Jess and Jason had a wonderful, intimate, family oriented wedding the week of Thanksgiving.  I spent my time before the wedding with Jess and the ladies (and a couple fellas) of the family getting ready for the ceremony. 

It was a wonderful time with the kids and snacks and plenty of hairspray.  Jess is lucky enough to be getting a sister-in-law who is in school for hair, so she was able to style Jess as well as several other family member's hair. 






 I totally fell for her shoes-- check out that heel!


It was important to the Bride and Groom to have the whole family involved in the wedding, especially their daughter, Layla.  Jess's siblings, niece and nephew as well as their daughter were all loving the hotel suite where they got ready. 


 Jess was ably assisted by her mom in the details of her outfit.



 Mommy and daughter's shoes.  I loved how they matched, and I know that Layla loved having a new pair of shiny shoes. 



I love this image of the future MIL's fastening Jason and his father's flowers while the Bride's brother and the Groom's sister look on.  It is so expressive of how this family has come together for Jess and Jason's big day.  It was so wonderful to meet you all and to be a part of your big event!

More photos of the ceremony and the family celebration afterwards are coming soon!

My engaged friend Jess and I originally met in a mom's group that we are both not involved in any longer-- however, the fact that she and her daughter Layla (or as my son calls her, "Laya") are both wonderful ladies we have stayed connected for the past several years.Now she and her fiance Jason are getting married this month and I have the honor of photographing their wedding.

I was so happy to hear of their marriage and honored to be asked to shoot their wedding as her friend, but when I learned that they are getting married in the gorgeous James J Hill Reference Library, which won one of Wedding Wire's Bride's Choice Awards for 2011, I was excited for an entirely different reason. The quiet and cozy atmosphere will be perfect for their intimate wedding ceremony later this week.

I hope you enjoy these, and I am so excited about shooting your wedding!

 Nick's mom, Tami, won one of my sessions in an auction for an organization we are both a part of: MOPS.  It was wonderful to meet her and her son for his portrait session in Nick's favorite hang out spot at a local park. 

The location was a perfect fit, it was open, gave the opportunity for both natural and urban backdrops and gave us plenty of space to do our thing.  When talking about possible sessions, Tami's first impulse had been to select this as a location, but wasn't sure if it would be suitable.  Usually this impulse is a good one, and it was wonderful to shoot Nick in a location where he has spent many hours having fun and
was comfortable.

Please excuse my dust as a few of these images have my old watermark as I am switching everything over to my new look.

Hope you enjoy your session preview!

 I had the honor of photographing Liam for his newborn photo session, and it is hard to believe that he is nearly a year old now.  He is pulling himself up, crawling, beginning to talk, and caused his photographer to exclaim out loud over and over at his gorgeous blue eyes.

His family and I met at the Westwood Hills for his one year/ family photo session and were lucky enough to be there before the majority of the heat and humidity. It was so easy to find photos to share here, but so difficult to pare down the choices for this session preview.  Hope you enjoy!  

 I recently had the pleasure of photographing a colleague of my husband's garden.  He and his wife were participating in a local Garden Tour and as a surprise for his wife, he had contacted me about photographing their extensive grounds, including a gazebo,  several ponds, fountains and even a three hole gold course on their property.

There were so many small touches that made it not only a pleasure to photograph, but a pleasure to simply walk around and absorb all of the fine details.  It was easy to see the years of personal attention and thoughtful planning that went into creating their garden.

It was hard to pick just a few images to share with you, so there are more than my normal sneak peek. 










The family is also thinking about renting out their grounds for weddings, senior photos etc. so I am hoping to use their garden at some point in the future.  Or, if you are looking for a place for your own photos, feel free to drop me a line!

Those of you that know me in real life know that I first got my start in professional photography through my work for a small community newspaper back home in Michigan, as well as through a variety of online journalism sites.  Since I have been working in portraits, I haven't been pursuing this as much, but I am happy to announce that one of my photographs is about to be in print.

Wisocnsin Trails Magazine recently contacted me about using one of my photographs from our trip to the Apostle Islands in their upcoming July/August issue in their article about Madeline Island and Big Bay State Park in northern Wisconsin.

I am so excited to have my work featured in their pages.  As a magazine both their writing and photography is wonderful, and to have my work included in its pages is an honor.  I also love the opportunity to stretch in another direction where I am not as concerned about pacing of a session, coordinating posing and movement of humans. This type of photography is so different because it is largely dependant upon me being in the right position to caputre what is there all the time, rather than assisting you to the proper place.

Megan and I met, at least virtually through mutual membership in a  Facebook group associated with a pregnancy website, although her little miss Liberty is a year and a bit younger than my son.  A group of women from the Twin Cities area formed a group to share parenting advice as well as important things like where the best splash pads and pediatricians are in our area.  When Megan mentioned she was looking for a photographer for her daughter's one year portraits, I was eager to help her out.  And it was nice to actually know who I was looking for at a session from her profile  photo. :)

She also mentioned that as her family photographer, she seldom got to be in photos and she and her husband were last in photos together at their wedding-- a common complaint from moms.  So we decided to also include photographs of her and her husband Chris in the session.  They also brought along Megan's mom Rebecca, which is a wonderful idea for family sessions. 

Grandma-- or some other family member-- are so helpful when there are little ones at the session: diaper and clothing changes are easier, blankets and lovies are safe in their hands, and they are wonderful at getting little faces to look where you want them to.  And since there were some photos that Liberty was not involved in, it was great for her to have a break from performing for the camera.

Megan, Chris, Liberty and Nana, I hope you like your session preview!