We finally took professional family photos this past weekend, and I am so excited to see how they came out! I’ve been wanting to get photos done of the family for a while now, but I could never commit to a photographer and the process overwhelmed me to the point of procrastination so much. I think I had this PTSD fear from the last time I hired a photographer… at my wedding, and not being super happy with the photos on the biggest day of my life is still etched in the back of my mind. So in a way, I had this fear of disappointment looming over this experience that I didn’t want to come true and it was prohibiting me from making it happen.
Thankfully, this time around I feel really confident in our photographer. I’ve seen her work including our good friends, and loved them all.
So that is why I think it’s so important to…
Find a photographer you love and then book it
That was really be the biggest and hardest decision for me to make. There are so many photographers to choose from out there, it took me hours to search through recommendations and photos on Facebook. I suppose it gets easier each year when you can skip this part and go straight to booking your session with your beloved photographer.
I had finally found the one, and we booked a beach session. I thought the blues and neutrals would go great in my home, plus I’ve always wanted beach photos, so for the first time ever, it seemed perfect. The weather had other plans for us. Not only one, but two hurricanes made the beaches pretty much destroyed and unfortunately not a great backdrop for photos. And in some places dangerous.
Our photographer was so sweet to offer us a refund, but I said absolutely not. If I do that, I know myself, and it would be another year before I would figure out how and when to rebook. She has another location at Lake Luisa, which is more of a rustic field look that I also really love. So I went for that instead.
Outfit Selection
It’s so funny how we obsess about these things, but I do feel like the outfit selection is so key! For the beach session, I had light blues and pinks, that I thought would have been beautiful by the water with the sun setting. I’ll have to save that for next time, because I thought it just wouldn’t do next to the more rustic greens and beiges of the field. Again, lots of time researching and asking friends for advice to get this right! I couldn’t have done it alone!
Here was my option for the beach, which I still love!
And here is what we ended up with.
We had so much Fun!
I was super happy with the photographer, location and outfits. So then, the next thing was going through it! We showed up at Lake Luisa, right around 5pm. The weather was definitely chillier than we thought it would be, but our photographer was amazing and our nerves were quickly gone once we warmed up to the camera. The kids did so good and of course loved the attention. And I was so appreciative of all the poses our photographer did, giving everyone equal time in front of the camera.
The experience with the family was such a fun one, I loved capturing the kids in such a lovely and fun way. And that is the summation of this experience that I’ve realized, is that the experience itself was worth capturing. Having fun as a family and the memories made there alone was so much fun.
I cannot wait to share our photos with you all!
