Shannon & Brian - Anniversary Session

My dear, sweet & adorable friends are close to celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary! Before they got married last summer, they lived in separate cities and were long-distance. They got married in Missouri but immediately after, Shannon moved here to Chicago with Brian to officially start their married lives together. These photos are to celebrate their anniversary and to document their love in Chicago. The second I got out of the car at their apartment, this wall is the first thing I saw and told them we MUST do some photos here first!

Isn't Shannon SO beautiful?! The best part is that she's JUST as beautiful inside. She's one of my favorite people! 

We took a Lyft down to the Planetarium and we couldn't get close to our destination because of the U2 concert going on! We had to walk quite a ways, but we found a few spots along the way to take some photos. This grove of birch trees had the PERFECT light!

Found another spot!

Made it to the Planetarium just in time for some beautiful light, right upon sunset!

I LOVE how much these guys laugh together!

Quick impromptu dance party to the Lumineers playing across the way at Soldier Field for U2!

My favorite.

My other favorite.

Oh, and this one too! Who am I kidding, they're all my favorite!

I was adjusting my light and told them it was a test and this is what I got! It's an outtake but I just love how silly they are.

After we wrapped up at the Planetarium and I had claimed The End, we walked toward Lake Shore Drive to try and get a Lyft. Walking through Museum Campus, I saw this view and made them stop for "one more" and I'm so glad they humored me! 

Shannon & Brian, thank you SO much for having me document your Chicago love! I adore you both and love how much you love each other and the people in your lives. 

We asked a passerby to take a photo of the three of us and the girl thought we were taking prom photos! 

A Day for Moms

Happy Mother's Day! I'm thankful for my own mom, first of all, for letting me be whatever I wanted to be and for always being there for me. While getting this post together, I realized that I don't have any recent photos of the two of us so here she is below with her beloved grand babies. Love you Mom!

My own two sisters are also moms now and I watch them in awe as they go down the path of motherhood. My nieces are being molded by two of the strongest women I know and I see so much of my sisters in all of them. Girl power in this family, all the way! Happy Mother's Day Lindsey & Hilary!

Here are some of my favorite client mom and mom-to-be moments from over the years. I truly adore snuggle moments and the times you think I'm not clicking the shutter. Nothing makes my heart sing louder than moments between moms and their children and I love that I get to document such amazing women in my world. 

I hope this post will help some moms avoid saying no to being in photos with their children. So often I hear moms say they only want their children photographed and I die a little inside each time I hear it. You're beautiful exactly as you are and you deserve to be in photos with your children! Your children will appreciate it SO much when they're older and they won't even notice how sleepy you think you look. They'll just be looking at you laughing/snuggling/smiling with them and seeing just how much you love them!

Although I'm not a mom to tiny humans, I am a mom to a four-legged geriatric pooch whom I love and adore as if she were a human child. 

Emmie Lou - age 10

Here's to all the moms (in every sense) in the world, including my fellow dog moms! 

Flowers for Dreams

If you know me, you know how much I LOVE fresh flowers. And pretty packaging. Put them together and I'm sold. Flowers filling the bed of a vintage pickup truck? Are you kidding me?! So when I photographed the Vintage Garage show last weekend and there were Flowers for Dreams mini bouquets there from the EBTH booth, I felt like I myself was in a dream! Of course, I had to go home with a sweet, tiny bouquet to make my home a bit more cheerful.

I have seen Flowers for Dreams around the city a few times and have seen some Instagram photos but otherwise I'm not all that familiar with them. I did a little digging and am impressed with their story. Check them out; I'm thinking a subscription of flowers would be a marvelous gift for someone lovely in my life. And it's almost Mother's Day!