What did you do with your dress after your wedding?

Mine is hanging up in my closet. I know that I probably should have gotten it preserved and cleaned…. but I just never got around to it. I’m not sure if it’ll ever be worn again, but maybe? Maybe my daughter will want it if/when she gets married… but who really knows.

I’ve had friends try on their dresses again years after their weddings to show their kids, or to surprise their spouses with, and always thought it sounded like a fun idea… so when this mama contacted me to PHOTOGRAPH her surprising her husband and kids in her wedding dress for their anniversary, I was so here for it!

Mommy and Me photo sessions hold a special place in my heart. Moms usually get the short end of the stick when it comes to candid family photos — we often have to resort to selfies, deal with our partner’s idea of a “good” picture (OMG the angles that he chooses! lol), or just not be in them at all. We moms NEED photos of ourselves with our kids… bonus points for photos that we actually love to look at and make us feel beautiful.

One of my favorite places for photos in the Vancouver, Washington area is at Wintler Community Park. (I was actually just there this weekend for an elopement wedding session… more about THAT to come at a later date!)

I absolutely LOVE the beach in general, and Wintler has the best “beach” for photos that I’ve found in the area. If you know of a better beach-y area, though, I’m all ears! So I was MORE than excited when Alexis and Karl agreed to meet me at the park for their engagement photos!

Last week I was thinking about self-love and body positivity and how many different definitions/ideas are out there about these terms. I know that I hear them all over the place, and, as a boudoir photographer, I use them a lot myself. So, I just wanted to take a minute to tell you all about *my* definition and philosophy around these terms … this will likely just be a complete brain dump... so keep that in mind. lol But, do read (or at least scroll) to the end and check out my FIRST EVER OUTDOOR BOUDOIR SESSION! (I’m pretty pumped about it… if you can’t tell. LOL)

One of my favorite things ever is when a guy is into his photo session. Something that I see a lot is the female partner schedules a family session, engagement session, couples session, etc. and the dude is just kind of along for the ride… I think that you can tell by these photos that Kelby was totally into it… and even took the lead sometimes!

Before I left town in August, I had a client book me for her own vacation experience. She came up to Vancouver to visit her sister-in-law and they booked boudoir sessions as a fun, “girls day out” activity. It was a blast!

After four weeks of adventures (river play, rock climbing, horseback riding and goat milking, trampoline jumping, park exploring, deer spotting, and so much more), yesterday we made the LONG drive home. It was very bitter sweet to pack up our (INCREDIBLY) dirty van and drive away from our little house for the last time. I’m sad again just writing this, honestly. It was an absolutely amazing adventure that I’m SO glad that we were able to experience. We made some memories and DELICIOUS lemonade out of these shitty COVID lemons that we were handed. I hoping that this trip is how my kids remember 2020.

Several of these images show one fierce, bad-ass woman… but really, there was SO much laughter going on! It was a great way to spend an afternoon. =) Every time that I wanted a genuine smile, I just had to ask her to “think about that thing that your husband did…” It brought the magic… and I was happy NOT knowing what she was thinking about! ;)

Last year I had the honor of documenting Kaiden’s birth story. I’ve photographed his mama several times and was very excited when she asked me to be at the hospital with her to photograph her son’s birth. You can read all about how bad-ass this woman was (is!) and I was absolutely pumped to work with them again and get to see this little guy a full year later! (I seriously can’t believe that it’s already been over a year!)

Last year Kim booked me to photograph her birth at Portland Providence Medical Center. Not only was I looking forward to documenting another birth story with another family, but my daughter was born at Providence and I was excited to return and reminisce! This would be Kim’s fourth child, and she already knew he’d be delivered via cesarean section. This would be another first for me, but I was totally up for the challenge and new experience!

And then… well… you all know what happened.

I get requests all the time for location suggestions for photos. I definitely have some beautiful places where I love to photograph my clients, but you don’t need a gorgeous park, open field, or other amazing venue to get beautiful images. I’ve done sessions on street corners, parking garages, next to porta-potties, and in moving box filled houses… you don’t need perfection, you just need you and a photographer with a creative eye!

In celebration of my 10 years wedding anniversary, I asked people to submit their own proposal stories. I loved reading through these, and hope you all do, too!

After hanging out in the master bedroom, we moved across the hall to Elliot’s nursery. As you can tell by the decor, this family has an affinity for a certain film enterprise… With this beautiful Star Wars nursery, I’m actually a little surprised that they didn’t name their little one Leia! I’m looking forward to seeing their Halloween costumes over the years… =)

I walked away from Brittney’s studio thinking about how I had doubted myself, how good I felt, and how I couldn’t wait to see how everything turned out. When I sat down with Brittney to look at all the pictures I wanted to cry. I looked BEAUTIFUL. All of the things I had worried about showing up in the pictures I didn’t even see. My body looked strong, I looked fierce. Every picture I saw made me appreciate myself more. I wanted to cry looking at them, why couldn’t I just trust myself? This was an experience I will never forget and something I will always look back on (especially when I’m doubting myself).

I’ve said this SO MANY TIMES before, but having boudoir photos taken is such an AMAZING experience! And something that I think every woman should do! Here are just a few of the “Why’s” for you to consider…

As I was sitting on my couch reading, I came across this passage… and it hit me… hard. I HAD to stop and document it. And then immediately posted it on my social media because it was just… so much… “Yes”.

I feel like you all are going to learn a LOT about me while we’re all quarantined. lol Without new sessions and material to share, and I’m going back to my list of “oh I should I write about that someday!” blog post ideas. ;) One of which is how I got started in photography…