Caitlin Gerres Photography has been a wild and crazy adventure that I never expected. Just a few months after we got married, I started learning about photography and researching what it would take to run my own business. Four years later, Ryan agreed to become my 2nd and I started training him. And although we loved working together on wedding days and we knew many couples who turned their photography business into something they both did full time, we never felt like that was the right choice for us. Ryan loves the business world and trading his job in business intelligence for bookkeeping, marketing, and web maintenance wouldn't have made him happy. So we kept my business small. And we knew at some point, we would reach the end of this season.
When we got pregnant with Darcy, I stopped making a 5-year business plan. I had no idea what having a newborn would be like. I didn't know if Darcy would be an easy baby or a difficult baby. I didn't know how I would handle work and mom life together. So we started taking things one year at a time in our business.
God told us at the beginning of this year that our time with CGP was over. I was surprised. And to be honest, I was not happy about it at the beginning. We had JUST gotten back from Disney. I wasn't pregnant. There was no reason NOT to have another great wedding season. Maybe wedding photography with two kids and all the extra stuff Ryan has going on and our increased service at church would be too much, but we had time to make that decision. We didn't book that far in advance. 2019 could be a great final season for us before we added another child to our family.
But God was still saying no. I wanted one more wedding season. I wanted to celebrate our 'last wedding'. I wanted to go out with a bang.
God gently said, “You're already done. You've had your last wedding. And you loved and served that sweet couple without any of the attention being on yourself. And now I'm calling you to other things.”
A few weeks after making our official decision and sharing the news with our close friends and family, we found out we were pregnant. And then I got horrible nausea that lasted for 3 weeks. (And minor nausea that's still lingering and annoying me every day.) It has been such a GIFT to have a very short weekly to do list right now. Instead of working during Darcy’s naps, I’ve been resting and watching The Great British Baking Show, because feeding him lunch and getting him in his crib wipes me out.
So here’s our official announcement. We are stepping away from our photography business. We've loved it. We're going to miss it. We love all of our couples and the amazing vendors we’ve been able to work with. And now it’s time to set CGP aside so I can focus my time on caring for our growing family.