Let’s say you are looking around for the perfect photographer for your wedding. You’re checking out websites, asking for pricelists, etc. You finally find THE photographer who is available for YOUR day. Yippee!! Now what? Hire them to spend all day with you at your wedding? Better yet, hire them for the wedding as well as an engagement session!!

I think it is so important to get to know your photographer. Not just their photos, but the actual photographer. Anyone can look at photos of other people and say “oh, they look so pretty!” Discover how you look through your photographer’s lens. Relax and have fun!

If you’ve picked the perfect photographer for you, you should feel comfortable around them and you should LOVE your photos! If you are happy with how your engagement photos turned out, you can relax and trust in your photographer to get amazing images on your wedding!

I like to make the entire wedding photography process simple for my clients and so I offer a complimentary engagement session with every one of my wedding collections. I put myself out there on the blog and on facebook, but I want to get to know YOU. I want you to know it’s okay to laugh at my lame jokes. I want you to have fun and show me how much you love each other and are excited to get married!

The photos that result from an engagement session are an awesome reminder of how in love you are with each other. You’ve met the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and you’re about to make it official! I can’t stress this enough – HAVE FUN!!

Have you ever received an unexpected letter or card in the mail?

There is something so wonderful about a hand-written note that just melts my heart. Unlike an email or facebook message (which make my heart flutter when they include lots of smiley faces and exclamation points), writing a note takes time. To sit down, grab a pen, and use a stamp, envelope, and cute return address label.

I like to call hand-written notes ‘love notes.’ Whenever I receive a ‘love note’ from someone I’ve taken photos for, I can almost feel them hugging me with their words of thanks and appreciation.

Here are just a few that I have received in the past year. If you look closely, you’ll see that two are from Brittany, who also loves love notes. :-)

p.s. Hand-written exclamation points, hearts, and smiley faces always ALWAYS give me the warm fuzzies. :-)

“sayWHA?!”

Yes, that’s right. This past weekend my family celebrated Christmas. And Thanksgiving. And my birthday. And it was FABULOUS! Lance and I got home just after my brother and his family, and just before the ‘bad weather.’

The next night, we opened presents. Because someone kept asking “When can we open presents? When can we open presents?” And it wasn’t my three-year-old nephew. :-)

Since Jonas got a train set for his birthday, I gave him a train conductor outfit for Christmas!! When I was little, I had a McDonald’s outfit and I played restaurant ALL the time.

Thank goodness Lance has so much energy to entertain Jonas all weekend! :-) In between helping everyone open their Christmas presents, Jonas would come over to Lance and they would pop the bubble wrap used in some of the boxes.

Jonas also likes to snuggle and giggle with grandpa.

Isaac is already three months old!! Did someone say ‘time for a photoshoot?!’

Baby burrito!! :-)

Time to go sledding!

This is how Isaac felt about being outside in the cold:

“Aunt Laura, what does this do?”

“Hold it up to your face and find out.”

Snuggle time with grandma!

And of course I got some snuggle time in as well. Whenever I sat next to the Christmas tree, Isaac would stretch to look at the lights.

Caramel bourbon spice (birthday) cake.

It’s okay to be jealous. :-)

Apparently mom doesn’t keep birthday candles around the house.

“Aunt Laura, how many numbers are you?”

Me and my nephews! What more could a girl ask for on her birthday?!

I want to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes! I had a fabulous day and it was a great way to finish up the holiday weekend with my family!

I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving! This year I was thankful for good health, family, my wonderful boyfriend, new friendships, and everyone who has trusted me in the past year to document their marriages and growing families. And caramel bourbon spice cake. :-)

It’s no secret that my absolute FAVORITE part about weddings is the moment the soon-to-be husband and wife see each other for the very first time on their wedding day. It’s so sweet and romantic and special!

I am so lucky that most of my couples opt to do a ‘first look.’ As soon as they are ready, I arrange for just the couple to meet someplace quiet before we start taking portraits.

I keep my big zoom lens on for these photos so I don’t distract my couple. I want this moment to be for them. So that they can have this time to hug and kiss and hug some more and tell each other how GOOD they look!!

I think I forgot to mention how exciting this is for couples!! Sweet, romantic, special and EXCITING!!

I let my couples have as much time as they’d like to have to themselves. Again, this is their wedding day. They are the ones getting married. And for the rest of the day, they will be talking with all their friends and family who have traveled so far to help them celebrate.

Of course, this is the perfect time to exchange letters or even (surprise) gifts. :-)

After the ‘first look’ I move right in to couple portraits. Doing a ‘first look’ before the ceremony gives us as much time as we want to explore different locations for photos. This also extends the ‘just bride and groom’ time before inviting the wedding party to join us for some more photos!

If you have any questions about the ‘first look,’ let me know!!

My family is celebrating Christmas over the Thanksgiving weekend. So of course I already have all my Christmas shopping done. And of course I have all the presents wrapped. So naturally I have my Christmas tree up and decorated. And you can’t have a Christmas tree up without a Nativity scene set up.

And you can’t have your apartment decorated for Christmas without a whole bunch of tasty treats to munch on!

As I was putting the drizzle on the peanut butter balls, I had Willow Smith’s song stuck in my head. Except I was whippin’ my fork back and forth, splattering chocolate drizzle all over the place. :-)

There might have been a one-person dance party in my kitchen.