Today is the day. Today is the 10th and last stop on The What’s Next Tour. We are not sure how this day is already here, but it is. Today we are reminded to soak this in. To soak in every special moment that you may or may not even recognize as “special” on a daily basis!
Today, we are slowing down. If we had magical powers, we may even go through this day in slow motion just so that we can soak in every single moment that we have. ;) We are soaking in the AMAZING words that God is sharing with us through Justin and Mary’s voices… we are soaking in the emotions and the energy and the passion that fills the room. We are soaking in the open hearts and warm hugs. The What’s Next Cafe and the details that are so inviting… we are soaking them in! And we are even soaking in the effort it takes to load in and load out… in hopes that we never forget the hard work and love that fills this tour!
This What’s Next Tour experience has been filled with moments that we will never forget. These moments make up the past 3 weeks of our lives. These moments we are so happy for. So grateful!
We are so excited to share more with you about the Tour! So much more to come! But in the meantime… soak in this moment and enjoy today! Happy weekend friends!
Yesterday we started our day off in a way that seriously could not have been better! Before the tour even began, we were super excited about visiting a few of the cities either because we have never been there before or because there are special people in our lives that call that city home! One of those cities that meets both of those reasons is Indianapolis and we were there yesterday!! ;) Wahoo!
It was crazy cold (about 10 degrees when we got in) and we didn’t get much sleep the night before, but there could never be an excuse good enough to miss a 7:30 a.m. breakfast with Carly and Bobby!!! We photographed Carly and Bobby’s wedding in August of 2011… (that seems like forever ago!!!)… and they are AMAZING! Seriously, we love them!
As we sat at breakfast catching up on their lives and hearing all about their house-hunting adventures, we were quickly reminded of how blessed we are to have such incredible couples in our lives! When we started our business we were thinking it would be fun to meet a few couples here and there who would maybe become friends. Haha… that is one of the aspects of starting our business that we are so excited to have been proven wrong about! ;) Elizabeth Ryan Photography and now Liz and Ryan has brought so many incredible people into our lives! We are so grateful for the love that surrounds us… for the people who walk into our lives as strangers and put their trust in us to capture an incredibly special time of their lives who quickly become not only friends but family!
It makes our hearts sing knowing that we get to see Carly and Bobby two more times this year!!! at two of their friends/family weddings (Sarah and Joe and Susan and Brad!! Whoop Whoop!) ;) YAY! Couldn’t be more excited and grateful that the Liz and Ryan Family is growing with couples who are AMAZING… just like Carly and Bobby! ;)
We were in a room full of people. Everyone listening intently as Mary pulled a few What’s Next statements from the chalkboard to discuss. We went through a few… and as soon as Mary was about move onto the next section, a few words caught her eye in the upper right corner of the chalkboard. They read, Make Others *SPARKLE*! As her face lit up, Mary looked out into the crowd and said, “Whoa… wait. Who said “Make Others Sparkle”?
In the front row, one of our most favorite people ever raised her hand, Natalie Franke. Natalie went on to describe that she wants to lift people up. This year she wants to focus on spreading her bright personality while making a difference in the lives of others! And in that moment… our smiles got as big as they can get and our hearts were literally beaming (well, actually my smile may not have been that big because I was actually doing everything I could to hold back the happy tears… haha! As you can imagine, the tears flowed anyway!) In that moment, as Natalie thanked us for bringing out her Sparkle and pledged to pass it on… Natalie touched our hearts in a special way and that moment we will never forget!
Natalie is one of those people who is always thinking of others! Always!! ;) That is just one of the many reasons she sparkles! And we are so excited that this year she sees herself spreading that sparkle all over (even more than normal)!!! How exciting to think of what this world will look like full of Natalie Sparkles?!?! ;) So MAGICAL!!! :)
I am super excited to say that Natalie is well on her way to spreading that sparkle this year! She, along with the 3 other fabulous ladies behind Bayside Bride and Charm City Wed have created the Chesapeake Bridal Awards in hopes to spread the shine and recognize wedding professionals in the area! AMAZING, right? They had thousands of nominations… that means hundreds of people took the time to nominate thousands of their favorite businesses! They created the opportunity for thousands of happy thoughts and sparkle to shine!
We are beyond honored to be one of the nominations and even more honored to have been selected as a finalist and named one of the top 10 wedding photographers in the Chesapeake Bay area. Wow!! Seriously, wow! We are so humbled and so inspired to be among so many incredible wedding professionals in the area! Thank you Natalie, Krista, Serena and Rochelle for spreading your magical sparkles!!!
We would love love love for you to jump on over to the Bayside Bride site and the Charm City Wed site to vote (1 vote on each Facebook Page per person). Of course we would be honored if you vote for Liz and Ryan under Photographer, but what we are even more excited about is for you to vote for your favorite vendors in every category!!! Spread the love! If your favorite wedding professionals aren’t on the lists… please take a moment and send them a note to let them know how much you love them! Everyone loves a sweet love note here and there! ;)
We woke up yesterday morning after just a few hours of sleep and we looked out the window hoping for a reminder of where we were that day. The bus was parked in a parking lot with buildings surrounding us that were not recognizable. But, somehow we knew we were close to home. I quickly remembered we were in DC and we were soon going to see some very familiar faces- the faces of some of our favorite people ever! ;)
As the attendees arrived and we opened the doors, we were feeling pumped! The whole crew had a sense of positive energy that was unlike anything else! As our friends walked in the doors and greeted us with warm hugs- we knew exactly where that positive energy was coming from! ;)
Yesterday, it hit me. We were in a room full of people (new friends and old) who made the choice to be there to do the hard work to make a difference in their lives AND the lives of others! As Mary shared her inspiring words, tears filled my eyes knowing that so many hearts were being changed! Knowing that so many incredible people are making the choice to live out their dreams and do the hard work is so heart warming! It truly is AMAZING!
We are so grateful for the AMAZING blessing of being surrounded by all of these incredible people (new friends and old)! Thank you to everyone who is doing the hard work… who have dreams in their mind that are not going to go to waste… who want to make this world a better place… not just for themselves, but for the lives of those around them! Thank YOU for warming our hearts and sharing your positive energy!
As we reflected on 2012, we had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for our couples. Each and every one of them has left a special place in our hearts and we wanted to find an extra special way to thank them! As we continued to think about it, we thought that giving away a free session would be the perfect way of doing it… mostly because it would mean that we get to spend quality time with some of our favorite people! ;) (Is that selfish?!? ;) ). We did put a little poll out to our couples on facebook and they overwhelmingly decided that a free session was exactly what they would love to win! ;) So it was a win win for everyone!
But, we couldn’t end there… we know that the people our couples are surrounded by are pretty incredible themselves. Their family and friends have helped shape our couples into who they are and for that we are so grateful for them too! So, why not thank them as well by giving away a photo session to one of the voters from the giveaway!
After two weeks of voting AMAZINGNESS, we are SO EXCITED to be announcing the winners of the giveaways today- right here, right now! Let me tell you… the race to the end was CRAZY! ;) Darcy and Patrick and Stephanie and Justin blew our minds. They each wanted to win and ALL of their family and friends wanted them to win too! ;) It came down to the wire, but Darcy and Patrick came out on top with 330 votes! Wowza! ;) Darcy and Patrick, you are the winners of the 1st Free Session Giveaway! Wahoo!
And the random winner from amongst the voters is Amanda Collins!!! ;) Amanda, you are the winner of 2nd Free Session Giveaway!!
We are beyond excited about these two upcoming sessions and we will be in touch with the winners to chat about the details! ;)
However, it does not end there!!! Around 7:15 p.m. last night, we saw a Facebook post come across our feed that went like this:
At that moment… I was overwhelmed with emotions. Emotions of excitement and awe-inspiring gratitude. Ohh my goodness, they just took this contest to a whole new level. What started out as a giveaway for 2 very special couples turned into an effort that is going to touch the lives of so many more! We are blown away! Seriously!
We couldn’t end this giveaway without paying it forward. So, we decided to match Stephanie and Justin’s donation to the Red Cross. Instead of $70.00 they will be sending $140.00!
I started off this post by saying how grateful we are for our couples… but after the last 2 weeks, our level of gratitude has totally multiplied! (We didn’t think that was possible! ;) ). We are humbled by every single one of our couple’s hearts and we are so grateful to call them friends!!
Thank you to EVERYONE who took the time to vote! We are so excited to welcome all of our new friends to the Liz and Ryan Facebook community! Looking forward to sharing our passions with you all in hopes to help you live your AMAZING life every single day of your lives!
