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Oh my goodness this is my first ever episode and I am so excited to start this podcasting journey! To be honest this is something I’ve dreamt of for over 4 years now and never would have started if it weren’t for the encouragement of my sweet husband, Austin.
So I am Taylor, or Taylor Nicole, your podcast host. Nicole is my middle name by the way, even though both in person and via emails I get called Nicole a lot, as in maybe 2-3x per week. I don’t personally understand it other than maybe Nicole stands out more than Taylor when you say it.
Anyways, I am a Denver based wedding photographer. I began photographing weddings in 2013 among other things, I attended the University of Northern Colorado, go bears, and studied art and business. I graduated in 2014. After that I did mission work abroad, and held a variety of odd jobs. When I was about to marry Austin we were dreaming together and realized that it was a good season to pursue what my photography could be if I invested in it full time. So after we got married in December of 2017 I officially dove full time into photography. Just a few new things going on in my life at that point, new marriage, new career haha. I am amazed as I’ve watched my baby business grow and grow over these last 4, going on 5 years now. It wouldn’t be possible at all without my biggest encourager, Austin, and the help of Jesus.
This leads perfectly into why I wanted to start this podcast. It’s like I outlined it that way. So I have photographed 192 weddings now, sort of a crazy number to say but it’s true. I have learned SO much over the years of working in the wedding industry and I guarantee I will learn so much more in the years to come.
So over the last several years I’ve noticed a couple things while working with brides and grooms to be. One- clients don’t plan weddings often. Two- wedding planning seems to be overall stressful.
So to break those down- Most of my clients are planning their first ever wedding. They may or may not have experience from watching a sibling, relative or close friend plan their wedding, but even then there are a lot of gaps to be filled. Weddings are a ton of emotions, hopes, questions, confusion and finances all tied up into one big event. And while I see weddings so many times per week and month, this planning process is brand new for my clients. I’ve also noticed that as a vendor I have been able to help with a lot of those first time questions for clients as well, which I love!
Second, the wedding planning being stressful thing. I’ve noticed that wedding planning can go from exciting and exhilarating to panic and anxiety producing very quickly. I feel SO sad when I hear people say how much they dislike or disliked wedding planning. Or how they are excited for their wedding to be over so they don’t have to plan anymore. I guess for me wedding planning was such a special season in my life that I really just want everyone to enjoy it or at least have fond memories of it too. That isn’t to say that I wasn’t stressed while planning my own wedding. I was a mess a lot of the time, but I can look back on that season and honestly say that I loved it. And I am not trying to prove that wedding planning isn’t stressful either, but just that it can be fun if you want it to. So I thought if I started a podcast that took even a bit of mystery out of the wedding planning experience then maybe more people could enjoy it like I did! A little optimistic but hey I think it’s fun to try!
So none of this is not to say I am a wedding expert, gosh far far from it and I hope to interview some amazing and talented wedding vendors one day to share more of their expertise about wedding days. But it is to say I have experience and plenty of advice to offer to you. I will say you should absolutely take or leave anything I share on this podcast, it won’t hurt my feelings if you disagree at all. We will get into this one day but weddings are actually a very flexible celebration and I am not the wedding police.
So if you stick around some of the wedding related episodes you can expect to hear are about all sorts of things like first looks, wedding style, timelines- I have so much to share about timelines, veils, bridal party advice, toast horror stories (maybe on that one haha but it’s in my topic list and believe me I have heard some tremendously bad toasts over the years!) you might even listen to things like what your wedding photographer loves and struggles with and probably other wisdom nuggets that I don’t even plan to share but just sneak into the episodes.
What you won’t hear is me giving checklists of what to do or not to do on your wedding day, because it’s just that it is your day and you can do just about anything you want!
I will say that I am a photographer who loves big wedding days. That doesn’t always mean 500 guests or anything but I love the interactions and joy and sometimes chaos that the more traditional large wedding can bring. I have photographed several elopements but as a business I do specialize in typically larger weddings. So you might hear more advice and topics related to those on this podcast.
So in all I have a ton of goodness up my sleeve for wedding related episodes and I am pretty excited to share those with you soon. Well… once a week. Maybe twice a week one day if I have enough episodes recorded ahead of time. When I was brainstorming for this podcast I started with a list of wedding advice I could easily talk about and wow the list was longer than I expected. So I have a lot of content for you coming up! And how fun will it be to be able to share certain podcast episodes with your friends or anyone you know planning a wedding. I am so excited!
So that covers the weddings side of the podcast, but as fun and informative as a weddings only podcast would be I guess I am dreaming of more for this. Hence the name ‘Weddings and Life’. Basically I want to be your virtual podcast friend and share my life with you. While I don’t have this side of the podcast mapped out quite as well as the wedding topics I have some loose ideas of what I hope this can become.
I would love to share funny behind the scenes stories with you all, for example, once after I hung a bride’s wedding dress to photograph I accidentally stepped backward off a bigger platform, I’d say about 2feet, and fell straight onto my butt/back while hugging my cameras to my midsection. I still think back on that and realize how lucky I was to not break my tailbone or worse haha. At the beginning of a wedding day that would have been a disaster. As you might come to find out, coordination is not my strongest gifting.
I’d also love to share fun stories and lessons I am learning in each season. Like lately I’ve been learning the value of intentional date times with my husband Austin. I am actually fairly passionate about dating your spouse and am even dreaming up a date night idea episode, because let’s be real coming up with the date night idea is half the battle!
I also am dreaming of having Austin record podcasts with me, sharing about our love story, our wedding and changes we would make, and what it’s like to work together. Also I always think that Q&A episodes are pretty fun too. We’re definitely not marriage experts, I have no idea when the newly wed phase technically ends, or if I’m still there. I’d be happy to be there always really. Haha but I am excited to make episodes that encourage spouses to pursue eachother intentionally!
I have this sort of crazy dream that this podcast can be for more than just people planning a wedding, but that episodes can be encouraging and fun for anyone, whether you’re dating, engaged, married or hoping for that in your life someday.
I will mention this, I am a Christian, and loving Jesus is at the center of my life. It affects my work, play, marriage, everything. So my faith might come up when sharing my personal experiences here on the podcast, but this also isn’t a podcast about Christianity. This is for everyone. I obviously hope to never offend anyone, and I think that’s why I wanted to say something in this very first episode. This is just a part of my life and I happen to be making a podcast about my life and weddings. I honestly feel like that’s why I am so excited to make episodes that actively encourage growing in our marriages and relationships because those are so important to Jesus too. We will see where this combination takes us and I hope you stick around to find out in the hopefully many years to come.
So to recap it all, I want every episode to either encourage joy and understanding in the wedding planning process, or to encourage marriages, and future marriages. (I see you engaged and dating couples) And to be honest there might just be some bonus episodes where I give you all life updates or funny stories from my week.
Here is a little logistical note- I plan to publish a new episode each week. I will link anything I talk about in the shownotes of each podcast episode and I will also be publishing each of these episodes fully typed out on my blog. The blog will also be linked in the shownotes. I would always love to hear your feedback on episodes, and if you shared an episode and tagged me on your insta story Or even if you just send me a DM on Instagrm and let me know you liked an episode my heart will probably explode from joy. My instagram handle is @taylornicolephotography _ because I’ve been trying for years to get the real name and no luck. If anyone is friends with someone way up there in IG and can hook me up with a better handle I would owe you a lot of coffee haha.
So here’s to hoping we can be friends. Here’s to hoping I figure out how to edit and publish podcast episodes as I’m very far from that point as I’m recording this.I also can’t believe that this episode is only 13 minutes because when I outlined it I swore it was going to be like 30. I’m not sure about you, but I tend to like longer podcast episodes. But I am also not much of a public speaker, so maybe these will be shorter episodes to enjoy. And maybe I will think of things to add and I will edit this out and you will never hear it, or maybe this will just be the first episode. Either way, welcome to Weddings and Life with Taylor Nicole, thanks for joining this podcast journey with me.
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