When we started the process of redesigning our website, we knew we wanted video to have a very strong focus. As you saw yesterday, we plan to post a new Manifesto Video each week, and we have slowly been incorporating bits and pieces of video into our story telling photography sessions (check back later today for a super fun session we just did with our AMAZING friends Jennie and Adam).
So when it came to our promo video, it had to be fit perfectly with our brand and tell the story of us. Yes, we are photographers, but the goal with our site is so much more than that. It is about helping people live an AMAZING life, encouraging people to live their dreams each day, and capturing life’s most AMAZING moments to share with friends and family for generations to come. We wanted our promo video to capture exactly those same ideas. So we started with the idea of having a fun date that included heading to our local farmers market, cooking together, enjoying wine and cupcakes, and just soaking each other in. But enough of me trying to explain the video, check it out for yourselves and leave us a comment to let us know what you think!
Thanks to Jeremy and Nick of Jeremy Mitchell Cinema for making us a promo video that exceeded even our grandest expectations! These guys ROCK and if you are looking to have your wedding filmed or need an AMAZING promo video, definitely give them a shout!
Ohh my goodness! We can’t believe this moment is actually here!!! It has been a year + in the making! (and we promise you that is not an exaggeration!) We have put so much heart and soul into this rebranding project and we are so happy to say it was worth every single minute!
Beginning in January we embarked on this rebranding journey with the lovely ladies at Making Brands Happen (Lara Casey and Emily Ley). They challenged us in ways that we never could have imagined. They were there to ask us the tough questions and push us to dig deep when the answer came out too “easy” or we defaulted to just do what we thought we were suppose to do. Every question they asked and challenge they put forth have led us to this point today and we could not be more grateful!
Sharing this new site with you is just the beginning of something AMAZING. We have a fire in our hearts that is burning stronger than it ever has before. We are confident in knowing that we want to do everything we can to be an inspiration to the world around us. We have built this site (well actually the amazing team at Flosites built this site! ;) ) as a channel to share our life and our love with you all. We hope to inspire you to live your own AMAZING life and to be sure to document it along the way!
Without further ado, we could not be any more excited to introduce to you, our new brand Liz and Ryan.
Huge Huge HUGE thanks to the amazing team at Making Brands Happen (Lara, Emily, Emily, Nicole, etc.) for pushing us and being that sounding board that actually challenges us to dig deeper! Having you in our lives is such an amazing blessing that we will forever be grateful for! … and to think that it all began with Ryan’s comment “Lara Casey, she is CRAZY! I want to meet her!” ;) So happy! We are beyond excited about where Liz and Ryan is headed, but we will never forget where it all began! THANK YOU!
A special shout out also needs to go to Ross and his amazing team at Flosites. Ohh my word they are incredibly talented at what they do! Thank you to everyone that had a hand in making our new site a reality! You took our random brainstorms and wildest dreams for this site and made them happen! We are website geniouses and we are proud to have you on our team! ;)
And one more note of thanks… We would not be where we are today without every single one of our past and current clients! You all have touched our lives in such a special way that makes our hearts smile HUGE! We appreciate you and are so grateful you are a part of our lives.
To say our lives have been busy over the last several months is an understatement. Preparing to launch our new brand while also trying to balance all of the necessary work required to still run our business has made for some late nights. I am sure you all have had similar experiences in your own lives where work and life just don’t seem to balance. It’s at those times we need to take one deep breath and no matter how hard, carve out just a little extra time for that someone special. Grab a quick coffee, call a babysitter and go on a date. And most importantly, don’t lose track of what are really the most important things in life.
A few months back, just as we were starting to get into one the busy wedding months of the year, and as we were still finalizing our new brand, we decided to do just that. We
took a moment to pause life, and went on a super fun date. One of the things we LOVE the most about our job, is being able to inspire other couples to also be spontaneous and to make moments to soak each other in. This was also why we started hosting Couple’s Date Nights with our AMAZING couples. No matter how long you have been together, never stop dating. So to continue to inspire you to go on fun dates, we have decided to document some of our most fun dates and share them on our blog. In fact, we have actually created an entire category just for Date Nights!
For our very first featured date night, we headed out to the Baltimore Print Studio to meet up with our super fun friend Catherine (who we are totally jealous of right now because she is spending time in Italy for grad school as we speak!) to learn what goes into making your very own custom letter press. Letter press stationary is playing a huge part in our rebranded collateral suite, (future post to come) so seeing how it is actual made was super exciting to us. After taking turns spinning the giant letter press wheel, we headed out for a romantic dinner at one of our favorite Baltimore restaurants, Pazo! We sipped on fancy martinis, enjoyed some amazing tapas and shared a super tasty flatbread.
Cheers to making time for more Date Nights and holding the one you love extra close!
When we started our business, thinking it was just going to be something we did on the side, we were so excited because we thought that just maybe we could make a little side pot of money that we could use to travel the world! It has always been a passion and dream of ours to explore. Growing up in a small town in PA with families that took road trips as their family vacations, we both had a longing to see what the world has to offer!
Up until 2010, (besides our honeymoon in St. Lucia) neither Ryan nor I had been outside of the U.S. and Canada. Our passion to travel and explore other cultures is bursting at our seams! ;) In 2010, we learned that God had bigger plans for us and rather than “using our side pot of money” to explore, our business was creating opportunities for us to explore outside of the U.S. We photographed our first destination wedding in Jamaica in 2010 and realized our two passions of travel and photography go together spectacularly well! ;) This year, we have had the amazing opportunity of traveling to Mexico, Punta Cana, Barcelona, and Paris all with fabulous couples to document their journeys along the way. Whenever we are in a beautiful place and see the perfect landscape, beautiful light, or amazing architecture we always dream of having a fabulous couple in love that we could capture experiencing that beauty along with us! Traveling with our business and photographing our amazing clients in new places around the world is a dream come true to us!
It is a dream that we hope to continue!! We are so grateful for every opportunity we have been given to explore the world (inside the US and outside the US) and we look forward to our future adventures! You will see our ever-evolving wish list on our travel page! If you have ideas of how to get us there (Like maybe you are actually from that location and you are in need of a photographer to document your Amazing Life, or you are traveling to that location and you are in need of a photographer to document your Amazing Life ;), OR you know somebody… ;)… we are always up for an adventure and hope that you reach out to us! Send us a note!!).
We have created a travel page on our new site as a way to share those travel experiences with you all! For so long, traveling the world was just a dream. And I know it is a dream that so many of you share. It is our hope that by sharing our travel experiences we will encourage you to start saving that “side pot of money” and plan that next adventure. Until then, follow along with us and we will do our best to show you “the world” through our eyes. And just a warning… our travels usually revolve around the best food spots and the most magical little neighborhoods to stroll around. They might make you hungry… for good food and adventure! We hope so!
So to start things off, we thought we would share with you some of our experiences from our recent trip to Maine.
It is one of those places that as soon as you cross the border or walk out of the airport you know you are in for a treat. The air seems more fresh and the water more blue. The sunsets are always amazing and the cool breeze takes your breath away. Maine is a place that we have come to love over the past four years.
Let’s be honest. It did not take much to fall in love! Four years ago our friends invited us up to their family’s summer home in Small Point, ME for a long weekend of rest and relaxation. We kayaked, sailed, played wiffle ball, ate a lot of lobster and other fabulous meals, went to the beach, read a book, and took many afternoon naps! The lack of cell service provided an awesome excuse to unplug, relax and have fun. Surrounded by amazing company, Maine quickly became one of our favorite places.
Every year since, we have found a way to escape to Maine… even if just for a few days. In August, we took our latest adventure to Maine. We spent a lot of time “just being” and enjoying every minute of it. We got adventurous and tried out the two-person kayak. I won’t mention (or actually I will for all of you looking for a good laugh!) that our adventure ended up with both of us in the water surrounded by crabs! Whoops! ;) haha. Ok, it was my fault that the kayak flipped, but I like to think that since it was a two person kayak, both Ryan and I are responsible?!? ;) Maybe? Anyway… we had a good laugh and continued on our way for a beautiful afternoon on the water.
In staying true to our “foodie” habits… in between naps and reading, we ventured down the road to Wiscasset for “the Best Lobster Roll in the World!” at Red’s. Side note: I don’t even eat Lobster!!! But Ryan LOVES it and has a mission every time we are in Maine to have some type of Lobster everyday that we are there. I support Ryan in his eating habits and happily joined him for the 1 hour wait for that Lobster Roll! As you can see by the photos, it was worth every single minute! ;)
There were several times that I just looked at Ryan and said, “this is so beautiful.” Maine is SO BEAUTIFUL! Even in the rain… Maine has this magic about it that will always draw us back! The simplicity, the natural environment that is a picture worth taking everywhere you look, and of course, the amazing company are all reasons why we LOVE Maine!
“Live your amazing life with authentic gratitude that creates a passionate heart to give back and make a difference in the lives of others.”
Our hearts are smiling. Everyday we have so much to be thankful for, but today it seems like “so much” is such an understatement! As we created our Amazing Life Manifesto, one of the three main themes became “Authentic Gratitude.”
Giving back and sharing our heartfelt gratitude is something we feel incredibly passionate about… so passionate that we created a category specifically for this topic on our site. Whenever you see a symbol that we are calling our gratitude journal, you know we will be sharing our authentic hearts of praise, thanksgiving, and even encouraging ways for everyone to give back and spread the love.
Today we want to start by saying THANK YOU! Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Thank you for sharing in our dreams and encouraging us along the way. Thank you for leaving comments on our site and posting on facebook, twitter, instagram, Pinterest, etc. Thank you for dreaming along with us and believing in your own amazing life!
Whenever we hear our clients, friends, and family say they have been following along on our blog (or “stalk us” haha) we seriously do a little dance inside because we know we are one step closer to living our dreams and inspiring other people! THANK YOU for being amazing encouragers in our life! We hope we are able to do the same for you!
