!! My heart was honestly so happy all day! This family is the sweetest! Caleb and I get so much more from wedding days when the families are so accommodating and friendly all day. They made us feel like part of the day, not just "hired help" :) we're so grateful!

Sunday, after church, I did some serious grocery shopping and did some meal prepping. I pre made taco salad for lunches and tonight plan on pre-making more meals so we can stay on track throughout the week! We've slipped up a bit the last couple weeks, not doing terribly, but that always seems to happen when we're working a lot. I'm remembering to give ourselves some grace and just try harder the next week!

Hope everyone has a good Monday! Make it a great one!

Our weekend: donuts and photo shoots!

Friday:  We attended the Basketball Senior night for one of our youth group students. It was epic! They CRUSHED the other team!

Saturday: Caleb woke me up and said we were going to the flea market! I didn't feel that those plans required clean hair so you know this girl threw a hat over her leftover curly hair and called it a day ;) The day got even better when Caleb agreed to DONUTS on the road! Then, the lady made my weekend when I asked for a regular glazed donut and she told me she had a hot fresh one in the back. Legit the best thing I've ever tasted.

Later that evening Erin and I had a girls night in! Including some of the best things on earth: coloring books, buffalo chicken dip and a hilarious movie. I love nights like that. Just talking for hours, catching up on life, and unwinding!

Sunday: I did something a little bit outside of my comfort zone by photographing a head shot/brand session for a new friend, Carly! She owns Surcee Florals. She's so so talented and seriously SUCH a sweetheart! I couldn't help but edit a few right when I got home, so here's a sneak peak!

After that, we shot a sweet session with this adorable family! Tara is one of Caleb's (many) cousin's, and it was so fun hanging out with them - they live over an hour away so we don't get to see them as often as we'd like! We had a great time during their session, and seriously, how cute are they!?

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Happy Monday, lets make it an awesome one!!

Snap happy weekend!

Friday consisted of not making dinner so we had a quick little date night then a walk over to Petco but of course, no puppies were there to cuddle. We made our way back home and popped in a movie and fell asleep on the couch. I kind of love when that happens; even though we wake up at 3am with kinked necks.

Saturday was our very first wedding of the year and I have to tell ya, the butterflies were doing circles in my stomach. I don't know why I was so nervous because once I saw the bride and started photographing her details, all the excitement and skill came back to me! We had a long day, but it was worth it! The bride even had a donut waiting for me and said she "knew I loved Holtmans" - umm can you say IDEAL CLIENT?! ;)

Sunday we heard a great message at church about being the hands and feet of Jesus and showing compassion/kindness like He does - and it really inspired us going into a new week.

I had a fun session scheduled with some friends to capture her cute belly, as they are expecting their first baby girl!

That evening I skipped out on youth group because I had WAY too much work to catch up on, and it was much needed. No distractions (except The Office, of course), and it was great!

I'm feeling refreshed and ready to tackle another week!
Hope everyone had a fun weekend!

ITS LAUNCH DAY! Our business is here!

Today is the day, friends. The day our business and website officially launch. Our website is complete, images are finalized, prices are set, and we are SO excited to be business owners. We've prayed for this for SO long and I can't even explain to you how much love has been put into this (by so many people, not just Caleb and I), and I can't thank everyone enough. The support, encouragement and love sent our way has been so amazing! So thankful for one of our best friends (who doubles as our SIL), Erin, for making our incredible logo! We're just so grateful to get to do what we love!

So friends, HERE IT IS! ENJOY!

I also wanted to share the blog post below that I posted on our website, for those of you who are interested in our back story, or if you just need a distraction from work. We hope you'll tune in and give us all the virtual high fives from wherever you are today. We are so thankful for you!
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Welcome to Kayla & Caleb! We're Cincinnati based wedding & portrait photographers! We're so incredibly thankful to be starting this business together. This dream has been a long time in the making and we're so grateful it's finally here! If you've got some time, kick back with some hot tea, get your favorite box of cookies out, and read on!

I'm Kayla. When I was just a young teenager, I had dreams of becoming a photographer. I thought I wanted to work for National Geographic and photograph animals and see the world (those things still do sound a bit appealing). All I had to work with at the time was an original Wide Polaroid and my Motorola Razr flip phone, but I made it work. I would photograph anything I could see and anyone that would let me. I grew to love photography even more, and the passion only got stronger as I grew up. Fast forward a few years to post-high school life, when I reconnected with Caleb. We were young, and we fell in love FAST. We spent our evenings watching bad TV, and eating way too much ice cream. When we came home from school, I turned 20 and he gifted me my first DSLR (cue the tears and ridiculous happy dancing), and that's when everything clicked.

Just kidding. I really wasn't very good; I'll be honest! I had no idea what I was doing, but people didn't care because I had a passion for it. I slowly taught myself what I needed to know about my camera and did free sessions for years. I always had dreams of owning my own business, but always thought that dream was too big and that self employment was truly not in the cards for me.

After Caleb and I got married in 2013, he started to pick up my camera here and there to document our lives. He was a true natural and he really had an eye for it! He started to love it and joined me on one of my first weddings for fun, almost just to pass the time. Turns out he was pretty stinkin' good! A few months after our OWN wedding, our amazing photographers took us to dinner and they asked us to join their business as "Associate Photographers" (cue more tears and ridiculous happy dancing). What?! I couldn't believe it. My dreams finally felt within reach.

We happily accepted their offer and worked under their company for over 3 years, photographing 100+ weddings and meeting lots of new people. The experience and knowledge they gave us was invaluable. We learned a lot, and really honed in on our natural style of photography (raw, emotional, timeless and FUN) within the last year. We've grown so much over the last 3+ years, but neither of us could shake the feeling it was time to for a new adventure. We prayed about it, thought of so many reasons it could potentially fail, and then decided to just punch fear in the face and GO FOR IT. Our pastor once told us "you can what-if your dreams to death, but you'll never know until you try", and that was such a light bulb moment for us. We knew it was time to start our own business! So here we are, as "Kayla & Caleb".

We get such a unique opportunity as photographers; to witness and be part of some of the most intimate moments of our clients lives! It's truly an experience we don't take for granted. We can't wait to meet all of you, and start this adventure together. We want to give our clients an experience they'll never forget.

Caleb and I love what we do, and we can't wait to show you just how much!
Stay tuned for more fun!

We have news - and its not what you think!

Caleb and I have been keeping a little secret from the blog world (lets get one thing clear right off the bat - no, we're not expecting) lately!

As you probably already know, Caleb and I are wedding photographers, and I post some of our work here every now and then. Here's the quick back story, for those of you that don't know! In 2013, our wedding photographers took a huge leap in their business and decided to make us a part of their team (you can read about that here)! So every wedding you've seen on this blog has been booked under their company. Caleb and I still did all the consultations, emailing, photographing, editing and delivering, but we were building up our experience level and learning a TON with each and every session/wedding.

 It was an unbelievable blessing; and our calendars filled up very quickly! I remember crying ugly tears on the way home from dinner with them thinking "My dreams are totally coming true"! It was surreal, we've learned so much the last 3+ years, and the experience with them has been absolutely invaluable.

However, over the course of this year, Caleb and I both felt God nudging us to something new, something unknown, something slightly terrifying. It was entirely too scary to even talk seriously about for a while, and then one night we both said, what are we waiting for!? Lets kick fear in the face!

So in June, we had our good friends over who own the business, and after some good pizza and even better conversation, we informed them that we would no longer be booking through their company because we've decided to...

START OUR OWN BUSINESS!

We're so unbelievably excited! Being in this business has already proved to be somewhat difficult, but it's absolutely going to be worth. I cannot wait to be my own boss! There are so many things that go into starting a business I hadn't even though of, but we're ecstatic about this new adventure God has called us to. We haven't officially launched, and its eating me alive, so I just had to get the news out there. We're hoping to be live before the holiday season gets underway!

I truly can't wait to be official and serve our clients in a new, fun, exciting way! I want to give them a whole experience. I can truly say, we've been fortunate enough to get a lot of couples who not only value us as vendors, but as humans, too! We have real friendships with some of these people, and THAT is what its all about. Creating genuine, authentic community with people; not just showing up, taking photos and posing. I'm so ready to see where this adventure takes us!

I'll keep the blog updated when we're officially launched, but in the meantime, please send Caleb and I all the good vibes, prayers, well wishes, etc.! Thanks for your support!!

Our weekend || snap happy

I'm going to be totally honest, as this past weekend approached, I was a little nervous. We've shot plenty of double-header weddings (2 in a row in one weekend) before, but I think with it being towards the end of the year, I was just more tired than usual.

I'm happy to report that we survived! Successful wedding days both Friday and Saturday! It's always so amazing to me how unique each wedding day is. Both of them could not be more different from each other, but were still gorgeous and unique in their own ways. We really did have so much fun; especially when the bride and groom from Friday insisted we put our cameras down around the end of the night and just "have fun"! This meant a lot, they are actually photographers as well, so they totally understand what a long day can do to ya! It was much appreciated. We danced for a solid hour and just had a great time with some friends we knew at the reception!

Sunday was an incredible message at church, and then a family session for an old friend of mine. Taylor and I graduated high school together, and we have so many fun memories together. We actually reconnected when she and her man, Seth, were both in a recent wedding we shot! It prompted them to want to get some family photos done, so we all met up at a local park and hung out in the woods - which really gave us some amazing light! Fall family sessions are my favorite!

Taylor is seriously gorgeous. I was always envious of her crazy blue eyes back in school! Her baby girl, Rowen, and her son, Levi definitely both take after her with those gorgeous eyes. This photo makes me laugh; a total "motherhood" moment! Their family session was honestly a breeze with their effortless giggles and adorable outfits!

Caleb and I did groceries after the session, and since our fridge broke, our cart was FULL this trip! We got home before lunch, still, and enjoyed a MUCH needed afternoon of relaxing and napping. The Bengals game was just horrible, sadly, which lead to more napping and lounging around. We finished the night off with a quick (chilly) grill out and endless episodes of The Flash!

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and has an even better week!

October goal: survive

Every October, we always have so much going on. SO many weddings, SO many photo shoots, SO many events, SO many personal things we need to get done...so basically my only goal for this month is to make it through (aka; survive). Vacation at the end of the month couldn't come at a better time, because life, for the first time in forever, will truly slow down significantly afterwards.

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Caleb and I have been talking a lot about slowing down lately. For the majority of our marriage, life has been very go-go-go because we've hustled to try and pay off debt, book a ton of weddings, see everyone and do everything.

We realize that to get to where you want to be in life, you sometimes have to temporarily do things that you maybe don't want to do (like work two jobs, work most weekends, edit all night, etc.), but we are absolutely ready for life to slow down. After vacation, we will come home and only have THREE weddings the rest of the year. THREE! I truly can't comprehend it. By the end of the year we will have photographed 31 weddings in 2016, and approx 98 TOTAL.

So really what I'm looking forward to is some time off with my husband! As much as we absolutely love photographing weddings and love being part of these special couples/families lives, it'll be so nice to enjoy a break this Winter and relax. We haven't had time to just "breathe" much this year, and even though photography is a passion of ours, everybody needs a break! I'm so excited to actually sleep in on a Saturday, maybe go for a donut run, relax, watch college football all day and really just do whatever the heck we want! It's going to be so, so great!

What do we plan to do with some of our time off in the next few months? Basically just get our LIVES together. Organize the basement, throw old stuff away, make some personal photo books, make a yummy new meal, watch new movies, enjoy time with friends we hardly get to see. Ah, I'm genuinely feeling more relaxed just typing that all out.

I guess the point of this blog post is to say, busy isn't all its cracked up to be! Take time for YOU, you deserve it!!

The wedding dreams are made of.

Regardless of the long weekend, Caleb and I still photographed a wedding on Saturday! Although it was a long, 13 hour day, we still had the best time with Alyssa and Jon and their gang. Honestly it kind of overwhelms us when family/friends of the bride and groom consider us to be an addition to their day, rather than just another vendor. It means so much when they remember our names. One of the bridesmaids simply said "Kayla, where should I sit my bags so they aren't in your way?", and its sad how much it surprised me that she called me by name! A lot of the time, we are just called "the photographers" and it was really nice to feel welcomed and recognized from the get go! We're lucky to work with so many people who truly value photography.

Right as I arrived her mom dropped everything to see if I wanted a coffee, or something to eat. I knew when I met Alyssa that there was a good chance all of her ladies would be just as sweet as her, and I couldn't have been more right. Caleb dropped me off and headed to hang out with the guys at their hotel and he did all the groomsmen photos solo. He's really rockin' this gig lately more than ever. So proud :) this wouldn't be the same without him.

Is this not the most fabulous Mother-of-the-Bride dress you've ever seen!?

Their ceremony was adorable. Alyssa and Jon didn't do a first look so his reaction when she walked down the aisle was just the sweetest.

We were so excited when the bridal portraits officially started. Luckily we've shot at this venue in Dayton before (Country Club of the North) and the coordinator let us go alone with the golf carts! They even wanted to venture sort-of in someones backyard to make some willow tree magic happen, and I didn't refuse...even if it gave me a little anxiety! ;)

Can I just take a moment to say Alyssa is incredible at make up?! She did her own and it was flawless and lasted ALL day. I've basically been convincing her since that morning that she could totally change her life calling and do that for a living! ;)

They even let us sneak them out for a few sunset photos, which we all know are my FAVORITE.

I'm really not joking when I say we loved every second. Sure it was a long day, but when everyone involved is so kind the entire day, and truly VALUE what Caleb and I do, it makes it so much more enjoyable. For the last 20 minutes before we left, we danced the night away with all their friends, we and already put all of our gear away. We had way too much fun and definitely feel like we made some new friends!

I'm SO thrilled we get the day off today, which also means only a 4 day work week...then a FREE WEEKEND! Woo woo! Happy Labor Day, friends! Hope everyone has fun plans!