Happy Christmas Eve!

I hope wherever you are reading this, you are getting into the festive mood and looking forward to spending some quality time with family and friends.

Sam and I have had a whirlwind few weeks, and have just arrived back in New Zealand on Monday, very bright and early after an overnight flight from Melbourne. In case you missed my exciting announcement post a few weeks back, we have packed up our life in Melbourne and we’re based in NZ until the end of April, then we will move to Salt Lake City, Utah for 1 year at this stage!

Over the past few weeks there has been many leaving get-togethers, and lots of precious time spent with our friends in Melbourne. Many tears were shed! We will really miss our friends in Melbourne, who have honestly become like family to us.

So as much as moving was bittersweet, it’s lovely to be home with family for Christmas. I don’t usually do a round-up, or a look back blog post from the past year. Usually, I’m so focused on future planning and goal setting at this time of year. While I still think it’s so important to do those things, I have come to realise it’s also important to reflect on the year gone by. It’s important to remember the good things, the blessings, mixed with the hard times that have grown us, shaped us, and taught us many lessons along the way.

From looking back, we can prepare for the future and also appreciate how we’ve progressed.

Here we go!

JANUARY

2014 started in Sri Lanka for us! We had just arrived in the beautiful country, for Imesha and Darshana’s destination wedding, that I was SO privileged to photograph, and spent New Years Eve wandering Colombo, riding around in the balmy night in Tuk Tuk’s and watching the sun set on 2013 for the last time, over Sri Lanka’s beautiful sea.

From Sri Lanka, we flew back home to Melbourne, and I had a few more weddings to photograph in January.

FEBRUARY

I flew back to NZ for my busiest month of photographing many beautiful weddings. 8 in 4 weeks! In February, I also managed to catch up with friends and spend time with family which was so lovely, as this was my first summer season not completely in NZ.

MARCH

Still the height of the busy season, I was back in Melbourne to photograph many beautiful weddings!

APRIL

At the end of April, my parents came for a visit to Melbourne for a week. We shopped, Mum and I spent some great girly time together getting our nails done, and drove to Canberra to spend time with my cousins!

MAY

On the 1st of May, we flew back to NZ (I’m starting to realise how much back and forth between NZ and Australia we did this year!) as Sam was a groomsman for his friends wedding in Tauranga. I was a guest at this wedding which hardly ever happens, I was quite excited about it!

On the 12th of May, we flew to San Francisco! After a week in the Bay Area, we flew to Salt Lake City and lived there for a month while Sam worked in the Lab at the University of Utah, and we also were sussing out the city to see if we could potentially live there for a while!

JUNE/JULY

By mid June, we were back in Melbourne. At the start of July, Sam’s sister Hannah visited us for just over a week. It was fun to show her around Melbourne, especially since it was her first time out of NZ (and on a plane!) The rest of July was relativity quiet, which we both completely needed after lots of travel!

AUGUST

In the beginning of August, we drove to Adelaide and I was so blessed to meet the gorgeous Katelyn James and attend her amazing photography workshop! At the beginning of the year, I made a new commitment to attend one workshop a year, and as soon as I heard Katelyn was coming to Australia, I knew I had to go!

Later on in August, I announced the third Planted with Light, and spent a lot of time planning and organising for the workshop for the rest of the month.

We also received news of a job offer in Utah for Sam, and we both felt complete peace about the possibility, we’d been praying about it since May, and even though we knew it would be hard to leave Melbourne, it was a great opportunity, and something we felt strongly called to do, so said yes almost immediately. We didn’t tell anyone for almost 2 months, which was SO hard, as we wanted it to be more definite before we did.

I also saw my sister Esther in Melbourne for one day before she began her adventure around Europe and the UK! Esther, if you are reading this, we LOVE you and miss you so much!!

SEPTEMBER

In September, wedding season started again in Melbourne, and I was also blessed to travel to Palm Cove just outside Cairns to photograph my friend Monique’s wedding. Sam’s parents met us in Cairns, and we stayed with them in a beautiful house in the rainforest for a week.

OCTOBER

More beautiful weddings, and we travelled back to NZ as Sam was in the bridal party for another friend! I also hosted my third wedding photography workshop, Planted with Light, at my parents place which was a huge success and such a blessing!

NOVEMBER

Packed full of many beautiful weddings, from Country Victoria, to inner city. Also, I made sure that I balanced lots of work with a spa day in the middle of the month at Made Beauty in Hawthorn (run by a couple of lovely kiwis) which was so essential and completely necessary!

DECEMBER

Even though this month isn’t over yet, it feels like a complete whirlwind. We had lots of NZ visitors, my sister Sophie and her boyfriend Whetu stayed with us, then Sam’s sister Katherine visited us in Melbourne for a few days.

Soon after we packed up our apartment in Melbourne, sold our car, sold our couch, gave away many things to friends, and to the op shop. We actually booked 80kgs to take back to NZ in luggage, and only ended up taking 65! We did store a few things at friends houses, but so far I love living a more minimalist existence, and it feels very freeing to let go of many of our possessions.

We will miss our Melbourne friends so much!

I hope you spend some time thinking about the year just gone. Just by writing this blog post, I am overwhelmed with how blessed we have been this year. I don’t want to come across as braggy, because as well as all the travel and amazing things we have been lucky enough to experience this year, there have been some really hard things to deal with personally and professionally.

But despite everything, good and bad, with every year as I’ve gotten older, I have come to realise what is the most important. For me, it’s my faith, my husband, my family and friends. Without them, life wouldn’t be the same. I also want to thank my amazing couples who have trusted me with the huge responsibility of documenting their weddings this year. I am privileged to do this job, and without your support I couldn’t so, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Merry Christmas everyone. Kate xx