The past three years have been some of the best years in my life. I married the love of my life (almost four years ago), had two beautiful and amazing baby girls, and brought Holly and Bri onto my Merry Character Photography team. Bringing on the girls was one of the greatest blessings in my business because it allowed me to work less, and be able to spend more time with my new baby in a new city across the country. In the past three years, Holly has become one of my very best friends alongside being an amazing photographer. Bri has always been one of my best friends, and I am grateful she agreed to second shoot for me all those years ago. These two woman have impacted my life immensely & I never will be able to repay them for the love and passion they put into my business for me.

Just before my second daughter, Ruby, was born I asked Holly to take on more roles. She started doing all of the blogging, she started editing, she literally started doing everything but being the person who signed the checks on the bills. Even so, I became so much more overwhelmed in my new role of being a mom of two & with a husband who is occasionally gone for long stints of time, the pressure I had on myself to be a good mom, wife and boss were weighing heavily on me.

Three days ago, I made the final decision to dissolve Merry Character Photography, the Montana portrait photography branch. It doesn’t make sense for me to be Holly’s boss anymore. She has all the talent, tools, and energy to be her own business and for me to be able to jump back fully into the roles I absolutely love – being a mom, wife and being a wedding photographer. Holly has the capability of providing the awesome experience I taught her and she has been providing for the past three years, under her own business name.  I am SO excited for her and this new adventure. Havre and the Hi-Line is extremely lucky to have her to continue to spread her joyfulness through her images! In my opinion, she is one of the best photographers ever & I am so very proud of her.

I am sure you know how amazing Holly is if you have 1. ever met her or 2. stood in front of her lens. She is full of raw talent in photography that is very hard to come by. That is why I chose to train her and bring her on to Merry Character Photography in the first place. She was joyful, youthful and eager to learn. She is still all of those things and more. Holly has had to juggle the hardships of keeping Merry Character Photography up and running in Havre the past three years with me being thousand of miles away. While I worked behind the scenes on the business part & editing – Holly was quite literally doing everything else.

Bri was brought onto the team to help fill the gaps in our wedding season and to step in as the badass boudoir photographer she is. She has flourished in being a photographer on top of getting her masters degree, working an intense 9-5/on-call job and being a wife. She has an amazing eye for photography and I will always be in awe in the fact she has no other training but me (that isn’t a toot of my own horn, you can’t teach someone to have talent). I am grateful for her support and love and “go-with-the-flow” attitude towards change. Bri, I hope you know how much I appreciate you, believe in you, and support you. Love you longtime my friend.

As for me, I have a giant weight off my shoulders. After nine years of pouring into my Hometown Havre business with everything I have, I am very relieved to be able to have a new adventure of being a wife and mom, while getting to serve my wedding clients. Wedding photography is where my heart lies when it comes to my career, it is where my passion is and I am PUMPED to be able to serve more joyful couples on the best day of their lives! I will be taking a limited amount of weddings each year to be able to serve them with the best experience possible – “them” being both my amazing couples and my sweet baby girls.

So with that said, I hope you hop over and support Holly Pattison Photography. If you have ever been photographed by her, I hope you can leave her a positive review on her facebook here and her google page here. This is one of the best ways you can support her during this transition; that and getting your family’s portraits done 😉

Thank you for your constant support and love.

With hugs,

Mary