Three years ago today, I shot my very first wedding. It was a small, backyard ceremony with about 20 people in attendance. It was a sweet reminder of the fact that love can be simple. Surrounded by their closest loved ones, Sonja & Gael became husband and wife and I was so honored to have been part of their intimate day. Vaughan (he’s been my second shooter from day one!) and I were invited into their home to have a delicious homemade meal and tiramisu for dessert. I’ll never forget this sweet day, how nervous I was, how excited I was to edit the images, and the delicious celebratory pumpkin frozen custard from Goodberry’s.

I thought it might be fun to show a side-by-side of some images from that day and some images from my wedding last weekend. Now, let me preface this post with this: it’s never easy to be vulnerable and put old work out there for everyone to see. But, I think looking back at your old images, as a photographer, is a great way to change the conversation in your mind from “I’ll never be as good as X photographer or Y photographer” to “Look how much I’ve improved over the past few years.” At the time, I thought they were the best photos EVER but three years later, I’ve learned a lot and my style has evolved so much since then.

So here we go. The images on the left are from Sonja & Gael’s wedding in 2012. While there are still so many things I like about these older images (their love, her sweet and simple dress, the rainy day light), I’m so proud of how far I’ve come technically. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing back in 2012. For their portraits, I found a spot in their back yard that was “good enough” and snapped away. At Tricia & Jimmy’s wedding last week (photos on right), I saw this tree and the sunset light coming through the branches and just knew that’s where we needed to shoot their portraits. Every one of these images is special to me (how could my FIRST wedding not be special?!) but focusing on comparing myself and my talent to 2012 Lauren is so much more fruitful than comparing myself to other photographers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to see a little of my old work today! I know it’s been an eye-opener for me :)

Happy Tuesday, everyone!