Let’s be real for a minute. I’m going to share something with you that I’m probably not “suppose to” admit…I stress out-like a lot! The anxiousness runs strong with me! I try to hide it from people but my poor husband sees it all the time, especially the night before a shoot or an event. This year it’s been something that I’ve actively been working on. I mean, come on, it doesn’t do any body any good. In fact it makes task even more difficult to get done cause I have to take the time to calm down.

I had to take a good look at what was making me anxious and funny enough the answer was really simple- not being prepared. When I don’t know what’s going to happen I get really nervous. It makes me feel like I don’t have control over the situation. Now I know there are tons of times in the day where you can’t predict the outcome. I mean, I’m a newborn photographer-believe me I know! But what I can do is prepare my best for those possible outcomes. What this has mean for my newborn photography is instead of the night before when I’m packing, instead of trying to go through everything and pick out what to take with me for the session, I sit down with a pen and paper and make a story board of the session and all the pieces I’ll need to pack with me (including alternative options and wraps). While this seems super simple, these story boards have changed my life! And now packing is so easy and I feel so much more prepared during sessions.

After that long intro you may be thinking what in the world does this have to do with the birth and baby fair. Well, this year was so different from the years past! Every year I’ve done this I stress out so much about getting new product, planning what I’m going to do. It felt like setup took forever and basically I felt like a crazy person…but not this year! I planned at least a month ahead of time, made a list of the new things I needed, and tried to make things as easy as possible to set-up! I got a new stretch table cloth that looked amazing and didn’t need to be ironed. I ordered a banner so everyone could see the business name flying high and proud (and I made sure it was easy to setup). And once everything came in I cleared off out coffee table and laid everything out just how I wanted it, and then out it all in an easy to carry tote. I cannot tell you how much easy this made everything! In the morning I wasn’t stressing. I had time to run a quick errand to Target and get a Starbucks. Setup took me about 15 minutes and everything came together so perfect and I was so surprised how much easier this felt than the years before. Not to mention everything looked beautiful!

So the moral of the story is preparedness alleviates stress! Instead of me running around trying to get everything together, everything was setup and I got to relax before al the expecting moms showed up for the baby fair. I wish I would have know years ago how doing something so small could make such a big difference in my life!

​During the baby fair I ran an Instagram contest! Woot woot! A lucky mom who took a photo at my booth and posted it to Instagram with my contest hashtag would win a $500 credit that can be used towards whatever session she would like!