2018. What a year it has been! It was my second year of being self-employed and boy, did it take off. I learned a lot about business and about myself, found out which direction I really want to go, reached goals that I had secretly set myself for the next five years and had the most wonderful couples. That’s why a big part of this blogpost is to say THANK YOU to all of you.
Thanks for supporting my little business from the start on. Thanks for believing in me, for liking my images, for sharing my posts and for messaging friends when you know they’re looking for a photographer. So many of this year’s couples found me through referrals and honestly, that’s the best way to put together clients and a vendor. If someone you trust recommends a place you’re always more inclined to visit it, right? It’s the same with a photographer. So thanks to everyone who has left me a review, who has handed out my business cards or who has simply talked about me. I owe so much of my current success to you.
But now I want to take a quick look back at the year with you.
2018 - the best year so far
This year I got to accompany 19 wonderful couples while they promised eternal love to each other. And each and every of the couples now has a part of my heart. A wedding is something extremely emotional and I often get really invested in their day. With this year’s couples I helped them prepare surprises for their spouse, climbed literal and figurative mountains with them, drove them around, gave them advice and even received help from them (for example that one time my car just wouldn’t start when we wanted to leave for bridals…).
Now you’re definitely wondering what my highlight was and I thought this would be an easy question to answer at the beginning of the year: Of course, it just had to be Rani & Chris’ wedding in Indonesia. Right? Now, at the end of the year, I can say: Wrong. Honestly, I just can’t pinpoint one single highlight. Yes, Indonesia and those two wonderful souls (and their families) are definitely up there and will definitely be one of the weddings I will remember for a long time. But every wedding had its perks. There were Judith and Mel with whom I connected from the first second. Or Charlotte and Nicolas with whom I partied until 4am (and then had to sleep in a wedding guests room because all hotel employees had already gone to bed… I’ll blog about it, I promise!). There were Arbiesa and Valon who planned every detail beautifully. And Fabienne and Patrick who stole my heart with their radiating happiness. Xenia and Roger whom I’ve known for years and Michael and Remo whom I’ve known even longer. Sarah and Rees who had previously been guests at another wedding or Nadine and Kevin who had the craziest, most energetic party I’ve ever seen at a wedding. These are just a few of the wonderful couples whose wedding I got to photograph and if next year will have just a fraction of the awesomeness this year’s clients had, it will be a great one.
An award-winning year (literally)
Of course, I don’t exclusively photograph weddings. I’m a sucker for lovestories, though, so that’s what you’ll mainly find on my website. In case you didn’t know, I still work as an editorial photographer part-time as well and in that job I also got to experience some pretty rad things. Oh, there’s actually a funny story that just popped into my mind. I got to visit the Prince of Liechtenstein in his castle for the second time. Because I love travelling by train I took public transportation to Vaduz. When I exited the bus (no trains in Liechtenstein), one groom’s brother was standing at the bus stop. Yes, Liechtenstein is a tiny country and yes, the groom and his brother are from there. But still: What are the odds?
And by far my biggest achievement this year in my editorial photography was winning the “Medienpreis Aargau Solothurn”, a journalistic award that I recieved for my photoreport a the women’s shelter. You can see the images and read the blogpost (only in German) here: Frauenhaus Aargau Solothurn.
2018 was filled with such amazing moments and I’m thankful for each and every one of them. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for 2019!
And here’s some of my favorite shots from this season (my all-year-favorite is the one in the header):
