5 Real Life Confessions

Let’s take a moment to get real about life shall we? Everyone has those things that they would rather not admit to people but to show you I’m just another twenty something chasing my dreams I thought I may share a few confessions.

1. I still live with my parents… oh, there it is. Out in the world for everyone to know that I still live at home with my mom and dad, my teenage brother and my grandma who has her own little apartment in our basement. For the longest time I was kind of ashamed to admit this. I felt like I was failing because I didn’t have an apartment or have to buy my own food or be responsible for paying the electric bill. Everyone else was moving away from this small town to bigger cities or at least moving out of the house where their parents still took care of everything. There are so many reasons why I currently still live at home but I’ll narrow it down to two.
   1. The first being my student loan. You guys, these darn things are the WORST! The minimum payment on just one of my student loans was almost $600 a month! Which is absolutely outrageous! After graduating from college and seeing this number I wanted to throw up a little and not having an established business yet I couldn’t afford rent, along with the other bills associated with that on top of a crazy student loan payment.
   2. The second reason is because I had no idea what to do when I graduated. I planned on moving near Boston upon graduating but the cards didn’t line up so I ended up moving back home. Although it’s tough at times after living on my own at school it was probably one of the best decisions I could have made. It allowed me to focus on paying off my loan 7 years early, saving me so much in interest leaving me 100% debt free at the ripe age of 24.
2. My office shares a space with my bedroom. My parent’s house isn’t small but there isn’t an additional space for me to have an office so for the past 3 years my bedroom doubled as my workspace. This gets tough at times especially during wedding season when my brain doesn’t allow me to sleep because there is so much to be done and my laptop is right there starring back at me!
3. I have an addiction to Bath and Body Works 3 wick candles. There may be roughly 15 in my possession at this very moment. You can usually find at least one lit at all times in my room/office, while I am there of course. As I sit here typing this there are three out and ready to be lit in my sight. There are worse things that I could have an obsession with so I don’t feel too bad about this but I admit it may be a small problem.
4. My best friend’s name is Nicole. Is that weird? We met about 5 or 6 years ago and have been inseparable ever since. We call ourselves Nicole Squared and are pretty proud of that. You’d think family gatherings at her home would be confusing if I were there but her sweet babies have called me Dee Dee Dah since the day they could speak and it has now been adapted by her entire family! Last year I had the pure honor of photographing her lakeside wedding as well as standing up next to a bunch of beautiful ladies as one of her bridesmaids. Not only is she my best friend but she also second shoots with me on most weddings so you’ve probably seen her around a time or two!
5. I never wanted to be a wedding photographer. Did I just say that out loud…? When I began photography school, I wasn’t drawn to that specific type of photography. Although there were so many beautiful pictures flooding the internet nothing pulled at my heartstrings to pursue it. Wanting to learn and experience all parts of the photography industry I decided I should at least give wedding a fighting chance. So I began second shooting for wedding photographers all over New England while I was in school. And after my very first one I got the bug. Oddly enough after shooting that first wedding in school it brought me back to the actual first wedding I had ever shot. I had no idea what I was doing and wasn’t a professional at all! It was a small backyard wedding but just as special as a destination wedding in the Bahamas. Thinking back to it one of my favorite moments was sitting down with them as I shows them their wedding photos as the happy tears began streaming down their faces. Once I had that wedding bug I knew I had to pursue this amazing part of the industry!