Quite fitting for what the year would become, my first wedding of 2020 was an elopement with Tianyi + Ben on January 9!
But otherwise, 2020 started off like most any other – a few winter weddings, a few sessions, and into spring, a trip to Puerto Rico for Feminist Photo Vaycay. And then, everything changed when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in early March. Upon my return from my trip, I managed to squeeze in a few already scheduled shoots before we went into full lockdown mode, and my business was shut down as non-essential. I ran a print and album sale to keep busy, caught up on my all my outstanding projects, and managed lots of reschedules and a few cancellations. But I did not shoot between late March and early May. Not even porch sessions 🙂
In early May, as my business was permitted to operate again, I picked where I left off – with plenty of precautions, of course! I had lots of sessions rescheduled from lockdown, mostly outdoors and always masked and at a distance. But of course, more than half of my weddings for the year had rescheduled (some twice!), so my work was definitely not back to full capacity.
My first wedding back was Lia + Jeffrey at Jorgensen Farms on May 10, who got married with 10 people on their original date and rescheduled their reception to 2021. And from there, a whole new silver lining emerged: micro weddings! My summer and fall calendars quickly filled up with these tiny weddings. Not that they made up for all that was rescheduled, because of their smaller size and shorter hours, but in all, I ended up shooting 34 weddings in 2020! There were even a couple instances where I shot 2 weddings in one day!
As such, while the first half of my year was relatively quiet, the second half of my year was very busy, especially the month of October, where I shot 11 weddings alone!
But what was so incredibly special about the weddings that did happen this year, was that every moment was so meaningful, every detail and decision made with intention. Especially so with the small and micro weddings, where there could just been 10 guests present. We brought things back to the basics this year and remembered what was important.
My year ended on several huge high notes. In the month of December, I learned that I won the Best of Knot Award for 2021, for the 9th year in a row! I also learned that I was nominated for the second year in a row for the Best of Columbus Weddings (VOTE!). And finally, the biggest surprise of all, I landed a photo on the cover of Columbus Weddings Magazine!
In a wild year full of unexpected changes and plenty of disappointments, there were many silver linings to keep me going. I love looking back on all the happy memories made!
