We had this contest recently to give away a free wedding here in Charlotte. Kinda crazy, I know, but when you move twice in a year you do what you gotta! I had 7 brides who’s stories moved me so they were entered to get as many likes on their picture on my Facebook page as they could. Chaneka was SO determined to win and blew me away with the amount of votes she got in huge bursts. 100 here, 50 there. Our page went from 356 likes to 1,000 in two weeks with Chaneka’s friends contributing well over 250 of those. I’m so excited to photograph their wedding and have an idea that it will be a blast with so many supportive friends.  I really appreciate the effort of all the brides who entered and I’m thinking I’ll have to do another contest very soon.

 www.takenbysarah.com

Chaneka and Jadarrion’s story

And I couldn’t resist taking an iPhone picture of the very exciting number of

one thousand!

I’m in Wilmington today excited about a bridal shoot we have later on today. I can’t wait till their wedding next month and the blog posts are sure to be AH-mazing. I don’t have any super cool new pictures of my own today, so I thought I’d share some funny stuff from my Pinterest board. The first one makes me laugh EVERY time I look at it. Like 2 seconds after I look at it the first.second.third.fourth time.

I don’t know about you, but I talk for my cat ALL the time. I even have a voice for her. She talks back, but unfortunately it’s usually not in English. Animals make the world a billion times better!

“Not your average doggie coat”

Spring has been trying to come out for the last few weeks here in Charlotte and in the last few days the trees in our neighborhood have exploded with flowers. I’m super excited because we moved here in the winter and I’ve been wanting to know what types of trees and bushes we have in our yard. Not all of them are showing yet, but two are and they are so pretty. Unfortunately the temperatures keep roller coastering, but considering that two years ago it was probably snowing on our place in NY, I can’t complain. 

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This first picture is what I saw when I pulled into the driveway yesterday. The picture does it absolutely no justice, but it was beautiful and peaceful in that moment. We have two bushes of the pink flowers on either side of the house. They don’t have any leaves yet so they look kind of funny with the papery flowers everywhere, but I really like them. The flowers are so raggedy looking but they are vibrantly pink.

Warning, lots of words ahead. But try and stick with me this time!

Several times I’ve made a goal to write more about personal stuff, to try and let people on the internet know who I really am beyond being a photographer. While I think there is a place for letting yourself be known, I think there is a delicate balance one needs to keep between their profession and their personal life on a business blog. And I seem to be completely incapable of finding it! I basically freeze any time I have to write anything personal. I’m not really one for putting myself out there, especially when no one is asking for it. So I struggle with a desire for people to know me as well as my pictures, to see that maybe the reason they want to hire me isn’t that I take pretty pictures but also that I’ll be a great personal addition to their wedding day, and a fear of being obnoxious. I also over think everything, which never helps. But today, I’ve decided that maybe I can give it another shot. I definitely don’t want this turning into a blog about me that makes people run away and never look back. Obviously the main focus is to keep you updated on my latest work. But hopefully I can come up with interesting things that let you see a bit of who I really am and maybe you’ll want to be friends?

So here goes nothing! It would be SUPER DUPER if anyone reading this would comment. Even just a little itty bitty “Hi” to maybe let me know I’m not crazy?! KThanks.

I’ve been hearing about The Hunger Games for quite awhile now and when I started seeing the movie preview I was intrigued. I had no clue what they were about so I was pretty surprised when I started reading. I guess I hadn’t imagined anything so dark. I’m the type of person who takes pretty much everything deeply to heart and becomes way too affected by things, so it was an emotional ride for me. I read all 3 books in just a few days (it would have been faster if I hadn’t had other things to do!) and I was left breathless many times. I had a hard time sleeping a couple of nights because I kept imagining myself in the arena and when I finally came to the end I couldn’t see coming, I was left feeling sort of desperate for more, or maybe for something that would dispel the darkness it left me feeling. Despite that, I’m so glad I read them because it gave me a lot to think about. I identified so much with Katniss in the first 2 books. She pretty much is me in so many ways. But I was dismayed to read the third and kept trying to convince myself that I couldn’t possibly be like this Katniss. Could I? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read the books!

Anna is one my roommates and one of my and Ben’s closest friends from college. I’m really glad we had the opportunity to hang out with her and Edwin and JoJo this weekend and now that we only live 3 hours from them, hopefully there’ll be lots more visits in the future. We took a few pictures today and I wanted to share them because JoJo is just to cute not to! 

www.takenbysarah.com