In this season of thanks...

I've always had a certain problem that I blame on my "only child syndrome."

Problem is, I have a hard time letting go and asking for help with the simple things in life.

Because I never had to share with siblings, I'm just used to doing everything on my own. If my mom wanted my room clean, I couldn't delegate that task to another sibling, I had to do it my own. And living on my own the past 5 years, I've just learned to survive by doing everything myself.

Unfortunately, this translates into my business. Yeah, I should outsource more, but gosh, no matter how many times I try to convince myself that I could free up my life by paying someone else to do my editing, I just can't do it. The artist perfectionist in me is just too controlling.

And when it comes to shooting a wedding, while I've always had a second shooter, I've never had an assistant, because of that dang problem of wanting to carry all my own bags.

But then I got hurt. Right before my Fall 2010 wedding season started, I suddenly got a horrible pain in my left neck that ran all the way down to my finger tips tingling and hurting and just not feeling good. I dreaded having to carry my ShootSac camera bag in that very spot on my shoulder because it was all I could do to stand up in so much throbbing pain. After many visits to the chiropractor and my masseuse, Stephen finally brought up a concept foreign to me:

"Why don't you just let someone else carry your bags?"

Huh? And not do it myself? Why would someone want to actually carry my bag? I would never ask someone to do that.

He reminded me of how he spent a year carrying bags and interning, and how important carrying bags was in his education just to be given the opportunity to observe a photographer he looked up to. He encouraged me to put something on Facebook, and... well... I became overwhelmed at the response! I still was in shock that anyone would want to carry my bag. I promise I'm not that cool.

Now that my Fall wedding season winds down for the holidays, I look back at how grateful I am to have had some A-MAZING assistants, and I can't believe how LONG it took me to let go because I was so blessed in return by the chance to get to meet some great new friends. Not only did they save the pain in my neck, but I had a lot of fun with them behind the scenes! Each girl bent over backward to help with all the little details of the day to make it flawless for my brides and grooms, so with Thanksgiving approaching, I just wanted to post a blog saying THANK YOU to Chloe Austin, Melissa Bonacci, Jennifer Cox, Lindsey Mills, & Alison Sloan! You girls seriously are the best and from the bottom of my heart, I am grateful to have gotten to know each of you through my silly ShootSac!





To all those reading this, I hope you have an incredibly blessed Thanksgiving reflecting on love, life and family! :-)