Tonight, when the minute hand meets the hour hand at twelve, we roll over to a new day and a new year, and for some reason we all get pretty excited about it. One possible reason is because we love any excuse for a good party. (I do!) Another is because we’re so ready to embrace a fresh start. We’re ready to grab onto something new, and we’re ready to leave some things behind.

This year, what we leave behind is kind of bittersweet: it’s what we had thought would be our future. For several years, Danny and I scrambled to build up a wedding photography business that would support us while we served wonderful couples, that would be a creative outlet and a great adventure. It was, and to all those wonderful couples who trusted us with their weddings, we offer another resounding thank you. We love and appreciate each and every one of you, and we can’t even imagine what our lives would look like right now if you hadn’t been such an important part of it!

(And no, those are not all the couples whose weddings we photographed — unfortunately BlogStomp, the software we use to prep and collage images for blogging, maxed out at 40 images.)

If you spend any time at all in the photography world, you hear story after story of wedding photographers who are clawing to reach the point where they can leave behind their day job and go full-time in wedding photography. Nearly four years in, I was where so many thousands of photographers wanted to be. I was full-time in wedding photography. But I didn’t feel full. A part of me felt guilt about it, but that was when I had to finally admit, even to myself, something that had been tugging at me for a while:

As much as I loved wedding photography . . . this was not my dream.

As 2015 ends, I’m leaving behind something I truly loved, but something that wasn’t what I’d ever dreamed for myself. Wedding photography was a wonderful and welcome detour. The thing is though, if we’re going to take our lives in the direction we know they’re supposed to go, we’re eventually going to have to leave something else behind.

So here I am, now “just” a portrait photographer . . . and hopefully future novelist . . . and I’m content with that, and incredibly grateful for this opportunity to refocus (haha) my career this past year. I have cherished all the support Danny and I have received, from friends in the photography industry, from family and community, from our own past wedding couples, and even from new couples inquiring about wedding photography. It has been such a blessing to have so much encouragement to not follow our dreams, per se, but follow where we know God is leading.

For the first time as an adult, I can look around and feel the peace of knowing that, in every area of my life, I am exactly, exactly where I am supposed to be.Happy New Year!

~ Laura