Prepare for a BIG blog post!! Best of Weddings in 2015!! Getting nostalgic and sharing some of my favorite photos from this past year of weddings and what made this year so good! So thankful for all my wonderful couples!!

This year was very special to me because it was my first full year of weddings since I have officially decided to specialize in weddings only. It has been everything that I could have dreamed! When I started to say no to everything I didn’t want to shoot/what I wasn’t best at (kids, families, parties, commercial etc.) it allowed me to free up time to say yes to where I am gifted in, weddings, lots and lots of weddings!! I was able to invest my time in my business and in learning all there is to know about the wedding industry, how to be a photographer of specifically weddings (its very different from other types of photography), and learning to use good camera and lighting gear well and to ensure the very best quality for my clients! I was able to fill my weekends with stunning dresses, personalized themes, amazing love stories, and I got to meet amazing people in the process!

This year has been a dream come true for me! If you asked me even two years ago what I wanted to be it would have 100% not have been a ‘wedding photographer’. To be honest, I had so many fears and insecurities about what people would think about me being so young. I liked photography and knew I was good but I never thought I would be talented or brave enough to step out and make a business out of it or better yet even be successful in my pursuit of my dream but with the encouragement and push of my husband and tons of hours investing in ‘Natalie Kunkel Photography’ I was able to become a full-time wedding photographer! Pinch me, is this really real? Yes! Literally my dream, come true!

I am so thankful that early on I was pushed by photography mentors to define what success would look like for me and what success meant for my business. Was I going to grow my business out of pride & recognition or out of humility & love? What was the ‘Why’  behind what I do going to be? I remember in the beginning months spending so much time thinking and praying over this and talking it over with wise people because I didn’t want to build something that was about me or for me but instead I wanted to build something out of love and for others! I knew that at the end of the year success for me would not be determined by how many weddings I shot, how much money I made, or how many ‘likes’ my photos got but instead about the stories I got to capture, the lives I got to touch, and the friendships I got to make along the way! Success for me is the very beauty of my job, getting to capture sweet memories and give people something timeless to have for generations to come. I wanted to make it about people and investing in people’s marriages! To me that far surpasses anything else!

At the end of the day I can truly say nothing was out of my strength but all God. I would so often shockingly look back and exclaim to Scotty “Wow this is not me, there is no way this is me, it’s ALL God!” I would always recount how I didn’t know how I got here or how this was really my job but I am so thankful God bought me here!

In many ways this has been one of the hardest years of my life both in my personal life and in my business but it has also been one of the best years of my life! I have seen God move in amazing ways and have felt so much more near to him through every up and down! When I look back on this year I am just filled with so much thankfulness and am blow away by all the couples that have trusted me to capture their special days!

My heart is so full with thoughts of 2015 but I am just as excited and looking forward to another great year! Here’s to 2016! Happy New Year!

Feeling even more nostalgic? View Best of Couples and Best of Seniors!