Every once in a while someone asks me why my collections have the names they do.
It's a question that always makes me smile because the honest answer is...I never really sat down and tried to come up with "good package names." In fact, I think that's probably why it took me so long.
When I began rebuilding Thirteenth Moon & Co., I had a blank page in front of me and a dozen tabs open for "inspiration." Every wedding website seemed to have collections named Gold, Platinum, Signature, Luxury. They were beautiful. Timeless. Professional. There wasn't a single thing wrong with them.
I remember staring at that screen thinking, *I can't do it.*
Not because those names weren't lovely.
They just weren't my story.
Starting this business again has been very different from starting it the first time. Years ago, I was focused on building a successful photography business. This time, I wanted to build something that actually reflected who I had become. Every page, every photograph, every word, every collection...I wanted it all to feel connected. If someone spent an hour wandering through my website, I wanted them to feel like they'd been invited into the same story from beginning to end.
That probably sounds like an awful lot of pressure to put on a few package names, but I've never believed names are just words. Names carry meaning. They become part of the stories we tell ourselves. Once we give something a name, it begins to take on a life of its own.
So instead of asking myself what sounded luxurious, I found myself asking a completely different question.
*What do I actually believe about weddings?*
I didn't think about photography first.
I thought about beginnings.
To me, a wedding has never been the finish line. It's the moment two people step into a life they haven't lived yet. They don't know what the next ten, twenty, or fifty years will hold. None of us does. They'll experience joy and heartbreak, ordinary Tuesday mornings and extraordinary celebrations, seasons that feel effortless and seasons that ask everything of them. Standing there together on their wedding day, they can't possibly see the entire road ahead.
They simply choose to walk it together.
The more I sat with that thought, the more I realized I wasn't looking at a wedding at all.
I was looking at a journey.
Once I understood that, the photography collections almost named themselves.
They became directions.
Not because one direction is more beautiful than another, but because every couple begins their journey from a different place. Some stories begin quietly in a backyard surrounded by family. Others begin beneath cathedral ceilings or under the branches of an old oak tree. Some couples have known each other since childhood, while others find each other later in life after roads they never expected to travel. There isn't one right path into marriage. There is only your path.
Photography has always felt that way to me. My job isn't to decide where you're going. It's simply to walk beside you for a little while and preserve the beginning of wherever life is taking you next.
As I looked at those collections, I remember smiling because something unexpected had happened. I hadn't been trying to create a theme. I had simply followed what felt true, and somehow the story was beginning to tell itself.
If photography was the journey, then planning needed to become something else.
Almost without thinking about it, my mind wandered upward.
I've always loved the night sky. Long before we had maps tucked into our pockets, people found their way by looking at the stars. They didn't need to see every mile ahead of them. They simply needed something constant enough to help them find their bearings.
That image stayed with me.
Planning a wedding can feel a lot like standing beneath a sky full of stars. There are so many voices telling you what your wedding should look like. Traditions. Expectations. Pinterest boards. Family opinions. Budgets. Timelines. Somewhere in the middle of all that noise, it's surprisingly easy to lose sight of what the day is actually supposed to mean.
That's where The Wedding Compass came from.
Not because I wanted to tell couples where to go.
Because I wanted to help them find their own North.
By then, another piece of the story was quietly falling into place.
If photography was the journey, and the stars represented guidance, then coordination couldn't simply be another service I offered. It needed to become the place where the journey settled.
I found myself thinking about trees.
If you've followed my writing for very long, that probably won't surprise you. I've always made sense of life through the natural world. Maybe it's the artist in me. Maybe it's the little girl who always found more comfort outside than anywhere else. Whatever the reason, when I'm trying to understand something, I almost always end up looking toward nature.
Trees have never seemed to be in a hurry.
They don't compare themselves to the forest around them. They don't rush through the seasons. They simply become what they're meant to become, putting down roots so deep that one day they provide shelter for someone else.
The more I thought about that, the more I realized it was exactly the kind of coordinator I wanted to be.
Not the loudest person in the room.
Not the center of attention.
Just a calm, steady presence.
Someone quietly paying attention to a hundred little things so the people I care about don't have to.
That's why those collections became Dogwood, Rowan, and White Oak.
Not because they sounded beautiful.
Although I think they are.
But because every one of those trees reminds me of the kind of care I hope people feel when they trust me with one of the most important days of their lives.
It wasn't until much later that I realized I'd been doing it all along. The photography collections had become directions. The planning services had become stars. The coordination collections had become trees. I hadn't set out to build a theme. I had simply followed the same instincts I've always followed, and somehow they all led to the same place.
When I step back now and look across Thirteenth Moon & Co., I don't really see package names anymore. I see a story that unfolded one small decision at a time without me even realizing it. The directions became the journey. The stars became guidance. The trees became the place where people could finally rest. Looking back, it all feels so obvious now. At the time, though, I wasn't trying to build a brand. I was simply trying to build something that felt honest.
Maybe that's what Thirteenth Moon & Co. has been trying to say all along.
Find your North.
Put down roots.
Bloom in your own time.
Those words aren't just a tagline to me. They're a reminder that the most meaningful things in life rarely happen all at once. We find our direction one step at a time. We build a home one ordinary day at a time. We grow into ourselves slowly, often without even realizing it's happening until we look back and see how far we've come.
Looking back now, I realize I wasn't really naming collections.
I was simply giving words to the way I've always understood love.
That every marriage begins with a journey.
That we all need something to guide us once in a while.
And that the strongest things in life are built slowly, with deep roots and steady hands.
I suppose that's why nothing here was ever named by accident.
May the Stars Always Guide You Home,
