Oh hey, be right back. I’m going to go to India for a hot second.

Seriously, folks, I will be in Kolkata, India for a few weeks loving and serving other people, and will not be back in office until 2/24. : ) Talk to you then!

Dear blog world, forgive me for how behind these next few posts are. In preparation for my trip to India (just two weeks from now!) my blogging focus has suffered tremendously. But anyway, I’m back and blogging, so let’s get right into this.

Josiah and Dana are hip, cool, awesome, trendy, fun, sweet, and fantastic to be around. And now that they are married, I can only imagine that they’ve combined their awesomeness and taken it to some whole new marital level of cool. Seriously. They rule. Check out their wedding.

This wedding party had fantastic footwear:

Okay you are about to see A LOT of Bride & Groom portraits because this couple rocked it out during our session. : )

DIY Details galore! The reception was designed primarily from their engagement session! So cute! Old records everywhere, beer bottles and wildflowers at every table, picnic patterned tablecloths, lots of love and warmth.

The reception was at the Winter Park Farmers Market in Orlando, Florida and the venue is always a fun place for us to shoot! There’s a lot of charm and warmth from the brick and the string lights that I just love. : )

Josiah and Dana, you guys are amazing. I love your love and it was an honor to be there to capture it. : )

Oh and on a side note, today Wedding Wire announced it’s 2011 Bride’s Choice Award Winners and SNS made the list! Which means that I have happy brides and that makes me happy, too! : )

Happy almost new year! I’m super proud of everything Shannon Nicole Smith Photography has done this past year, and I had a lot of fun looking back on the weddings of 2010 to gather up images for this post.

If I end 2010 with nothing more, I end with the knowledge that I have been blessed with the moments I’ve been able to witness. I have seen so much love, so much kindness, so many quirks, so many tiny hidden moments where the light hit just right and everything fell into place. More than that, I had the privileged of sharing what I saw. Framing a single moment and giving it to my clients with all my love and hope for them wrapped up in that tiny brief second of time when everything was gorgeous and their love was almost tangible.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I want to tell them I chase after love. For a living. I chase after the moments that are so filled with love that you just can’t help but take a photo. The moments you want to share, you need to share. I chase after the moments that are so breathtaking that they deserve to be shared.

I chase after love for a living, and I thank the Lord every day for the chance to capture even just one of these moments and to honor my clients’ love. I get to give them that moment back, it never ceases to blow my mind.

In anticipation for 2011, I look back on what I learned in 2o10:

Believe in yourself, and never let a single person value you less than you value yourself. Be in charge of your passion, your dreams, your goals, your vision.

Take time to be inspired again.

Get to know people for who they are, for the quirks and intricacies of their person that are remarkable and irreplaceable and completely fundamentally who they are; love them for those reasons. Then take their picture.

Photography is about life. Life is about beauty. Beauty is where you find it. Sometimes it’s as simple as opening your eyes again.

Warmly,

s