As she was scrolling through facebook while bouncing her youngest child on her knee, Anna saw a friend's post displaying heart-warming, authentic photos that showed a family together: kids interacting, mom and dad occasionally joining in on the fun. Anna immediately thought to herself, “I really need to hire a professional photographer to take pictures like that of our family.”
It wasn’t the first time that this situation had played out in her mind. Sometimes the thought stopped there, and she quickly forgot about it. But occasionally, like right now, more longing and emotion came along with it: “The kids are growing too fast...I can’t put it off any more!” She almost cried, thinking about how much her three kids had changed just in the past year. She realized how fast time was moving and that she couldn’t control it.
But Anna’s next thought stalled her plans to move forward. She grimaced. “But it’s SO expensive. We can’t afford to spend money on something like that right now. …Hopefully we’ll have more money in a few months.”
Fast forward five years. Life was busier than ever with all of the kids involved in school projects and activities. Anna hadn't considered broaching the subject of hiring a photographer to document their family in years; she knew that if she thought it was too much money, her husband would certainly think that the price was out of the question. But as she was looking online for ideas on how to decorate the empty walls in their new home, she was inspired by an image of a home adorned with beautiful pictures that told one family’s story throughout the years. She realized that that’s exactly what she wanted on her family’s walls.
This time the pause and grimace following her thought process was accompanied by regret. In her continual effort to avoid spending “too much” money on something that at the time seemed like a luxury, she had missed nearly a decade of documenting her young family’s moments together. Sure, she had hundreds of often-blurry pictures filling her phone and Instagram feed, but they weren't clear enough to even bother printing them. And to top it off, she realized that her family’s real story was not being told through those pictures. She was a stay-at-home mom, yet she could count on both hands the number of pictures that included her in the frame with her children.
Anna couldn’t believe how upset she felt after realizing what she had missed capturing. She had always felt that she had a decent grasp on recording memories for her family, yet when she looked closely at what she actually had to hang on her walls or pass down to her children when they were grown, she saw that the results were pitiful. She realized, then, that she could have easily saved the money for a session if she had made it a priority. "I wish I would have realized what I was missing.” Anna quickly decided that she would never again neglect to document their memories.
Anna’s story is based on real feedback I’ve gotten about the deep emotions and desires tied to capturing family memories; yet people feel that they are held back by money. Don’t let any more time pass you by while your kids continue to grow and change. Hiring a photographer doesn’t have to be a bank-breaking process.
I have created a FREE pdf with 12 awesome, painless ideas to help you save money this year so that you will easily have the cash to hire a photographer who will capture those memories (with you in them) for your family! If you have trouble finding the money for what you want to spend money on, or making it a priority to save, you'll definitely want this freebie. Fill in your email address below, and a message will be sent right to your inbox!