Happy Friday blog world!  We are feeling good and loving life right now.  If you would have asked me how I was a few days ago, though, I (jessie) was pretty down.  I was feeling sick with a cold & allergies, but it was more than that too.  I was just plain feeling bad and moping.  It was pretty pathetic and Jason was losing his patience with me.  So, what changed?  Nothing really, there was no huge miracle or amazing news to change my mood.  I just had to stop feeling sorry for myself and focus on the positive.  It’s hard to do.  It’s so much easier to curl up in bed and pretend nothing else exists. But, then you start missing out on life.  A good life.  Your life.  My life.  The life we’re building and creating everyday.  I realized that I shouldn’t worry about the future so much because then I start missing out on the present.  I started to think about all the good in my life and realized it definitely outweighs the bad.  I want to live my life to the fullest.  I want to be a great mother to my kiddos, a good wife to my hubby, and a great photographer to our clients.  So, I snapped out of it….literally.

So, in keeping focused on the positive,  we wanted to share a bit of blog love we received this month.  We’re thrilled to have been a part of Done Brilliantly blog and Storkie Express Wedding of the Week.

Done Brilliantly is a blog that focuses on showcasing real weddings & engagements to give it’s readers lots of ideas and inspiration!  Earlier this week they featured Monica & David’s elegant Las Vegas wedding and how they made Vegas their own!  Click on the image for the full blog feature.

Earlier this month Shawna & Mike’s lovely wedding at the beautiful Paiute Golf Club was the wedding of the week over at Storkie Express blog.  Storkie Express is a great place to go to look for wedding & party invitations, but their blog is full of real weddings and ideas for wedding & party planning. Click the image for the full blog post.

Lastly, we want to thank all the brides who took the time to give us such amazing reviews on Wedding Wire this past year!  Because of you, we received the Brides Choice Award for a second year in a row!  Thank you so much.  We love what we do and love all the amazing couples we get to meet and document their wedding day!

Here’s to staying positive, focusing on the good, and enjoying life!

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interested in having us at your wedding?  Click Here to connect with us!

Our biggest goal for this new year is to get organized.  Anyone else out there feel unorganized and afraid to look beyond what’s right in front of you for fear of being overwhelmed?  I’ll be honest, we’ve been very reactive in our business lately.  When something needed to get done, we scrammed around until it got done and sometimes things didn’t turn out exactly how we wanted.  We had ideas but didn’t put any systems in place to make them reality or to keep up with them.  It’s been exhausting.  We have slowly started implementing some very good organizational systems, such as ShootQ for our business management and Zenfolio for our online galleries and slideshows, but we still have lots more to accomplish.

This task of becoming more organized isn’t only work-related.  We also struggle with organizing our daily and home life.  It’s hard to separate the two when you work from home, let me tell ya! Who’s with me on that one?

We’ve been working on our 2012 goals since November and we now have a timeline to turn these these goals a reality.  I’m sure things will need to be tweaked and reevaluated as the months go by, but it’s a start!

Here are a few organizational tools that we’ve been using to help us clear the clutter and get moving.   ….

• Evernote  :  It’s kind of like a journal / notebook, but way cooler.  It works with nearly every computer, phone and mobile device out there and allows you to sync all of them so no matter where you are, you can update a note, create a new one, and remember everything!
• Google Calendar :  This is pretty self explanatory, but it really helps me to have our calender online and also be able to synch with my iphone and ipad.  It also integrates really nicely to my ShootQ calendar, which is great because I don’t have to keep to 2 separate calendars for work and home.  I use the same calendar and just color code our photo shoots, weddings, work appts, and home life.  It keeps me sane!
• Pinterest : ok, ok, you might think this one doesn’t really count as a tool but it does!  I’ve been able to create boards to help me organize recipes, ideas for activities with the kids, inspirational quotes, ideas for photo shoots, vacations, and home decor.  And, I must say that it really does work.  I have made some really great tasting meals and we’ve had some fun times with the kiddos with some of those pins I’ve found.  Plus, I’ve also found some really great tips on organizing

In the following weeks, I’d also like to share in more detail and give specific examples of what it is we are struggling with, some of our goals, and our timelines for achieving them.  This is partly because I think if I share it openly here with you on this blog then I’m also going to be held accountable.  I’ll be motivated to accomplish them.  Sharing is caring. But, just as importantly, I hope that by sharing a bit of our struggle we can also help you in your quest to become more organized.  I hope I’m not alone and we aren’t the only ones who haven’t mastered the art of organizing…..

Now, why don’t you share some of  your own organizational problems with us, or some tips on what’s helped you become better organized.  Heck, just a little “amen, I’m right there with ya!” would work too!

Thanks!

Well, I don’t know about you, but 2011 just flew by us!  Today I can look back and be proud of everything we accomplished this year.  I’m happy to say we marked some big ones off our list!  The biggest one, of course, being our new branding.  We had a complete makeover and changed from Emeric Photography to just The Emerics.  That was huge for us and wasn’t as easy as n it would be!  There were so many small things that kept coming up that we had to do too, that it just felt overwhelming some days.  But, it was all worth it.  We took a risk and love the results.  I hope everyone of you loves it as much as we do and we hope that you are able to get to know a bit more about us through our new site and blog. 

2011 has been an amazing year.  Our business has continued grown here in Las Vegas and we couldn’t have done it without all of our wonderful couples and clients who have trusted us and let us into one of the most beautiful days of their lives.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks again to all our family, friends, clients, and clients who have turned friends.  Thanks for your support and your trust.  Thanks to my little kiddos who are the reason we do what we do and keep our life full.  Thanks to our local photographer friends for fostering a sense of community.  Instead of competition, we have a sense of camaraderie with you.  And I love that.  Thanks to those rock star photographers who are so so open about their work and their business. Thank you for being so giving of your time and talent to us and everyone else.  We keep me dreaming bigger.  Thanks to all the fabulous vendors and wedding industry peers we’ve had the privilege of working alongside and becoming friends with.  And lastly, I’d like to thank the creators of Pinterest for giving me a place to easily find inspiration and a place to sort my wants, my dreams, ideas, and more DIY projects I’ll ever have time to make! 

We can’t wait to see what 2012 brings all of us! 

lots of love,

Jessie & Jason

We love to stay connected and share our lives with you all.  I love grabbing snap shots of everything, especially the kiddos.  One fun and easy way we share  these snap shots of our every day life, road trips, vacations, special occasions, and everything in between is by using Instagram.  I’ve been using the Instagram app on my Iphone for about a year already and I love it!  Here’s how they describe it…” It’s a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. “  You can add fun filters to your pictures, write a caption, then send to Facebook, Twitter, and/or Flickr!  How cool is that?  Best of all, it’s a free app and available for download on the app store.

Are you on instagram?  If so, come follow us!  Our username is: theemerics. We’d love to follow you too!  If not, what are you waiting for? Come join the fun

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interested in having us at your wedding?  Click Here to connect with us!