Our Journey: Part 1

Graduate from high school and college, get married, get a job, have children, raise children, retire. That’s the American Dream, right?

We were both blessed to be raised in families that pointed us and supported us in going to college – as well as parents that gave us values of strong marriages.  For us, marriage happened at the unripened ages of 21 and 22… But no worries – we knew what we were doing ; )

Before we even started dating we had our pivotal “Pursuit of Happyness” talk {after seeing the movie with friends} We both revealed a deeper yearning of greatness and difference making.  Dreams and aspirations that went beyond post-collegiate first jobs with philosophies on money and happiness that were considerably more similar than they were different.

Dan had always been the photographer of our friend group so when we, okay really, he was asked to photograph his cousin’s wedding, we leapt at the opportunity. Between that one wedding and a few free engagement sessions for friends we started DnK Photography.  I had one semester of college left and Dan was working a desk job that certainly was not his dream job.

One warm spring day as we sat outside dreaming about our future, we hoped that we would be full time wedding photographers by 2013.  This was 2008 and that summer we had 15 weddings. By 2009 we had over 30 and Dan quit his job in May. In January of 2010 I stopped working out of the home and we had over 40 weddings that year.  We had beaten the what-felt-like-a-fairytale-dream-of-a-goal by 3 years.

From that point on we were hooked.

Yes weddings were fun – the joy and honor of capturing such unique moments during a day brings a kind of fulfillment that many other jobs can’t.  Literally hundreds of couples will someday show wedding pictures that we took to their children and grandchildren.  The day I realized that I felt like my heart would burst from simultaneous joy and honor.

But what we were really hooked on was freedom.

Recently we realized that since starting DnK Photography, we have only had 1 month where one of us wasn’t in school, working outside of photography, in a graduate program or where we were trying to start a new business.

Yes photography kept us busy all these years, but what truly added to the hectic schedules, missed hangouts and late nights were the other small businesses we were trying along the way.

Last year I sat down to write out each and every one… To date – we’ve had 10 business/startups. DnK Photography was the first and we knew early on it wouldn’t be the last.

Every new season of work we’ve always agreed at how “easy” photography would feel if it was the only thing we did.  We could do just that. We could do only photography and we do get enjoyment out of creating lasting, beautiful images.  Photography will always be part of our lives in some shape or form, but it isn’t what truly fuels us.

This site, this new adventure is about just that: the journey of finding what fuels you. Over the next few posts you’ll get to learn more about what we’ve tried, where that landed us and where we see ourselves going.  In sharing our journey, we hope we can inspire you to evaluate what’s inside of you; as well as give you the tools, words and encouragement to achieve far more than you may have previously thought possible.

Because we all were made for greater things.