Uncertainties are scary yet exciting…
Normally we like to share our highs, but we do hit some low’s along the way, just like everybody else. So let’s get real. So here is one huge bump in the road we are dealing with right now.
The beginning of 2018 brought us stability… Something we haven’t had in quite a while. I didn’t have any pregnancies or newborns this year in our family of 5 (we think our little family is complete now) and we had a stable income through our Wedding photography (If you were wondering… this is what we do). No crazy sh*t happening around us. Just a nice day to day routine and all was good. We finally got into the flow of balancing work and family.
On top of that my Instagram and this blog started to generate some income too! We had some pretty awesome collaborations amazing brands. It’s still not enough to stop doing weddings (not that want to stop doing weddings, weddings are awesome). But it was enough to let all the photo and video editing after we shot the wedding days over to Michiel, so I could focus on investing my time on creating content for this blog, the vlog, and my Instagram!
-“And then came Oktober… Oh my. What a curve ball!”-
The curveball
Things were pretty amazing!
And then came Oktober… Oh my. What a curve ball!
Our stable income was not so stable anymore.
The short version: We don’t have enough weddings in 2019 to keep ourselves afloat! So we need to make some adjustments. We need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone once again.
To fully understand what happened I need to explain it a bit more:
It takes us 2,5 week to process all the photo and video images of just one wedding. We do a maximum of 18 weddings every year. We don’t have room for more.
The summer month we survive with the income of the weddings, the winter months we survive on the down payments for the upcoming weddings and the orders of wedding albums of the past wedding season.
We reach 90% of our clients through the biggest wedding fair in Holland. We participate two times a year, and then we are fully booked.
No need for online ads, campaigns or another form of advertising.
But this year, the wedding fair of October was a complete fail. Where normally there are on average 5000 visitors, now there were only 1000. We got ZERO bookings from that fair this year. Something that has never happened before in the last 5 years. And on top of that, the fair of March 2019 is canceled. The whole fair stopped. Forever!
-“looking back afterward it always has been exactly the way it should have been. We just didn’t know it yet at the time.”-
So now we have 4 weddings booked for 2019, Wich generates not enough to get us through this winter, or the next summer for that matter. so we need to get familiar with online advertising. But oh’my… its all sooo complicated and time-consuming learning process. And we don’t have the time, we need bookings like yesterday.
So Now what!?
I’m positive that we get this online advertising thing down soon, and we’ll get enough bookings for the upcoming summer. But until then, we have a bit of a financial problem. So one of us needs a job somewhere for the upcoming 4 months. On “project base” or for a longer period of time if we like it enough. And with “we”, I mean preferably Michiel. I want to stay focused on creating our content and keep the inspiring Wild&BOHO collabs going! I’m only selectively applying to jobs that I would LOVE to do so much, that I would maybe ditch all other stuff and stay working there forever! And there are not so many vacancies out there that will get my attention. I’ve written 3 so far. Michiel 5 and counting. We’ll see…
-“It’s not a curveball… its a Pusch in the right direction by the universe.”-
I’m stressing a lot about the What If’s.
Our reserves are running dry and something needs to happen soon! The uncertainties are taking its toll. Images of every imaginable scenario are going through my monkey mind. The never-ending chatter of my internal dialogue who sometimes gets stuck in a carousel… Going round and round in circles. Pointless and exhausting. We are doing our best here, there really is nothing more we can do.
One of my goals for 2019 is to just let the universe do its thing.
I’m going to do the best job I can, work my but off, and then I’m going to let it go. No stress. Trusting everything will be fine. Because looking back afterward it always has been exactly the way it should have been. We just didn’t know it yet at the time. This is a chance to grow, evolve, move forward instead of getting stuck in the same pattern over and over again. It’s not a curveball… its a Pusch in the right direction by the universe.
Our glass is half full. We have love, we have each other, we have our creativity, we have a nice home. We’ll pull through.
-“Because of you this blog and our Instagram has started to become a way to support our family”-
So if you reached all the way to this point in the blog, I want to thank you for reading!
You are here not only for our best moments but apparently also here for our struggles.
Thank you for being there for us, for following our blogs, watching our video’s, checking out our Instagram posts and by leaving a comment now and then. Because of you this blog and our Instagram has started to become a way to support our family a bit! Maybe one day we can fully focus on creating art and cool content full time! We appreciate your support so much. So Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Have a Wonderful New year’s eve! We love you guys!
Love,
Jolanda, Michiel
Miley, Haley & Quinn
