Hello and welcome to the blog! We are Cheyenne and Geoff Schultz and are wedding photographers in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you'd like to contact us about our photography, please e-mail me at cheyenne@lovetheschultzes.com with a subject line "The Schultzes". You can also check out our website at http://www.lovetheschultzes.com

Friday, January 2, 2009

Year One: Recap 2008

Before I can move on to 2009, I needed to do a year recap to close out 2008....I'm happy that I can share it with my blog readers, but mostly, I am doing it for myself so I can take inventory of where we've come this year and to have a quick snapshot to refer to as time goes on.

Looking back, it was actually a really a great year - especially being that it was our first full year in business. However, the past few days I've been feeling discouraged and frustrated about knowing the right steps to take for our business to grow to the next level. Can I just be real for a minute? It's SO easy to look at and compare yourself to the amazing things that others in your field are doing and come out feeling like you are THE worst at what you do. With this just encourages doubt, feeling incompetent and only allows for taking steps backward. SO, having compiled all of our accomplishments from 2008 and feeling quite good about them, I am making a conscious decision to not let all the junk into my mind and to just push forward. 2009 IS going to blow this year out of the water....I just know it. :)

Without further ado, here's the top accomplishements/occurrences for the great year of OH-EIGHT!

Marriage: Year One. First, and most importantly, we celebrated our first year wedding anniversary on June 9th. The first year was a complete and total whirlwind of an adventure - new dog, new house, new business, leaving jobs, new friends, travel, etc. etc. It was NUTS. But it was great. :)

Here's a shot of us right before we took a bite of our disgusting top tier of our wedding cake. We look horribly wrecked, I know this, but in our defense - we had just returned from shooting a wedding in Pittsburgh.



Clients. 2008 brought us 17 fabulous couples to shoot their weddings. Seriously, we have TOTALLY been blessed by knowing these guys. I never thought that our clients would be those that we could call friends.



Travel. Some of those weddings we shot (and will shoot) actually brought some travel into our lives. In May we were able to travel to the Bahamas to shoot the wedding of Mary and Niall and then in June, we headed up to PA to shoot Joy and Matt's wedding. We also took a weekend trip to Savannah, Georgia to shoot Jon and Lauren's engagement session.

Geoff's first boat ride.....ever! (Bahamas...duh!)



Exploring Pittsburgh the day before the wedding.



My FAVORITE pizza place in Savannah.



Full-time Photographer....me?! With so much work, we decided that I would leave the safety of my full-time, salary paid job at Davidson College and fully commit myself to pursuing our business full-time. Some days I do miss working with college students, but there isn't one day that goes by that I regret taking that leap of faith.

Some "in action" shots of Geoff and I.



Branding. I love this one. Geoff worked his little butt off to design us a logo, business cards, a blog with some style, and my favorite, the intro animation. We also managed to get up a working website to showcase some of our favorite work.

Our rockin' card.



The blog, of course. :)



www.cheyenneschultz.com



Products. A big part of our business start-up was deciding on and ordering what products we would offer to our clients. We landed with Finao for our wedding albums, WHCC for our guest sign-in books and started using Jewelboxing for our dvd cases. Love em'!



Education. Furthering my education with photography was a really important piece to the business, and will certainly continue to be in the future. I was able to attend WPPI in Las Vegas last March, attended day workshops in Charlotte by Mike Colon and David Jay, and took a class at the Light Factory uptown.

Learning about how to create car trails in my class.



A shot I grabbed while out and about in Vegas.



New Friends. 2008 brought us some great new friends in 2008. Four of them actually joined us for New Year's Eve - Candice and Daniel from The Beautiful Mess and Alyse Woodward from A Perfect Engagement and her husband Philip.



Miscellaneous. I had the opportunity to second shot for 11 different photographers, began advertising in Carolina Bride, and was accepted into joining the network Modern Photographers.

And there go you. Phew! What a crazy year......now here's to an awesome 2009!

20 comments:

GEOFF SCHULTZ said...

What an AWESOME year! Seriously, God is great. Baby, it was so fun and I really am anxious to see what 2009 unfolds before our very eyes...

Candice of 'The Beautiful Mess' said...

Love how your pictures really DO tell a story. You and Geoff are uber talented and we are praying that you'll be blessed this year beyond what you could ask for or imagine!

So glad we met this year!!! :)

Manon said...

wow that sounds like a lot of things for last year. I hope you will have an even better 2009.

btw. I love your business cards.

Scarlett Lillian // Jacksonville Senior Photographer said...

AWWWW thanks a GREAT first year girl! I know it's easier said than done, but don't compare yourself to others. God has you exactly where He wants you right now and you are uniquely you with a distinctive career ahead of you! I feel blessed to have met you this year girl! Keep rockin' it!

Anonymous said...

Cheyenne and Geoff, congratulations on such a wonderful year. I count myself blessed to have been one of those 17 clients. Your business is going to skyrocket in 2009, I know it girl! Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

wow- Congrats on such an awesome year! Ya'll have done soo much growing- and how fun to share all these experiences with your husband! Yay for 2009

April said...

Congratulations! Wow! That made me sit down & take a breath! Are you going to WPPI again this year?? We need to get together if you are!!

Leah Bowman said...

WOW!!! What an amazing 1st year you have had! God has really blessed your business and grown your talent! I can't wait to see what will come next year!

If you are ever in the Raleigh area, give me shout and we'll have to have a photo "playdate"!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Read and See said...

Congrats on your first year! I only discovered your blog midway through 2008, but you are one of my favourites. Let me put it this way: I am a crazy wedding photo blogstalker. I have nearly 300 photography blogs in my google reader. Of those, I have 69 in my "top favourites" folder, which I always look at first. You are in that folder! So don't ever get despondent about what you do, because I think your photos are awesome!

Amy Martin said...

You had a GREAT year! Keep doing your thing! Blessings for 2009!

Anonymous said...

WOW! You have had a GREAT year. It sounds like you and your husband have a great time together. I can't wait to see what God has in store for you in 2009.

kristin said...

Amazing Cheyenne... Congrats on everything you and Geoff have accomplished this year! We need to get together soon!

Unknown said...

As a mom / mom in law, I share in this success story with great awe in understanding who is behind the motion of this great story which has a "first chapter" that wants everyone to continue reading the whole book!

What are we to do with Ellen? She is looking a bit antisocial...LOL...oh Ellen! She is an interesting grandpup...
Love you both,
MOM / Karen

Charlotte Wedding Photographer - The Schultzes said...

geoff - He has been great to us for sure!

Dan/Can - love you guys - glad to call you friends. :)

Manon - thanks for the well wishes!

Scarlett - thanks for the encouragement - I try to remind myself of that every day. :)

Erika - WE are the ones who are blessed to have YOU as a client!

Vanessa - I LOVE the fact that I have Geoff to do this with me!

April - still undecided about wppi for this year - have been before?

Leah - I will def give you a buzz if we are around - hope to meet you soon. :)

Ruby Slippers - awwww...honored to be one of your top 69! :)))

Amy - same to you! let's hang out soon!

Lindsey - thanks, girl!

Kristin - YES, we definitely have to get together soon! :)

Karen - yes, ellen is VERY interesting....she is very particular about her friends - she hated Kiki (alyse and philip's dog). :(

Anonymous said...

What a great year! Just know that there are a lot of photographers out there comparing their work to yours and thinking the same thing you do! You guys are awesome, and I have no doubt that 2009 will bring great things!

meg{moir} said...

Cheyenne,
You are so talented and YOU are doing amazing things in your field. Don't lose sight of that. We are thrilled that you and Geoff will be shooting our wedding.

Much Love,
Megan & Patrick

Anonymous said...

you guys are the jam.

we are so thrilled to be one of your 2009 clients!

Charlotte Wedding Photographer - The Schultzes said...

Megan - you are the best - thanks a TON for your encouragement. :)

Kristy - I just love you - you make me smile. :)

TGreen said...

Can I just tell you, I SO appreciated your comment about looking at the work of your peers and feeling like the worst at what you do. It is funny though, because I have admired your work for some time now, and when looking at your photographs have thought "I am total crap compared to this". It's nice to see someone with your amazing God-given and learned talent feeling the same way I do!

I have no doubt you will continue to inspire and amaze in 2009! Congratulations on all your success!

Abbi said...

So neat! I LOVE the in-action shots of you two as well as the fact that your NYE friends brought their pooches to help Ellen ring in the new year. How cute!

You are blessed. And I love knowing you and being inspired by you! Can't wait to see what 2009 holds!!