Happy Valentine's Day! || Lynchburg Wedding Photographer

You have to know, being in this wedding industry, and being so passionate about couples and their lasting love stories, I love Valentine's Day! Yes, of course you can look at it like it's just a way for businesses to make more money, but I'll take any day where you can intentionally celebrate your own loves! 

We don't do a big thing around here, but intentionally slow down a little and spend some time together. We'll make and eat dinner together at home, maybe make a dessert like chocolate covered strawberries- if I can get my act together! It's the little things- like the heart shaped pancake I made for Emmie for breakfast! But, before you get too impressed there- I made it last night because we had pancakes for dinner. ;) It's amazing how some little things like that make such a lasting impression on Emmie! All week she's been talking about what we did last Valentine's Day, while I don't remember any of it! ha! 

I never did an overview of my favorite images from 2017, I blame the craziness of motherhood and the pregnancy ;)..  so I thought it'd be a great time to do that now! Celebrating with all these amazing couples from last year! Cheers to another amazing year celebrating love! 

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Ashley Eiban is a Wedding & Portrait Photographer based in Central Virginia. Serving the Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Richmond, and surrounding areas. Available for travel world-wide.  Ashley is passionate about cultivating genuine relationships built on mutual understanding, trust and lasting friendship.  

Currently booking a limited number of wedding and portrait sessions for 2018.  Contact Ashley today for additional information!

Details to make your wedding special & unique || Lynchburg, VA Wedding Photographer

Hey gorgeous bride!! Are you stressing about your wedding planning & all of the details from your big day? Last week, I talked about the first steps after you get engaged! Once you get a lot of the big details down, you get to start thinking and making decisions that may seem smaller, but can also make a big difference in making your wedding special and unique!

The amazing thing about wedding these days is that it’s less about formal & stuffy traditions, and more about the two of you as a couple! This means you guys get to make fun choices on some of your favorite things! You shouldn’t- and can’t please everyone and your wedding should be about you!!

1- Choose some Save the Date cards full of personality! These don’t have to be as formal as wedding invitations, so choose a style that describes you guys, the theme of your wedding, a favorite photo, or hobby that you like to do together!

2- Pick a wedding venue that has special meaning! A lot of brides choose to have a back yard wedding, or their ceremony at a spot that they like to enjoy together, like a vineyard! Some brides have done a vacation spot they love, a campground they visit often! Even just choosing something that you guys both fully love makes a huge difference in your big day!

3- Select your favorite foods for the cocktail hour or the reception! Gone are the days of “wedding chicken” but instead you can choose exactly what you want! I’ve seen brides do a brunch theme, nachos and tacos, coffee bars, etc!

4- Create your own cocktails! Do you have a favorite drink you order always? Talk with your bartender about serving signature cocktails for the Bride and the Groom!

5- Wedding Cake Flavors you actually like! I’ve seen snickers, coffee, all sorts of things! At my own wedding, I had lemon poppy seed with cream cheese and strawberries because I don’t like cake! And hey, who says you HAVE to have a cake? Instead, you can do cookie bars, assorted candies, pies, etc! Choose something that reflects you guys as a couple!

6- Include your Pet! Oh my goodness, I LOVE when a Bride and Groom have their furry friend come along for engagement photos and wedding photos! These pets are such a big part of your life- include them in your big day!

7- Make sure you’re including your friends on your invite list! It can be insane once you start collecting names from both sides of the families, but be sure you’re able to include your friends as well! You’ll forget the decorations, the food, and so much more about the wedding, but you won’t forget the fun time you had with your friends!

8- Utilizing social media! I truly encourage an unplugged wedding ceremony, but invite your friends and family to use their phones during the reception! Have a snapchat filter, a unique hashtag, etc. can help keep everything organized and you and your hubby can look through everyone’s photos and videos when you get back from your honeymoon!

9- You don’t have to do sparklers for your exit! While they can be beautiful in photos, other things can be gorgeous and super fun! Flower petals, bubbles, confetti, even lavender, etc. can be special and different than every other wedding exit!

10- A unique guest book! I can’t tell you the last time I looked at my guest book from my wedding, but I’ve seen some super unique guest book ideas instead! Choose something that can also serve as an art piece for your new home together, or an art piece you can enjoy instead of something that will be tucked away on a shelf or in a box forever.

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Ashley Eiban is a Wedding & Portrait Photographer based in Central Virginia. Serving the Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Richmond, and surrounding areas. Available for travel world-wide.  Ashley is passionate about cultivating genuine relationships built on mutual understanding, trust and lasting friendship.  

Currently booking a limited number of wedding and portrait sessions for 2018.  Contact Ashley today for additional information!

Our baby shower || Trivium Estate Baby Shower in Lynchburg, Virginia

OH MY GOODNESS you guys!! This weekend was oh so good and I feel overwhelmingly blessed. Our Lynchburg friends - turned family - threw us a baby shower and it was beyond fun. Seeing all these people that mean so much to me, who love me & my family, and really are our village & love and help us in so many ways.

Heidi, from the Trivium Estate was so sweet in hosting the shower. The Trivium is one of my all-time favorite wedding venues, and it was so amazing to be there and celebrating our little guy! It’s always so beautiful there, but my goodness they went so over and beyond for our set up. And oh my gosh you guys- stereotypical pregnant lady thing to say- but the food! Sooooo good! They even knew my love of cannolis and had Jennifer, from La Bella Torta, make some homemade. And let me tell you- they were freaking amazing! A huge thank you to my sweet, sweet friends Sarah & Micah, who planned everything. I can't even describe how loved I feel. 

We are truly blessed with the most generous friends and family who completely spoiled us rotten with all the goodies to be a little more prepared for a new baby! So many adorable, teeny-tiny outfits, diapers, and baby gear! I’m finally feeling more prepared for our little guys arrival! We’ve got about 6 more weeks left- give or take, which is insane. Feels like forever away, yet that it will be here so soon! Now to go finish organizing the nursery, folding the most adorable little baby clothes, and probably take a nap as well! ;) I can’t wait to share photos from his nursery soon!

(A big thank you to Jenny & Rhiannon for grabbing my camera and snapping some photos during the shower too! SO thankful to have these!!) 

Small Business & Motherhood: Balancing the house work vs. working at home

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I used to think working from home would be AMAZING. I used to work in an office and would often be drowning in housework that needed to get done, dinners that needed to be made, errands to be run, and so so much more. But then I started working from home and quickly realized- this isn’t as easy as I thought it would be to balance everything! I would start doing some housework and easily get pulled in and spend my entire day doing laundry, running errands, cleaning the floors, all the things. But then none of my actual work would end up getting done.

Or, the opposite, I would sit down in the morning to just answer a few emails and get sucked in to all the things on my to-do list and realized at the end of the day that I didn’t even eat lunch. And the house would be a disaster, laundry piled up, and dinner never made. I don’t know about you, but when I wanted to work for myself, I wanted to be able to work with balance. To have days off, and to not constantly feel stressed and behind. Now, there are busy seasons where things are more stressed and require a lot more work at my desk, but then there are also seasons of rest and days off.

There are always distractions, but I’ve found by planning my days out ahead of time, I can be more successful and balance keeping up with the house work, and working from home.  It does take a little bit of prep-work ahead of time, but it’s so worth the sanity! During a slower season, like January and February for Virginia, I don’t schedule office hours everyday, so first off, I schedule which days are going to be days with office hours and which days aren’t. Then, I wrote out all the house chores that need to get done during the week & organize them by room. So things like, clean out the fridge, wash towels, change the sheets, etc. get divided out between kitchen, bedrooms, etc. From there, I divided out each room and groups of chores for a day. So, on Monday’s I clean the kitchen- including cleaning out the fridge, taking the trash out to the street, etc. I spend about an hour every morning after I drop Emerson off at school to accomplish the cleaning for this general area. From there, I already know if it’s a day that I need to sit at my desk to complete my office hour tasks, or run to the grocery store or other errands that need to get done.  

I stop my office hours by 2:30pm so I can pick Emerson up from school, work on homework and reading practice with her, un-interrupted. I use this time to also start working on dinner, and any of things that may need to be picked up, laundry switched over, etc.  After dinner, Michael and I spend a few minutes picking up and making sure the dishwasher is loaded and the sink is empty. Lunches are packed, and Emerson’s clothes are picked out for the next morning. By having this all written down and listed out for each day, I don’t have to keep all of this is my brain and I am able to focus on the other things that need to get done!

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Ashley Eiban is a Wedding & Portrait Photographer based in Central Virginia. Serving the Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Richmond, and surrounding areas. Available for travel world-wide.  Ashley is passionate about cultivating genuine relationships built on mutual understanding, trust and lasting friendship.  

Currently booking a limited number of wedding and portrait sessions for 2018.  Contact Ashley today for additional information!

Behind the Camera: Planning for the Year || Lynchburg, VA Wedding Photographer

I know, I'm a little bit weird (please tell me I’m not alone in this! ha!) because I LOVE the process of planning and especially love getting a new planner and starting to organize my year. I get out my pens (of course, you know I color-code my planner!)

When I’m first plugging in dates, it seems like I have tons of free time. Everything I’m writing in are big, important dates- like weddings I’ve booked, birthdays & anniversaries, school start dates, etc.  But I learned if I don’t plan days off ahead of time, I can so easily over-book myself and feel the burnout.

One of the most important things I do when I’m first planning out my year, or when I book a new wedding, is I will, of course, block out the actual wedding day, but I will also schedule a work day AND a day off.

With a new baby on the way, this year is going to be totally different and face a whole bunch of new challenges, so setting myself up for success is going to be so important! I have a whole list of my wedding and event workflow, and know how much time I need to block off for my workflow steps- from uploading cards, culling, editing for my blog, and outsourcing steps, which is so helpful when planning ahead. I know that I most likely won’t have super long stretches of time to get everything done in one day, at least at first, so having that time set aside is super helpful.

I also schedule a day off for each wedding that I shoot. I learned quickly that if I don’t go ahead and block it off on my calendar, I will try to squeeze some things in on that day & end up not getting the day off. This is especially important for months like June, September and October- the super busy wedding and engagement photo sessions.  Also, taking time off for important dates, like Birthdays, Anniversaries, and planning vacation and time away with my family. It can be SO difficult to take a day off when you work for yourself, but please, take it from me, the burn out you’ll feel if you don’t is not worth it!

So tell me, am I alone in LOVING the “school supplies” and fresh starts of new calendars, planners, and color coding.  Do you schedule your work days and off days ahead of time as well?

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Ashley Eiban is a Wedding & Portrait Photographer based in Central Virginia. Serving the Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Richmond, and surrounding areas. Available for travel world-wide.  Ashley is passionate about cultivating genuine relationships built on mutual understanding, trust and lasting friendship.  

Currently booking a limited number of wedding and portrait sessions for 2018.  Contact Ashley today for additional information!