The Stories That Shape Us

We Are the Sum of All Our Stories (And the Spaces Between Them)

Some truths arrive slowly, like wisdom earned through years of wrong turns and right decisions. Others land with the decisive thud of a passport stamp, marking not just where you’ve been, but who you’ve become in the process.

This is one of our truths: we are the sum of all the places we’ve been, the people we’ve met, and the stories we’ve stepped into… but also, crucially, the spaces between those stories. The quiet moments in airport lounges where jet lag makes philosophers of us all. (I know everyone is laughing at that one. We’ve all been there). The conversations that happen in taxi rides through unfamiliar cities. The way certain light reminds us of a wedding in Tuscany, or how the smell of jasmine can transport us instantly to a ceremony in Bali where we learned something new about love.

We carry each experience with us, sometimes in ways we don’t realize until we hear a song that unlocks a memory of dancing barefoot somewhere where we couldn’t speak the language but understood everything that mattered. Or eat something that tastes like ‘our’ ramen shop in Tokyo, or feel the stillness that only ever felt that way once, under Icelandic skies.

The Road That Builds Us (One Impossible Logistics Challenge at a Time)

Travel doesn’t just take us places. It builds us. Gently. In layers. Through awe, confusion, comfort, discomfort, wonder, missed connections, warm welcomes, and wide skies. 

It builds us through the people who love differently than we do… who celebrate louder or quieter, who cook with spices we’ve never smelled and fold their traditions like origami into their daily lives. Who teach us that there are as many ways to say “I love you” as there are cultures to witness, and that our job isn’t just to coordinate celebrations, but to honour the beautiful complexity of how different people choose to mark the most important moments of their lives.

Every time we leave home, we come back different. Not in the dramatic, life-altering ways you imagine when you’re (very) young and backpacking around Europe or Asia and think transformation happens in sudden revelations. But in quieter, deeper ways… the kind that settle into your worldview like dust into a camera bag. Permanent. Subtle. Meaningful.

And over time, those changes accumulate. 

They shape the way we create, influence how we work, shift how we listen, and expand how we love. They teach us that the most beautiful weddings aren’t the ones that go according to plan, but the ones where love finds a way to shine through despite the plan.

And that is life.

A Profession of Perspective (And Perpetual Jet Lag)

In our industry… where we document love for a living, where we photograph joy and plan beauty across continents… perspective is everything. 

Every celebration we’ve been privileged to witness has added something to our lens, both literal and metaphorical. A wider frame for understanding human connection. A slower shutter for appreciating moments that can’t be rushed. A deeper appreciation for the rituals and rawness that connect people around the world.

We’ve learned that an ethereal shrine ceremony in Kyoto can carry the same emotional weight as a barefoot elopement in the Utah desert. That a 300-person Nigerian wedding in Texas can have the same intimate heart as a two-person vow exchange at the edge of the world in Patagonia. That love looks different everywhere… yet always, always feels the same when you’re standing close enough to witness it.

This is the gift of our work, and we know how extraordinarily lucky we are to receive it. 

But there’s also the weight… the beautiful anxiety of being trusted with people’s most important days, of carrying the responsibility for irreplaceable moments, of coordinating the impossible while making it look effortless.

Today’s impossible: explaining to a vendor in three different languages why the ceremony must start at exactly 5:47 PM for optimal light and Japanese timelines, while simultaneously managing a bride’s anxiety about the weather 4 months from now, a groom’s concerns about his 100+ guests’ dietary restrictions, and our own quiet panic about whether typhoon season will kindly pass us by this year.

Life.

A Community of Strangers (Who Become Family Over Shared Chaos)

We’ve shared tables with people we barely knew who now feel like family… bonded by the universal experience of trying to create magic under pressure. We’ve danced barefoot (or with socks instead of barefoot due to Tracey’s insanely delicate lady feet) in villages where we couldn’t speak the language, but the laughter needed no translation. 

We’ve been welcomed into homes, ceremonies, and circles we never expected to enter, each invitation a reminder that hospitality is humanity’s greatest art form.

With each new interaction, something inside us shifts. Sometimes imperceptibly, like the gradual adjustment of eyes to changing light. Sometimes tectonically, like the moment you realize that your assumptions about how the world works were beautifully, completely wrong.

We know the value of seeing how others live, love, and celebrate. It makes us more empathetic, more patient, less quick to judge. It gives us context for our own choices, compassion for different approaches, and that elusive quality everyone talks about but few truly understand: perspective.

But more than that, it teaches us humility. Every new culture we encounter reminds us how much we don’t know, how many ways there are to be human, how many different answers exist to the same fundamental questions about meaning, connection, and joy.

What We’ve Learned (So Far) About Life, Love, and Logistics

If we had to try to put this into words… the kind that sounds simple but took years of mistakes and meltdowns to understand… here’s what we’ve discovered:

• The more you travel, the more you realize how much you don’t know. And this isn’t discouraging… it’s liberating. Ignorance becomes curiosity, certainty becomes wonder.
• Kindness is the world’s only true universal language. It translates perfectly across every cultural barrier and makes every other form of communication possible.
• Everyone thinks their hometown has the best food, and they’re all right. Taste is memory, and memory is love, and love makes everything delicious.
• Magic happens in liminal spaces… airports, train platforms, hotel lobbies, the moments between planned events when real life sneaks in.
• You don’t need a reason to toast. Life is reason enough. Celebration is a practice, not a response to achievement.
• There’s no such thing as “wasting time” when you’re truly paying attention. Presence transforms even the most mundane moments into something worth remembering.
• You are allowed to evolve. In fact, it’s the point. 

And perhaps most importantly: 

• backup plans need backup plans, but sometimes the most beautiful moments happen when all the plans fail and you’re left with nothing but (a little panic) love, laughter, and the ability to improvise.

We Like Who We’re Becoming (Even When We’re Exhausted)

Maybe that’s the biggest lesson of all. That change… especially the kind that travel and creative work bring… isn’t something to fear or resist. It’s something to lean into, to welcome, to trust. Because it always takes you closer to who you’re meant to be.

We like who we are. But we also love who we’re becoming. 

With every passport stamp, every 4 AM call time, every cultural misstep that becomes a learning opportunity, every moment when we realize we’re witnessing something sacred… we are growing, expanding, becoming more ourselves.

And this trip? This journey to Namibia, through stone and silence and stories written in sand and starlight? This one feels different. Bigger. Like it’s going to teach us something we didn’t even know we needed to learn.

We can feel it already, in the way our hearts quicken when we think about vast landscapes and endless skies. In the anticipation of being somewhere SO far from our usual rhythms that we’ll have no choice but to discover new ones. In the promise of space… physical, mental, creative… to remember who we are when we’re not managing timelines and running on deadlines.

A Gentle Reminder (And a Promise)

We’re not disappearing. We’re recalibrating. 

For a couple of weeks, the inbox will be quieter. The emails slower. Actually, they won’t be… at all. Our work never stops. But it’ll be our response to the inbox that will be slightly quieter. And the only timeline we’ll be managing is our own… just for a few weeks. 

But we’ll come back fuller, recharged, carrying new stories and fresh perspectives that will inevitably find their way into how we serve you, how we see your celebrations, how we honor your love stories.

Because the best work we do doesn’t come from exhaustion. It comes from being alive. Inspired. Grounded in the world.

So thank you for understanding, for cheering us on, for being part of the community that allows us to evolve and explore and occasionally disappear into landscapes that will change us in ways we can’t yet imagine. Thank you for trusting that everything we experience out there comes back with us… in our art, in our storytelling, in the depth of attention we bring to your memories.

We’ll be the same people who left. But different. Expanded. (We expand in many ways every year 😉 )

The Space Before the Journey

Tonight, we pack cameras and curiosity, gortex shoes and open hearts. Tomorrow, we begin a journey that started months ago with a simple question: What happens when the people who spend their lives creating perfect moments and memories for others, give themselves permission to simply experience their own moments? 

We’re about to find out. 

(That’s our Walter Mitty moment… here’s our blog post about Walter. Who doesn’t LOVE that movie??!) 

See you soon, with full hearts, and probably a lot of red dust in our shoes. And stories that will take months to fully understand. 

Until then, follow along if you feel like it, as we discover what Namibia has to teach two wandering creatives about silence, space, and the art of being exactly where you are.

The adventure begins tomorrow. 

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