I am so excited to be sharing this family session with all of you! From the moment I started messaging with Jaclyn, I knew I was going to just love taking their pictures!! I love to photograph such sweet families, and it makes it 50x better when they are just as excited as me!

I had TWO engagement sessions this past weekend, which really made my heart happy! I love getting to see my brides and meet their grooms! This engagement session was extra special because I had not even met Gigi yet! We were so excited to finally meet in person, after talking through emails for months. I knew I would love her just from our emails and because she has booked the sweetest wedding planner – Jamie with Jamie Lynn Signature Weddings. Jamie & I have been friends for a couple years now so when she contacted me about one of her brides, I knew this would be a great match up! Jamie knows me and knows my work, also she & Gigi have been friends FOREVER, so I was fully confident that she knew what she was doing by putting us together (this sounds like we were being set up on a blind date! Ha! Sorry Mick!).

Anna and Travis grew up in the same hometown. They went to school together and started dating back in high school when Anna was a sophomore and Travis was a junior. These two have been through ring dance, prom, homecomings, then stayed together through all of those college years and now, here they are! More in love and just as taken with each other! The sweetness Travis has around Anna, and the giggles she gets when talking to him, definitely showed us they are legit crazy for one other!

Today, I am going to talk about some tips for planning your family session! There is actually a lot that goes into this and I am probably not hitting on all of it! When you start involving children in picture sessions, things get tricky. Let’s just be honest. You have to be prepared for E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!! Am I right, mamas? Most likely, on the day of the session, the mom has 100 things running through her mind and she is grabbing/doing 50 things just while walking out the door. She is lucky if she remembered to put all of her makeup on or grabbed the right shoes. I am so impressed when families show up with 3 or 4 kids and just have it all together! More power to you because I am struggling to get places with just the TWO that I have!

Happy Fri-YAY! I am hitting you with some advice today! Here we go!! I love engagement sessions – it’s no secret! I feel like they are SO important to the wedding experience and..basically..they are just fun! Some times couples won’t want to do them because they don’t think they need them or don’t think they will like them, but NEVER have I had a couple leave an engagement session regretting that they did it. NEVER! If anything, the guys end up telling me how it was actually fun or they actually didn’t hate it (those are huge compliments coming from a groom), and the girls are just so happy they have these pictures of them with their fiancé!

Owning your own business is such a wonderful blessing! It gives you so much freedom, joy, and pride! I love being able to be home with kids all day, then go out and work with such great clients in the evenings (or on the weekends because…WEDDINGS). But…let’s be honest…being a stay at home mom can lead to lonely days. Owning your own business and being your only employee can also lead to many lonely days. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer screen. A lot of nights are spent at photo sessions and many Saturdays are spent at weddings instead of out with friends, at family birthday parties, or wherever else. I don’t regret those things one bit, so please do not read that the wrong way, it is just the truth. As with any job, you have to make some sacrifices. I still make lots of time for my kids and family, but you get what I am saying, right?

You guys…wedding season is literally right around the corner and, I don’t know about you, but I am getting so anxious!! A good anxious! I don’t think I will ever NOT feel that way, and I hope I always do. Right before any session I get that nervous/excited feeling, just because every session is different, every client is different, and I am excited to see the beautiful images we are about to take! Also, I just love getting to know my clients more!

I am so excited for y’all to see the pictures of this couple! Brittany contacted me a couple months ago about taking her maternity pictures and we immediately set a date & started talking about outfits and locations. We went back in forth on some ideas and decided on two local spots – one being Josh’s parents’ land. This property is GORGEOUS!! The drive way is about a mile long (so you start wondering if you are really just driving into endless woods), but then it opens up to huge fields! I can just picture little kids running around those fields at grandma & grandpa’s house.

When I became a photographer, I did it because I wanted to capture the joyful, beautiful moments in people’s lives for them so that they could hold on to those memories forever! Those pictures could be something that they hang on their walls, put in their family albums, or pass down to their kids and grandkids so that everyone can remember. That is what you want from your pictures, too, right? Well, choosing the person to take those photos for you means thinking through a few things and doing a little research. Now, you may have someone very close to you that is a photographer and you love their work so – BAM – it is a no-brainer for you. However, some people don’t have that. OR maybe you like multiple photographers – GASP! Is that even allowed!?! Of course it is!! I have a lot of photographers that I love and I would absolutely use quite a few of them! So how do you decide who you should choose or what even to look for? Here are 4 things I think you should think about when searching for you photographer.

As we discovered yesterday – OUR BABY GIRL IS SIX!!! She woke up for school this morning and was excited for her first day as a six year old! Every thing is different now that she is six…according to her. She is can wear different clothes and do more things. She has a whole new view on everything, which is quite hilarious. We are just going with it. When I was braiding Hayley’s hair this morning, I said “How did you get so pretty?” And her response was, “It’s because I’m six.” Well, there you have it folks.