Stop Staring at Your Neighbor's Lights

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is driving around with my husband, looking at Christmas lights around our area. One year, we found a house that was completely decked out - music playing, lights flashing EVERYWHERE - all over the house, all over their massive yard. We slowly crept by and could barely peel our eyes away! We look over to the house next door, where there was a dog standing, looking at the house - unflinching. He couldn't peel his eyes away either! We sat there for another five minutes or so as he slowly started inching towards the house, almost entranced 😂 Fast forward to about a week later, we were driving home from dinner with my mother-in-law and decided to take a detour to show her this crazy house. As we were driving by, we saw the SAME DOG starting intently at the lights - totally frozen by the epicness before him! Finally, his owner came out and pretty much had to drag him inside the house. It was the craziest thing!! What makes this story even crazier is that there was only one other house on that whole street that had Christmas lights up. It’s like everyone had decided that what their neighbor was doing was more than enough for the entire neighborhood!

It got me thinking of how often I’ve found myself staring at someone else’s “epicness,” distracted by someone else’s perceived success or awesomeness, totally neglecting the unique call that’s been placed on my life... wondering if it’s even worth trying at all. I can’t even begin to tell you how many hours I’ve wasted stalking through Instagram accounts, Facebook profiles, and blog posts, believing the lie: “If only I could be like them. Then I’d be successful.” I spent so much time looking at their “lit up house” that I forgot to put up my own lights.

I think it’s safe to say that we've all gone through seasons of distraction, just like that dog, too. We can't peel our eyes off of what someone else is doing, and we become so entranced by their lives that we forget to live our own. We forget that our version of success might not look anything like that person’s… because we are literally a different person! We have different skills, different abilities, different goals and desires for our lives. When we take a closer look and think about what we would have to do (or give up) to get the life that that person has… we might not even want it.

The question I found myself pondering through all of this is this: what's keeping me distracted from living MY life and the call that’s been put on it? And what have I been afraid to do simply because I see someone else doing it “better” or “bigger?” If you’ve ever felt that way, my heart goes out to you, friend. Because it STINKS - big time.

“We have been prepared for what we are called to”

But the beauty within the unknown is this: in Christ, there’s hope. There’s promise. There’s the reassurance that we have been prepared for what we have been called to. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” - Ephesians 2:10

What if the point wasn’t to do something bigger or better, but just to do it because we have been called and equipped? So, stop staring at your neighbor’s lights. Even better… go put up your own.

What I Wish I Knew When I First Started Photographing Weddings

Can I tell you about my first wedding for a second? Oh my goodness, was it ROUGH. And no, not because of the couple (who was amazing!) or the photos (which I actually think were pretty good for my first wedding!) - what made my first wedding rough was all of the things that I didn’t know going into it. That’s true with anything, but for a girl who had only been to one wedding my life (as a flower girl when I was four), you could say that there was a lot I didn’t know about weddings.

The truth is, I didn’t have a whole lot of grace for myself in that initial learning period. Maybe you can relate: you start something new, you give it everything you have – and, still, your expectations for yourself fall a little flat. You know what you want, but you don’t necessarily know how to get there yet. Truth be told, that’s a lesson I am still learning, and one that I’ve dedicated a big portion of this year to learning. And in honor of this lesson that I’m learning, I want to share four things I wish I would’ve known when I first started photographing weddings – or maybe, more aptly, four ways I wish I would’ve given myself grace that first time around.

1.     It’s going to take some trial and error.

You know what the funny thing is about doing something for the first time? YOU’VE NEVER DONE IT BEFORE! Or, maybe from a different perspective – you really have little to no experience. When I shot my first wedding, I had second shot with a few other photographers before, but nothing would fully prepare me for my first wedding as lead photographer. I felt so much pressure to make sure everything was perfect, and in the process, totally forgot (or really, neglected) to give myself the grace of knowing that there would be a bit of a learning curve. And you know what? I’m still learning six years later, and I'm still having to practice giving myself grace with every single session.

2.     Learning from other people is a necessity!

And speaking of learning – learning from other people is a COMPLETE necessity! I used to feel embarrassed asking other people for help, or even just asking clarifying questions to people who were kind enough to teach me. But when I photograph my first wedding, I had to seek out people who could show me the ropes, and even more importantly – I had to be willing to hear their critique and learn from them with an open mind so that I could improve faster!

3.     Know your gear inside and out!!

Here’s a funny story for you – for my first wedding, I rented some new gear that I had never used before. I had seen it online, I had read the reviews, watched the tutorials – but when I got said gear in the mail (including a camera), I noticed that the camera I had rented took a different type of memory card than what I had! I had literally no idea what to do because I never even knew that there was a different type of memory card out there that I could use!

After shedding a few tears, I ordered a few memory cards that I could use in my fancy rented camera and overnight shipped them to myself. By the grace of God they made it on time, but shortly after, I realized that I had actually spent more money renting gear and buying memory cards than I received in payment for the wedding. And since I didn’t know how to use that gear – I fumbled through the wedding day with it. Looking back, I realize now that it would’ve been more to my benefit to use the gear I already had and was confident using instead of renting a bunch of gear that I didn’t even know how to use, just because it was “fancy!”

4.     IT’S OKAY TO TAKE A BREAK.

One of the hardest things for me to do during that first wedding was to sit down during dinner (when there was literally nothing going on to take photos of!) and EAT. And hydrate. And go to the restroom – like a normal human being. I remember Nick (my now husband) physically forcing the camera from my hands and coaxing me to sit down at the spot my couple had so graciously reserved for me to eat dinner. I didn’t realize that it was not only okay, but necessary for me to give my body a teeny tiny bit of rest and refuel – I believed that I had to be taking a photo every five seconds, even while people were eating (and who wants their photo taken while they’re eating?!). Breaks are not only good, but necessary!

What about you? Where do you need to give yourself a little bit of grace? Is it time to give yourself the rest you need? Maybe you need to bow the knee and give yourself the grace and humility to learn from those around you. Or maybe you just need to let yourself fail so that you can pick yourself up and try again next time. Whatever your “thing” might be – give yourself the grace to do it at your own pace. Decide to hold yourself to a standard of grace – not perfection.