It’s Officially Engagement Season!

We had our first engagement session of the year yesterday.

We got to spend with the sweetest couple at an absolutely breathtaking location. I walked away feeling creatively inspired, thankful to live in California, and grateful to work with the best people. I’m excited to see what this new year holds.

If you know someone recently engaged, please send them our way! We are booking 2016/2017 weddings and if there is one thing we’ve learned over the last 7 years in business, it’s that our clients, friends and family refer us the best clients. We’d love for you to help us add to the Pictilio family this year!

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Photo: Alex and Tanya at the beautiful Sutro Baths in San Francisco.

Engagement photo at Sutro Baths in San Francisco

Done Is Better Than Perfect

Screenshot of About Us page

Phew! What a week we’ve had! I seriously was in bed and asleep by 9pm last night.

I was exhausted!! I’ve been MIA the last week or so because we were preparing for a talk on marriage that we gave yesterday at a local MOPS group. I’ll be sharing more soon! But I will say, I fulfilled a dream I’ve had for years while simultaneously walking through one of my biggest fears, public speaking. Facing fears is exhausting!!! But still worth it, as I learned yesterday.

Speaking of dreams, well, this was more of a goal then a dream, but I hope this story encourages you today. Before Rosie Posie was born, we decided to take new photos for our About Us page and created a new video to replace the one on our Home Page. I figured we wouldn’t have the energy once Rose arrived and I had no idea if I’d want to be in front of the camera after being pregnant. And we actually managed to make both happen! And then we sat on the video footage and the photos for more than a year! More than a year!

But we finally, finally put the pictures up last week! I think we were holding out for perfection. Perfection will always prevent progress. I think we were waiting for the perfect time to make some big changes on our website. Who knows! I honestly can’t remember at this point, but I’m so thankful that we’re making changes. We’re finally starting to learn the art of shipping instead of waiting for everything to align in the perfect moment to hit send. Done is now better than perfect in our world! I think having a child helped us with this!

We could have been tempted to put it off even longer. I mean the photos are so old now, maybe we should just wait and take new ones at this point. But again, that’d be waiting for perfect. I have no idea when we’d take new photos at this point, and to be quite honest, these photos mean so much to me. They were taken when I was only a few months pregnant with Rose. And I miraculously found this dress at Anthropologie that will forever be a special piece of clothing – the blue and pink print represented a very special time in my life. We had no idea if baby Rose was a little boy or a little girl. I’m so excited to finally see these photos on our website!

We ended up deciding not to put the video on our homepage. We opted to replace the old video with a slideshow of some of our favorite wedding photos. I hope one day we’ll edit the video footage and share it on our blog, but I think we have changed and our brand is evolving in news ways that surpass the message we were originally going for.

So, go check the changes out! Let us know what you think! And if you’ve been sitting on a dream you’ve been dreaming for years or a goal that’s been hanging over your head for what seems like forever, just take a step today. A baby step! And maybe you just need to ship it as is, in it’s imperfectly perfect condition. Remember, done is always better than perfect.

Photo: I have to give a shout out to my girl Melanie Meyer who did my hair for these photos. I absolutely LOVED what she did and my experience having it done! If you need your hair done for a wedding, event or photoshoot, go to Melanie!

I Love To Clean

Where you and i fell in love

Or it could be said better, I clean to love. Yesterday I loved my husband by cleaning the house.

He’s been gone the last week and came home last night and I wanted him to come back to a clean home. I know from previous experiences and through communication that he feels loved when I clean.

But your spouse may not be the same. He may feel loved when you say something nice to him. Or she may feel loved when you cook a hot meal for her.

I will never forget hearing a woman speak who learned after many, many years of marriage that her husband could have cared less to have a home-cooked meal every night. But she slaved away in the kitchen night after night, sometimes even bitter about it, because she assumed it was what he wanted. He one day shared that he would have been just as happy with take-out every night if it would have made her happier and less stressed. But they had never talked about it!

Communication is key. Have the conversation. Find out what really matters to each other. Express how you feel most loved.

The truth is we both clean the house. But if I’m looking for a special way to say “I love you” without actually saying it, I get to cleaning. And he feels loved.

Photo: Today is the day Vitaliy proposed to me 10 years ago. He flew through Chicago (the city where we met, fell in love and got engaged) yesterday and sent me this photo. He always has been a romantic and it’s one of the things I love most about him. No shame in his game!