I am a native New Yorker and I have to confess...When I lived there I did not fully appreciate everything that my town had to offer. I mean, I visited most of the major monuments on field trips when I was in grade school, but I never really took it upon myself to explore like I would if I were from another state. So now, every time I go home, I'm in full tourist mode. It's kind of non-stop. Visiting family and friends, doing scheduled shoots, hopping on and off of public transportation, walking blocks and blocks to my destination and acting like a pure tourist can be pretty exhausting. But I figure I'll sleep when I get back to my home here in Raleigh. This summer I visited NYC twice in the span of three weeks; both times for work. But in between working I told myself that I absolutely needed to do two things that I had been meaning to do for a long time; visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum and go to The Top of the Rock...and I did!

I went to the 9/11 Memorial Museum knowing that it would be difficult, but it was something that I felt needed to be done. I used to work in the immediate area of The World Trade Center and was down there on the day of the events. I worked in a law firm at 115 Broadway and my co-workers and I stood on Broadway watching everything unfold after we had pretty much been barricaded in the city. We watched the second plane enter the buildings as well as both towers collapse onto themselves. The Manhattan location of the firm closed shortly thereafter and I haven't really been back in the area since. I knew that the visit would be emotional, but I had no idea how much.

I began to weep shortly after I got off of the train. Smh. 

I had to run into the bathroom to get tissue because of the tears. I thought it was strange that there wasn't any tissue in strategic locations around the museum but then I soon realized that I was one of few who was a weeping mess. I took this selfie to cheer myself up and get it together. An entire sappy mess! Lol.

I met up with my mom at her job and we strolled the city for a bit, venturing into Lord & Taylor and such. When we finally made our way to The Top of the Rock we were told that we needed to purchase tickets to go up...AND it was a 2 hour wait! I had gotten that far so I decided to stay, but I didn't want my mom to be out too late so I released her from her duty to keep me company. Lol. So I just hung out, snapping pictures, watching people and window shopping at Anthropologie until it was time for me to go up.  I was tired and my feet were beginning to hurt, but whatever! I had to get my last shot.

And the last shot did I get! 

It took me moving miles away for me to really appreciate the complexities and dynamics my town. I experienced such a drastic range of emotions in this one day; from anticipation, to heaviness, to contentment, to happiness, to joy, to sheer delirium from exhaustion. New York is one of those places where you can experience all of those feelings. If you've never been, I encourage you to go! And if you live there, I encourage you to put the "NY way" to the side and be a tourist for a day. You never know what you'll experience!

You're planning your wedding and you've probably invested quite a bit of time and money for your special day. Of course when you envision the day you envision perfection, joy and becoming one with the love of your life. Unfortunately you may sometimes encounter stressful situations that could have been avoided with a little extra knowledge. Here are some tips that I think will help tremendously.

1. Hair and make-up. These are the two of the main elements of your bridal prep. Most brides need them since they are important in the completion of your overall look. Hair and make-up can also be the reason why you are late to your ceremony. You can combat this by scheduling a hair and make-up consult before your wedding day. Here's why I love a pre-wedding consult; Your pre-wedding hair and make-up consult gives you the opportunity to discuss your look in detail with the artist and preview your look before the wedding. You can tweak things here and there with all of the time in the world to do so. It also gives the artist a chance to learn your facial structure, skin undertones and hair type BEFORE the wedding, helping the artist choose the right products for you. Consider this time as the dress rehearsal. Another thing that I really like about having a hair and make-up trial is that you get to know the people who will be servicing you on your wedding day. Being familiar with your wedding day team takes some of the stress off of you because it leaves you with less to wonder about and more time to enjoy the process.  

2. Designate a go-to person. It is often instinctual for your guests or wedding vendors to reach out to you with questions on the day of your wedding. This can place unnecessary stress on you and take away from your ability to be in the moment on your wedding day. To combat this, designate a person (or two) to be the go-to for the day. This person can be responsible for making sure that vendors get paid, helping guests out with simple questions and making sure that you are stress-free. In my consults with my couples, I am sure to ask them to provide a point person that is familiar with the family and can assist me with gathering the family for portraits. This brings me to my next point. 

3. Schedule a consult with your photographer. The purpose of the consult is to go over, or even create, a proposed timeline. This step is really important since it will help to put the days events into perspective. During the consult we will schedule the day (almost to the minute) from the very beginning until the end. This helps in maximizing time because we can anticipate things like the length of the receiving line and how long that will take. This gives us an idea of the amount of time that we have for photos between this time and the reception. Now don't get me wrong, the timeline may more than likely change a bit on the day of. It happens. BUT, at least we have a flow of the day and can anticipate where we need to switch up to accommodate the changes that have occurred. 

Hopefully these tips will help you in planning your day. If you have any ideas that I haven't covered here, please feel free to share in the comments section!

Our bride and groom for the day were Kacey and Jack. Not only are these two amazing in front of the camera, but they're recently married! Their love for one another was evident in their interactions. Kacey is super sweet and Jack handles her with such tenderness. There's also a really fun side to these two. They were really fun to capture.

I love these sweet details!

The CLIC Conference went out on a really high note. I met some great new people, learned a ton of information about a variety of topics and was able to shoot with my fellow photographers. You would never know that there was a pretty large group of us shooting the same thing, and yet we all have a different viewpoints. It's actually quite interesting to see. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to participate in the conference!