Our Story Part III - TréCreative Wedding Photography&Videography
Last week, we started a four part blog series about our own story, how Stephen and I met, started dating, and got engaged! We are on week three of this series. If you missed last week's, go ahead and click on this link to read the first part and then come back to read this section!
Our Story Part III
Stephen had just left for college and I was a miserable mess! We hadn’t planned on when we would be able to see each other next. Keep in mind, I was a high school student and my parents weren’t so keen on me visiting my college boyfriend 500 miles away without them being around. I begged and begged for them to let me visit and they finally agreed with certain conditions.
I signed up for a weekend trip put on Stephen's school for prospect students. That was the only way my parents felt comfortable letting me go off on this trip, so I agreed and eagerly bought the tickets! The day finally came when we would get to see each other again. It had been over three months since seeing each other and it began to feel like the person we were talking every day on the phone was an imaginary friend. Our worlds had become drastically different and it made talking on the phone that much harder!
When we finally saw each other and embraced, it felt crazy. It confirmed that in fact, this person was real, our love was real and it gave us the confidence we needed to keep moving forward. If we could handle not seeing each other for awhile, we felt like we could do anything! The rest of the weekend I ditched every function and activity the school had put on to hang out with Stephen. I’m pretty sure by the end the staff of the program were growing suspicious about my mysterious disappearances, haha!
From then on, we would make a point to see each other during every other school break we had. I would visit Stephen one time before Thanksgiving and during my Spring break. He would then come home for Thanksgiving, and extended Christmas and his Spring break!
After growing up in Chico my entire life and seeing Stephen go off to college, the last place I wanted to be during our summers was in Chico. We wanted more freedom and a chance to explore some place new together! For a summer job we both applied to work at Mount Hermon Summer Camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Keep in mind, I was still in high school at this point so it was basically a miracle that I was hired. Mount Hermon became a really special place to us over the time working there. It was there that we worked all three of our college summers together before Stephen eventually proposed and started TréCreative.
Mount Hermon was the place that we learned how much we loved working together. Stephen was the camp videographer and I was a counselor who brought her camera around everywhere. As Stephen was quickly honing in on his video craft, I was quickly becoming more interested in portrait photography. I had an opportunity to second shoot at a wedding with another photographer and LOVED it! That last Summer we were encouraged by friends to start a business doing photo and video together and that idea never left our minds.
It was also at Mount Hermon where we fell more in love with one another. We were serving together, sometimes doing things we loved and other times things that were really difficult and grew our character. It was there that we first did youth ministry together and it constantly reminded us how important it is to love others well no matter what the circumstance was, or how much we didn’t "feel" like it. Mount Hermon is still a very special place to us, it will always be! But until next week, we'll let you know why it holds an extra special place in our hearts… Stay tuned for Part IV of Our Story series.
