Late one evening last week as I wrapped up a workout in an empty yoga studio that sits two floors above our live/work space, I felt full and content and blessed and sad. The walls are lined with mirrors and a ballet bar. There's a jack that allows you to connect your phone to the surround sound speakers and serenade the entire room (or possibly the entire floor?) with Jack's Mannequin. There are two Pilates machines that I'm almost positive nobody else has ever tried to use. In the next room, there are weights. In the next, there are treadmills and bikes and TVs and sometimes people. The walk back to our place is through a series of temperature controlled halls and stairwells and a garage with dramatic lighting and a parking spot with our number spray painted across it. Our loft is open and full. We've moved a lot over the last four years, but this is the most settled we've ever been. The things we've collected have begun to line our walls. There are boxes and there are labels. Daniel bought his first couch. I bought my first rug. And my second and my third. We have a dog now and he has most of the corners of this space claimed. The front of our studio opens up to the street. (Kedzie, to be exact.) A sign with a logo that Daniel stayed up late one night perfecting hangs over our door. If you walk something like five blocks east, you'll hit the lake. North will take you to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. A little farther northwest will take you to our gym and library. This place has been everything I've (we've) needed.
Our time here has been short (per usual). We're moving on and it breaks my heart.
If you've inquired with us (and especially if you've booked us) you've known long before even our families that we're packing up this business and moving west. It's very hard to plan for this sort of thing when you're booking weddings up to a year in advance. It's hard for Daniel to blindly quit his super flexible full time job here in Chicago. It's hard to know when it's the right time to pull the trigger. It was in the back of our minds while we were making plans this year. It was in the forefront of our minds these last two months as our lease has been running out. We were torn between Portland and LA, but ultimately it was an easy choice.
We decided to move straight to LA the day our lease lets up. Our plans were foiled when we took on far too many Chicago weddings for the months of June and July (that's a good thing). Instead of flying back to Chicago most weekends this summer, we'll be subletting in Logan Square until we move to LA in August. If you've reached out during the last few months and have gotten a vague description of our future plans, I want to bring you up to speed and let you know that our vagueness has only been a thing because our plans have been up in the air and dependent on so many factors outside of our immediate control.
All nostalgia aside, we are so, so, sooooo excited to be moving to Los Angeles this year! We have big plans and are stoked to get the ball rolling.
I'm sentimental and sad about leaving this space that we've poured our lives and money and time into, but I'm stoked for everything the future holds and thankful for how full my timeline has been ever since wedding photography and Daniel have walked into my life. Ultimately, I know home isn't as much space and walls and rugs as it is people (and french bulldogs).
As we turn this chapter in our lives and business I wanted to do the only thing I know to do at a time like this. Document it. The photos below are photos I meant to take as soon as we got settled in. I'm not sure when it happened (or if it ever officially did), so I've been waiting it out.
