Written by Candace on April 22, 2013 | 2 Comments

Wedding Season Begins

I woke up this morning full of aches and pains that shouldn’t be present in a 29 year old body. But they are my little reminders that the wedding season has officially begun.

Saturday we photographed RJ and Jamie’s beautiful wedding at Rios-Lovell Winery. It was the official start to our fifth wedding season and I couldn’t have been happier. The way that I feel now compared to our first wedding season is so drastically different. I remember not being able to sleep the night before our first wedding. Though each season has been unique in it’s own way, I’m thankful for each one. What they taught me. How they changed me. And most importantly, the couples they’ve brought into our lives.

For each one of them, I am forever grateful for.

Happy Monday everyone! What are you grateful for today?

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Written by Candace on April 17, 2013 | 6 Comments

Snapshot of a Marriage

When I started my marriage almost 7 years ago, I was sad to discover that I didn’t know a lot of older couples with successful marriages. To this day, I still only know a few.

With the amount of divorces today, I have a feeling that a lot of couples my age are in the same boat. I’d like to connect and learn from older couples who have gone before and navigated through life’s difficulties and managed to come through the other side with their marriage and their love for one another intact. I thought how fun would it be to find and interview these kinds of couples and share with all of you what I learn. Thanks to the interwebs, I discovered there was somebody already doing it!

Emily Westbrooks of the From China Village blog does a series on Snippet and Ink entitled Snapshots Of A Marriage. I immediately contacted Emily to see if she would be willing to share her process with me. She was more than willing! I love people who share! And I love people who also want to celebrate love and marriage. Emily thought the best way for us to learn from her was to be interviewed ourselves. We were thrilled for the opportunity to learn and to tell our love story.

Along with writing more consistently, I’m hoping to get started conducting my own interviews soon. Anybody know a couple I should interview? Let me know!

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Written by Candace on April 15, 2013 | 6 Comments

Searching
My Heart

I opened up my “journal” to start writing and saw an empty entry for April 3. I came to write that day and lost all inspiration. I’ve spent the last 10 days or so searching my heart. Trying to figure out why I can’t find consistency in my writing.

I thought for a long time that it was lack of discipline. Not enough content. I don’t want the blog to become an idol as it had in my past. I don’t want to drive my husband crazy if I failed to meet a certain quota of blog posts per week. A quota that I established myself. A personal torment, sabotage.

But as I searched my heart, I discovered those were just masks for what was truly lurking underneath.

Fear.

It’s at this point that I’m tempted to go play on Facebook in order to avoid facing the art, my heart. The creativity and passion within.

What I really want to write about, what my heart seems to break and bleed over is relationships and marriage. I long for lasting relationships. Not relationships necessarily free from problems or pain, but relationships that persevere. Love that is laborious, tried and true.

Here are the things that really get in my way.

You’re not going to stick with it (the writing) so don’t even start. People don’t want to read about that stuff. Who do you think you are – you think you’re some relationship expert? You’re going to sound like a know-it-all, like you’ve got it all together. It’s not really going to make a difference, why waste the time and energy?

The reality is, I will fail. Some people will likely think negative things about me. I might be misunderstood at times. And I might not make a huge difference. Those are all possibilities and that’s ok.

I’ve decided the dissatisfaction of not doing what I’m passionate about has become too heavy a burden to carry. And for the one person who may read something I write and walk away encouraged, well, they’re worth it. My relationship to Vitaliy is worth it. I want to share my life, my lessons and my heart with you. It’s not that my marriage is perfect and, no, I don’t have it all together. It’s just that I care. If you are in a relationship or if you are married, you want the same thing as I do – you want your love to last. And you may even want your love to make a difference in this world. So, let’s do this together!

What do you think? And be honest! Let’s keep it real. Are you in a relationship that you want to last? Or maybe you have been putting something off that you need to start today. Let’s do it together.

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