2014 Resolution Grading & A Look at 2015’s Goals & Resolutions

Images: Sarah Williams

It’s time for a post on our 2015 business goals, but first I wanted to grade myself on the goals/resolutions I made in 2014. We officially announced our 2014 resolution with our first-ever reader survey and the name of the game was Follow-Through. In May I graded myself, and checked in on some of the projects I started, giving myself a B for the professional projects I had planned and a C+ for the personal side of things.

I think I would have to say that I would up my grades a LITTLE both professionally (B+) and personally (B-), as our 2014 Recap proved that we actually accomplished quite a bit in our business last year and I do think I was better by the end of the year at showing up to things that I said I would attend. I think “follow-through” was a great word for me last year and I want to continue to strive towards that this year too. But the word for 2015 is going to be: COLLABORATION.

In addition to continuing to to get shit done and follow-through on my big ideas, I REALLY want to focus on collaborating more this year. This means more guest posts, more partnerships, and more co-execution of things. I’ve already started 1 major collaboration project with the raddest design ladies in DC, Typecase Industries, but I don’t want to stop there. I think this blog could SUPER benefit from more collaborations like the one I started last year with Jen of Ribbons & Bluebirds for all our amazing DIY tutorials. So here’s my call to YOU readers & vendors alike, I want to work with YOU to help continue to make Capitol Romance even more awesome. This means I am looking for:

1. Advice pieces from vendors

2. Advice pieces from past brides & grooms

3. Tutorials & help pieces specific to your vendor area

Think you got an idea for one of these items? Just shoot me an email (bree [at] capitolromance [dot] com) – I’d love to hear from you!

So the word of the year for 2015 is collaboration, but I also want to share some personal/professional business goals to help keep myself honest. This year is going to be CRAZY. And to be completely honest, I really don’t even know what this blog will look like come May, but I hope in setting some goals, it will help guide me through this uncertain year and ensure I come out on the other end still breathing and happy. So here are my Top 3 business goals:

1. Being Honest to You, My Readers

Honesty is going to be key here in 2015. And to me that means no empty promises. So let’s start with this: there’s a good chance I will not be blogging 5 days a week this year. With a full time job, this blog, wedding coordination clients, training a new assistant, running workshops AND a baby on the way, well I just can’t promise that there will be something new here every day. BUT that being said, I will promise not to get lazy on content here. I promise not to let the quality of posts fail, just because I can’t get something up every day. I figure quality over quantity HAS to be a better approach.

2. Expanding the Topics on the Blog

This is something I slowly started to do in 2014, but really want to do more aggressively in 2015. The fact of the matter is, there are a MILLION places to get wedding information and resources in DC and on the internet these days – so what really makes this place so damn special or unique? I wanted to blog more marriage-focused posts in 2014 (this didn’t happen, but I hope it will in 2015) through sharing anniversary features. I’d still like to do this – so couples & photographers – PLEASE send me your anniversary shoots! I’d love to hear more about your life post-wedding :)

Thanks to my 2014 reader survey (and really just some common sense), I also know that I don’t have JUST engaged couples reading this blog. Lots of people here are married or maybe read as a vendor, and so I’d really love to expand this blog a bit to give more digestible/usable content to those readers. And let’s be honest, I got married FOUR YEARs ago. My advice on weddings is probably getting stale at this point – I’ve personally moved on to learning about real estate, purchasing an investment property, trying to run a small business, and now jumping into motherhood. NOW let me just say that I have NO intentions of this blog becoming a mommy blog (back to #1. Honesty) I have PLENTY of thoughts so far on this new chapter of my life, but Capitol Romance will NOT be the venue for that. That isn’t to say though that you probably won’t see some of these thoughts/opinions creeping into my Twitter & Instagram accounts, because you will.

So bear with me while I try to navigate how to make #2 happen gracefully. And as always, your feedback is ALWAYS welcome. I’d love to know how you feel about expanded topics, things you miss, and so on and so forth. My email inbox is always open. (literally, I never close gmail).

3. Being Happy With What I Can Accomplish & Control

This will be an important one for me. As I mentioned in my 2014 recap, I already am slightly worried (to be honest) that 2015 won’t come close to 2014 in terms of accomplishments. But I need to realize – there is NOTHING wrong with that. Every year just can’t be the craziest year of growth because priorities change. This year will be the first year of my life that SO much will be out of my control. I can try as much as I want to plan what I can and accomplish what I can, but there is going to be A LOT of times where I just need to accept the fact that I can’t do it all.

And that is perfectly OK.

So bring it on 2015. I am excited to collaborate with new people (and old people too!), excited to try out new posts on the blog, excited to make plans (that never happen), and excited to take on the challenge of not being able to control every aspect of my life. It’s going to be fun. (Right?).

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