I have been following Katelyn’s blog for about 2 years. Her blog is full of personal posts and her amazing work. I read the blog post when she announced that she and Michael would become a full time husband and wife photography team and I thought that was so cool. Logan and I shoot weddings together so I thought that it was awesome for them to do that full time together. I have seen plenty of blog posts from her coaching sessions and workshops to know that I had to be part of one of those, even though she lived in Virginia and I live in a small town in Idaho. Logan and I started looking at different options or ways that we could make it work to fly me out there to learn from her but there were way too many things that wouldn’t work- I’m not old enough to rent a car from an airport, not knowing where I would be with school, and what would be going on here at home, but I knew that I had to make it work somehow. In November she had a blog post about her traveling coaching huddles. And she was coming to Las Vegas at the end of February 2014. I showed Logan and we decided that day that it had to happen, no matter what, I would be there!

Before you read any farther, you need to go like Katelyn’s Facebook page. Your news feed will thank you! Trust me!

February is one of the craziest months of the year for Logan and I. Valentines Day is February 14th, my birthday is February 15th, our anniversary is February 23rd, and his birthday is March 3rd. We just like to cram everything we possibly can all together! We decided to make the coaching session my “Birthtine Anniversay” present. And to celebrate we stayed at the MGM Grand Signature. If we ever stay in Vegas again, I will stay there every time. It was unreal! But that is a post for another day.

For weeks, I was writing down questions that I would want to ask her and things I hoped to learn. The week before the Coaching huddle was supposed to happen she sent me an email saying only 2 of use signed up and we would get a real coaching session with her. I could have cried. This meant that we (Logan and I) would get to go to lunch with Katelyn and Michael and the other photographer and get new headshots. Talk about stressful outfit planning when you realize that a photographer you have watched for years was going to be taking your pictures.

The morning of our coaching session I woke up and took HOURS to slowly get ready and try to stay calm. I had to use the bathroom about 15 times that morning because I was meeting Katelyn James! This was one of the most exciting days of my life and I felt like a little kid about to meet a celebrity! We met Michael, Katelyn and Kay at the Rain Forest Cafe in the MGM Grand. Over a yummy lunch we asked questions and Katelyn and Michael answered all of them. There wasn’t anything that we asked that she wouldn’t help us with. She was so kind and willing to share her knowledge with us.
After lunch we went out to talk about shooting and have our head shots taken, it was raining through the whole time, but we were able to see how she worked with the weather and made beautiful images no matter what mother nature sent her way.

After our headshots, Logan and I got to spend the next 3 hours with Katelyn and Michael for personal Q & A and so much information to make me a better photographer, business person, and overall a desire to be my best self. During our time together she asked me about my website, (non existent at the time) and she told me to get it up that night. Well that didn’t happen, because I went back to our room determined to get it up and as I looked at it, it wasn’t me. It didn’t look like what I really wanted, so I started over on my website that could have been published that night and made something that I love!
Katelyn is a great photographer, business person, and a great woman. She met me that day and I felt like I could call her friend through the week at WPPI when we saw them in the crowded halls or attended her class. I learned many things, but the greatest thing I left with, was confidence. She gave me the confidence that I needed to be the best photographer I could be. And we left our coaching session with some great new pictures of us!!

Katelyn and Michael are a great couple and I’m so grateful we got to meet them and feel our lives and business blessed by them! I would do another session with them again in a heartbeat! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Katelyn and Michael! We are so excited to see where we able to go with all the things we learned from them.