Welcome Back, and we apologize for such the long break from the blog.
With the state of the world, we had to take some time away to really figure out what our next moves would be or if the dream of being able to eventually be full time wedding photographers had just gone out the window right as we started to gain speed and traction.
That being said, we are here, we are back, and we are stronger than ever and moving forward in the “post corona” world. Now, I put post corona in quotes, because lets be honest, we are very much still in it, and probably will be for a long time, but at some point we have to get out of our houses and move on with our lives, even if that doesn’t look exactly the way it did before.
The world looks different, travel abilities looks different, and even the wedding industry as a whole is starting to take a very different shape, but that doesn’t scare me or my husband, if I’m going to be completely honest. We will continue to follow the guidelines, and respect the wishes of our couples and their other vendors, but at the end of the day, we are still photographers and plan to continue as such. Sometimes, Change can be Good, and we’ve seen that a lot over the last three or so months of quarantine. All we ask is that our couples and their guests have the same respect for us that we do for them in this trying time.
Next week, we’ll be back with your regularly scheduled Photography nonsense blogs, but I just wanted to make a small post about the times, and say that we are back and looking for new clients to go on this new wedding industry adventure with! Look forward to all the content we have coming up, oh and ALSO, we are now advertising with the Wedding Pro Group (The Knot and Wedding Wire) so you can find us over there, we would appreciate if any past clients went to our homepage and clicked the “Review Us on the Knot” button and left us a review there 🙂
First client shoot of the new year, something that can be totally nerve racking or something that you can let shape how the year is going to go. I prefer to let it shape a good thing for the new year ahead of us, and that was the mentality we went into this weekends shoot with.
This weekend, we drove up to Tampa to have an engagement shoot with Jacqueline and Aaron at the beautiful and historic University of Tampa campus.
Being Daytona based, and Orlando/Brevard County Frequenters, locations in Tampa were a new thing to us, and this magical old architecture and piece of history made us wish we lived closer, but the couple that showed up to shoot with us was even better.
Full of life, love, and absolute dorkyness this couple was a breeze to work with. Having been together for 6 years, but known each other for much longer, these two knew each other inside and out and it showed in the final product…even if it was windy and cold the entire shoot.
In 2020, I made a personal goal to focus more on the business and try and get us to a place where maybe in the next 3-5 years I could go full time with the business and not have to juggle what is essentially two full time jobs at points in the year.
So this year is a year of firsts for us. We did our first wedding expo, we started the year off with our first (true) destination wedding, and now in the month of January we add on not only new clients, but our ( and by our, I mean my) first Styled Shoot.
I’ve always been one to believe that nothing is more genuine or a bigger portfolio builder than actual weddings or engagement shoots, and I still believe that, however, I had some new gear I wanted to play with and felt that there couldn’t have been a better opportunity to do so.
On the plus side, I also got to meet some other really awesome photographers and models that are here locally. I got to see how other people handle their couples and detail work, plus had a bit more control over the situation than I would on a typical wedding day.
Just like the Expo, I believe that Styled Shoots are something that I will and have already planned to participate in again. As we get deeper into the wedding world, we’re finding that the more vendors and venues you can connect with the better.
Check below for some of the work from the Citrus Themed Styled Shoot:
So last weekend Josh and I participated in Just a Girl’s first ever Wedding Expo. I say Just a Girl’s because apparently my amazing other half use to do them with his dad as a kid. Very different type of show than wedding shows, but more experience than I’d ever had with it.
We, of course, in typical Josh and Kylee fashion waited until the last minute to finish our display and had never tried to fit everything in the car until the night before. Luckily almost everything fit,and the next morning we were our way to Innisbrook Resort in Tampa where the expo was being held.
After a hectic morning we finally got everything set up, what I didn’t know however was that the candy and our display would be the mossy popular thing about us all day 😂
We were all set up and ready to go for Florida Wedding Expo by Your Wedding TVs doors were about to open. I was super nervous and Josh was well…Josh, cool as a cucumber we always.
The crowds were flowing and there were tons of eager brides, grooms, friends, and family. The chocolate in both the swag bags and on our table helped us stand out. Brides were filling out our contact cards pretty consistently for a majority of the show and we had some awesome conversations with potential clients.
All in all in 4 hours of talking to brides, about a grand in expenses to get us ready for the first show, 2 engagement shoots, and what hopefully will turn into an awesome season of weddings in the next couple of weeks, I would have to say from the perspective of connecting with potential brides and other vendors alone, that this expo was worth it.
I think for all new photography business out there especially those in the wedding industry, looking into an expo type event whether it be the same one we did or some other event, is definitely worth it. It’ll help you connect with all sorts of people.
At the end of the day, if someone asked me would you do this expo again my answer would be absolutely yes. Even if we don’t get any bookings off of it this time. The learning curve from the first show was steep and I’m excited to keep learning and connecting.
Back around Thanksgiving, I wrote a small blurb about the logo and what it means to me, but I thought for this weeks blog, I’d dig a little deeper into that.
Way back, before I even met Josh, I had this dream of starting a photography business. Something completely outside of my realm as a degreed engineer, but a passion I’d had since my days in high school.
Photography was always preached in my family as nothing more than a hobby. Something that could never sustain me like a good STEM degree could. Which is why, despite my love, and from what I’ve been told natural talent for it, it wasn’t something I continued to pursue.
That was until, I had hit rock bottom and coming back behind the camera saved me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to engineering after the way it treated me coming out of college, but I knew I had a few other passions left to explore.
Queue the research into what it would take to start a business and what I needed to start doing in order to get somewhere with it. I was completely lost, and to be honest probably in over my head, but I already had a name for my business.
Just a Girl
This came out of my time in rock bottom where I felt completely lost and out of control. Barely 21, a year out of college, jobless, and feeling like I was nothing more than just a girl, I wasn’t special, or at least I didn’t feel like I was. I was Just a Girl, just a girl trying to make it day to day, just a girl trying to navigate her first stab at adulthood, just a girl who didn’t know how to be on her own, and Just a Girl with a hell of a lot of fight left for a dream that seemed impossible.
But I needed to find a logo to go with it. I didn’t want something everybody else had, I didn’t want cursive lettering, or flowers, or a rustic look that was popular at the time. I wanted something with just as much story as my name had.
Thats when it came to me, sitting at my desk with my feet up, I looked at my ankle. It was perfect, how could I have missed it.
I had a bow tattooed on my ankle, a bow that represents the biggest fight, the stubbornness that runs through my veins, the uphill battle with terrible statistics, a bow that represented defying the odds. A bow that represented probably the strongest, most stubborn, fighter I know. It represents my cousin, Ashlynn.
Ashlynn was diagnosed with a rare disorder from birth, we as the family were told she’d always be a vegetable, that she’d never make it past certain stages in her life, that she’d never be able to hold her head up, let alone walk. Nonetheless, she continued to fight. We continued to fight as a family, when she couldn’t fight for herself. And Now?
Ashylnn is 16, was the flower girl in the last wedding we shot, where she with some assistance from some family walked down the isle. She has outlived every expectancy, and out performed every metric we’ve ever been given. This supposed vegetable, has the biggest personality of us all, and 100% has the Goodliffe stubbornness coursing through her veins.
When I want to quit, when I want to rely on my degree and the cushion it provides me, I remember what this company name and logo stands for. The bow was created to represent the fight in a little girl whose sheer will power beats us all. The bow was created to represent the family mantra “Strength to Start, Courage to Finish” in my own way. The bow was meant as a daily reminder, that I’m related to living proof of defying the odds, if she could do it I can to.
The bow also remind me, that I’m not Just a Girl anymore, but I was. My attachment to this story is why we’ve never changed the name, even though Josh and I shoot together now. I was Just a Girl, now I’m Just a Girl, who Found the Love of her Life. With him, I’ve found my strength to do anything no matter how impossible the odds may seem.
I’m Just a Girl with her Bow and her Bo, ready to take on the crazy world of Wedding Photography one wedding at a time.
Just a Girl Photography 