I just sat down to write this blog post about What’s Next — the tour stop in Orlando, and for Danny and me in this business — and, perhaps fittingly, I’m not quite sure where to start.

Let’s start by saying Justin & Mary’s What’s Next Tour stop in Orlando was great, and what’s next for Danny and me will be, too.

(And please don’t hate on the Instagram photo — I left my camera at home yesterday to focus on taking notes instead of taking pictures!)I’ve had the privilege of hearing Mary Marantz speak before, at the Pursuit 31 Conference this past October, and it was incredible. Hearing what she had to say yesterday, when she shared her plan for getting “From Dream to Done,” I found myself really remembering two hugely valuable takeaway points: Know why you want to do something, and then map out a very specific plan to achieve it. That is the only way you’ll ever get to the specific destinations that you’re yearning for. You may not even know what those destinations are yet. The only way to get there is to figure out your why. Then you can move on to the how.

Right now, Danny and I are in the process of really reflecting on our whys as well as our hows. It probably has something to do with the New Year/fresh start thing. But it also has to do with wanting to make our lives and our business better and better, to grow and to accomplish the desires of our hearts.

So what is our “why” for this wedding photography business as a whole? We photograph weddings because we love telling stories. We want to preserve the fleeting moments and enduring qualities of true, lifelong love stories. We photograph weddings because we want couples to look back on their wedding images in the good times and relive that delirious joy; we want them to look back on their wedding images in the bad times and feel a stirring to rekindle that self-sacrificing love they promised to each other when they said their vows. We want the children who haven’t yet been born to have a beautiful record of their parents’ love story, and for their children, and their children’s children, to have a visual record of the love and commitment that has been passed down to them. We photograph weddings because we want to be a part of a story that’s bigger than our own. We want to help other couples — who love each other just as much as we do, and who cherish the hope that the generations that come after them will follow in their footsteps in marriages that are built on servant-like love — leave this gift for their descendants. It isn’t about the weddings. It isn’t about the coordinated details, as lovely as they are, or the delicious dinner. It’s about the love.

Danny and I have a lot of things we need to hash out about where we want our business to go — and even more we need to hash out after yesterday! But Mary said something yesterday that encouraged me to push forward with more conviction: Who are you to chase your dreams? Who are you not to?

Amen to that. I’m off to make a dream roadmap now.

~ Laura