I’ll start by saying this: moving across the country was the last thing I ever expected I’d do, let alone in the last year of my life. While change was something that I’ve felt on the horizon in recent years, I don’t think I realized how drastic it would be, but the last six months have been the shakeup that I know I (and this business) have needed.

In 2020, I had moved back to the area in Oregon that I grew up in after graduating college, started settling down, established myself & did really well in my first year of full-time business ownership, and began what I’d always assumed my life would be as an adult. The end of 2021 & beginning of 2022 marks the point where my very structured, predictable life felt like it was flipped upside down. A seven year relationship ending changed all of my life plans, shifted what I had known for the last third of my life, and really made me evaluate everything. I dove headfirst into work— the thing that I do best, my primary focus of the past five years, and proooobably my favorite avoidance tactic. 🥴 What I didn’t realize, was that this sent me even further into the phase of burnout that I’d cemented myself into by putting 90% of my energy into this business since I was 18 years old.

Things started to shift for me when those clouds from 2021 lifted and I began to see other areas of my life that needed cultivating. As my time was slowly allocated away from my business into friendships, family, and hobbies, I looked at things differently from a business perspective. I had been living on autopilot for years before, made the goals that I thought I was supposed to, and had never really stopped to look at what my life as a whole looked like. My business coach had instilled in me that my business should support my life, and not the other way around, and this hit me in a way that it hadn’t before. In all honesty, I wondered if I really did love doing this, or if I felt like I needed to because I had worked so hard for it— and it was all I’d ever known.

Summer of 2022, I fell in love in a way that I never thought was possible for myself. I met Nick, a handsome wildland firefighter, on a complete and unexpected whim, and he opened my eyes to a world so much different than my own. On our first date, we talked about the trip that I was planning with my mom— coincidentally, to his hometown in Colorado.

I taught him to rollerskate, showed him around the state that raised me, and he gave me a glimpse of what life & love should be. It’s been a beautiful process, and one that shocked me out of autopilot.

I realized that I do love what I do, but that I need simplicity in my business to allow for the exploration of my life that I craved. I had spent years implementing complex processes and intense design experiences, and while these dialed me all the way into my photographer clients and made me an expert at designing for them, it was all too much. Too much for me, and too much for them. Extended years in this business had lead me to burnout, and projects that took six months tended to do the same. And so, The Brand + Website Boogie was born. Using my extensive knowledge on the photography industry to craft a design experience that lasted only a week was exhilarating.

Early 2023, after months of back and forth, Nick accepted a job in his hometown for the upcoming fire season. What initially was the promise of a fun six months in Colorado became a full time opportunity. It was a hard few months, realizing that this new life I wanted to explore would take me away from my friends, family, and the only place in the world that I had ever known. But— we’re here, and things have strangely come full circle. I never imagined that I’d be moving across the country with a firefighter from a dating app, and especially not back to his hometown, the place we’d discussed my upcoming trip to on our first date. Funny how life works out, isn’t it?

The last two years have been an intense evolution for me as a person. I’ve grown and changed beyond what I ever expected, and it’s only fitting that this business gets the same evolution. I’m so happy to share this rebrand & relaunch that’s caused me to fall back in love with everything that I know I was made to do. I can’t wait to continue helping you do the same. 🫶🏼