2020 - A Year in Review - Will Greene Photography

Wow, ya’ll! I’m still in utter disbelief that it’s 2021. Back in March when the reality of the pandemic began to set in, I remember thinking to myself “Wow, I’ll really have something unique to write about for 2020’s Year in Review.” Little did I know just what all the year held in store for us. Ya’ll, I’m one that usually likes to sugarcoat things, but there is no sugarcoating the rollercoaster of a ride that was the year 2020. Please don’t get me wrong, it was full of soooooo many good moments, but I would be lying if I said it was easy. As a small business owner, we’ve had quite a unique journey, along with facing the pandemic from a personal standpoint. But even with the wild year we’ve had, we still feel so incredibly blessed to have full time careers in the wedding industry.

Like I said, 2020 was good to us in lots of way. We were blessed to capture 38 weddings. THIRTY-EIGHT, ya’ll! Six or seven years ago I only dreamed of keeping a calendar so full. And I thank God every day for the blessing of getting to do what we love. There were times during the spring that I wasn’t sure we’d even be able to capture half of our scheduled weddings this year. When wedding plans first began to change with covid-related restrictions, we found ourselves very LUCKY with brides choosing dates that we had available for them to move to. And in other situations we found ourselves very BLESSED that some couples valued us enough to choose their new dates based on our availability. To each of you that considered us when choosing your new date, please know that we are forever grateful for your kindness and act of love in doing so! So far we have only missed out on one couple that requested a full refund without keeping us up to date with potential date changes. Ya’ll, out of the wedding date switcharoos, that was nothing short of a miracle.

We had a wide-range of experiences while capturing these 38 weddings. Several of them were very small and some were very large. For one wedding, we were the two witnesses. Literally the bride, the groom, the magistrate, and the two of us. It was such a beautiful experience for us.

Some of the scariest moments of my adult life happened in 2020. To our knowledge, we were only exposed to covid once throughout the 2020 wedding season (although statistically I’m sure it’s happened more than once). Unfortunately, it was very early on in the pandemic and we hadn’t educated ourselves on the process of getting tested, timing of testing, etc. which made the whole experience a lot more daunting than it would be at this point. Another terrifying experience for us came late one Saturday night on our drive home from a wedding when Will spiked a 102 degree fever after we had spent the day with 100+ guests. After lots of prayer, a trip to Jacksonville (the only place I could find open on a Sunday), and a rapid test, we were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief and attribute the fever to the flu shot Will had received on Friday afternoon. (Just for the record - we still 100% support the flu vaccine.) We never envisioned spending most of the 2020 season in masks (much less the double masks we have rocked since September).

But looking back on the rollercoaster ride that was 2020, the first thing that comes to mind is a verse from 1 Corinthians that we hear at many weddings. “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Every single one of our 2020 couples surely experienced all three. Faith that everything would work out. A hope that their married life wouldn’t have quite as many obstacles as planning a wedding in a pandemic. And a whole lot of love. And I hope when I look back 20 years from now, it’s not the masks I remember. Or the complications of schedule changes. Or the fear I feel every time the phone rings in the week after a wedding, because I’m nervous it is someone calling to tell me we have been exposed. But instead I have faith that the memories I’ll have is of the love we witnessed.

2020 may not have been my favorite year, but it did encompass some of our favorite weddings, some of our favorite couples, and some of our favorite moments.

We hope you’ll enjoy looking back through 2020 in pictures with us!