My friend Margaret, her husband Ryan & their ADORABLE boys met me in Cincinnati yesterday for a family photography session! The boys are so sweet… full of energy & always moving…. just like boys should be ) Little Liam was sleepy when he first arrived, so I jumped on the chance to get some shots of him cuddling with his daddy…

Doug was such a little ham! He did so good during our time together!
The whole family!

The awesome parents…. Thanks for bearing the cold with me, guys!

Last Saturday was another gloomy, cold day as I headed up to Miami University in Oxford for Carolyn & Aaron’s E-session. Once again, another awesome couple that were warriors through the blistering winds. We worked with the elements instead of fighting them & I’m loving the golden warm fall results.

L.O.V.E. this shot….. Probably my favorite of the day… Carolyn is so beautiful!

Congrats guys…. I can’t wait to be there for your big day next year! (..and bravo to Carolyn for having all of the planning done already! Whew!)

This next part is just for Aaron…. Beware, these shots are slightly National Geographic……

As we were walking over to a garden for some shots, I gasped as I saw the largest bird I’ve seen in person outside of the zoo perched in a tree above us…. Aaron insisted that I take some shots with my “super sweet camera”, so I obliged )

Same shot as above cropped in….. Can you see Mr. Hawk’s dinner?? Poor Mr. Squirrel!

Last week I cruised up to Tipp City, OH to shoot an engagement session with Kristen & Sam. It’s officially cold here in Ohio & the day of their shoot happened to be REALLY cold. I mean… cold. I am in desperate need of those gloves with the fingers cut out so I can still operate my camera… what did you say they were called again, Kristen?

Anyways, they were AMAZING! Really, totally made me forget that my fingers were numb. Totally rocked it despite the weather & we had so much fun. I am so stoked to shoot their wedding next year!

Here’s a little somethin’- somethin’ from our afternoon together…

Holy gorgeousness….

This photo makes me think of Sarah McLachlan’s song “Your Love is Like Ice Cream”….. This photo is seriously one of my new all time favorites….. It took me forever to figure out why the heck Sam was covering one eye & why Kristen was laughing so hard…. ) Seriously though, THIS is what I love about my job…. capturing couples being who they really are, which in this case is hilarious )

Today’s post is the last of a few wrapping up my Trash the Dress event a few weeks ago. So far you’ve seen Erin’s boudoir & muddy TTD session, Andrea’s food fight TTD, Sarah’s painting extravaganza & tonight I’m sharing Jackie’s shoot. If you’re just now joining in, I spent time a few weeks ago with a great group of photographers (Allie, Chris, Annie & Toby, Cailyn, Sheila, and Sarah) and we did several sessions in one day… It was awesome! Click their names to be shot over to their websites!

Jackie was really (REALLY) awesome… We started her shoot just as the sun was beginning to set & spent most of our time with her in the pitch dark. She had broken glowsticks all over her & her dress that, to me, gave a “bride with a broke down car on the side of the road” look. I know feeling slimy with the glow stick gunk couldn’t have been too great, but she ROCKED it. I mean, she was really incredible & somehow looked absolutely beautiful covered in that goop. Thank you SO much for being a great model, Jackie!

On to the shoot! )

So I was thinking that some of you following along with my blog may be seeing these outrageous Trash the Dress shots from my last few posts and be a little freaked out. You may be saying “who would do that do their dress?!” Well… I would )

A month or so ago, I went out with my photographer friends Annie & Toby from Varland Photography (click HERE to check out their site!) and 6 years after the wedding, I too trashed my dress. Here was my thought process with this decision:

#1: I wanted some funky shots of me in my wedding dress that, unfortunately, I did not get from my wedding day.
#2: My dress has been sitting in a garbage bag in the floor of my mothers closet for 6 years feeling very unused and ugly. I felt bad for it.
#3: I don’t plan on asking my daughter (should I ever have one) to wear it, as I’m sure it will be terribly out of style.

I decided to take the dress out for one last spin around the block. We shot a LARGE array of photos… Most of which didn’t even dirty the dress. If I would have decided to keep it in hopes of the daughter coming & the style changing, I could have taken it to the dry cleaners & it would have been good as new. (This is an option! Just because it’s called “Trash the Dress” doesn’t mean it actually has to be trashed… I’ve thought of changing the name just because it sounds so scary).

Most of my shoot was like this – the dress was still totally clean!

I wanted to go another step…. Water!

I didn’t stop there! If I’m going to do it, you know… Do it right!

I have to tell you, pouring paint on my beloved dress was pretty crazy! It felt crazy, but was SO much fun! My dress will be living on, not just through these photos, but I will also be wrapping a large portion of the painted dress around canvas & hanging it in my bedroom. I’m STOKED about my new pieces of art….. these images & my new wall-art!