Hi there! Welcome back to the holidays as we’re just a few days until the start of Hanukkah AND are ONE week before Christmas & Kwanzaa-! It’s a crazy time for everyone and in the midst of all of this we’ve been trying to finish up printing photos and designing physical wedding albums for 25 couples 7 days a week-! Yesterday we location scouted a home in Granger for one of the 3 mega Christmas Portrait Sessions that we’ll capturing during Christmas week (i.e. starting this weekend) AND also finished up some photo product orders & wedding print packages for a whopping 18 couples-!! We have 6 couples who we’re waiting on to choose their final photos so that we can finish physical photos for them over the next couple weeks before January 1st, so we’re thrilled that we’re slowly but surely getting folks close to having their wedding photo physical products in their HANDS-!!
Amidst creating their photo products, we just found out a few days ago that one bride broke her arm over the weekend, one couple just bought their first house and move in THIS WEEK, one couple loves their new house that they got this year, one groom’s mom passed away within the past month, and one of our couples is expecting their first baby in just a few months-!! At least two of our couples had babies earlier this year, a few also had their first kids last year, a TON either moved to new states or bought their first houses, most got new jobs, and many got new pets, so it’s been amazing to get to witness the insane growth of these wonderful couples and their little families-!
One such family had a momentous trip 3.5 months ago! You may remember Caitlin & Joe, but if you don’t, these two were in Notre Dame’s band in college, they lived separately in Indianapolis and Pennsylvania before their wedding as one worked at a school for the deaf while the other got an MBA degree, we captured their Engagement Session in mid-2016 at a Michigan lake in a rowboat & on piers, we captured their wedding in mid-2017, they then moved to Nebraska, they bought a house, and then this year they had their baby this Spring! We had planned on capturing a Family Portrait Session of the 3 of them together this Spring if they happened to come back in town (so the plans were tentative), but instead ended up getting to capture a Lifestyle Infant Session of their 7 month old son John at the start of September-!
For the trip, this little family drove through 4 states in from Nebraska first to Chicago, then in to Indiana, down to Indianapolis to visit friends/ the old home city, and back up to us on the way back home to Nebraska-! Joe was actually in the Midwest for a friend’s wedding and Caitlin & her mom (who herself drove down from Minnesota to join in the fun) wanted to take the opportunity to travel around and get portraits taken, so little John got to meet many friends and go to many new states-!
When they all got to us near the end of their trip, baby John had a lot to eat prior to the Infant Session, so he may have regurgitated a couple of big times outside of the studio (maybe since it was so warm out or due to the travel & fullness), but since they were in on the rare trip from Nebraska we made sure that we captured little John when he was feeling better in between-! We loved his gorgeous eyes, cute rolls, beautiful hair, and laid back attitude!
Little John did make it inside the studio for a little bit before he started to feel a little crummy again, but he did get in a couple outfit changes into his brand new University of Notre Dame gear from his daddy’s alma mater that his mommy got him on the trip! We loved meeting this little guy 3.5 months ago and hope that he gets more trips back to see where his parents met back when they were in college (i.e. where they also got MARRIED)-!
Thank you so much Caitlin (and your mom) for introducing us to and having us capture little John in the first half of his first year of life-! It’s crazy that his first birthday is coming up so soon-!! We hope to get to see you all again soon and watch little John grow through the years. We know that you two are amazing parents, were so thrilled to get to see you three/ meet your son for the first time, and are glad to know that he’s a happy little guy with such loving parents-! It’s crazy that we’ve known you all for almost 4 years now and thank you for including us in some pretty momentous points of your life!! We wish you a Happy Holidays and early Merry Christmas-! (And we hope that the Christmas gift(s) are enjoyed!!)
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Unrelated: So far this week as of Wednesday we’ve scouted one of the locations for one of the 3 days of upcoming Christmas Family Portrait Sessions that we’ll be capturing during Christmas week while also this week having just printed and designed for 18 couples:
-630 photos printed for 7 couples
-5 physical Wedding Albums designed/ 4 printed so far
-3 Wedding Print Credit Packages finished
-1 Wedding Invitation card design finalized
-2 Canvas orders (in production)
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We have SO much more to do once the final clients make their last choices for this week so that we can print and ship in the next couple weeks before January 1st:
-300 More printed photos for 2 couples
-$800 Worth of Wedding Print Credits to fulfill for a handful of couples
-2 Physical Wedding Albums
We’ll also be editing that new handful of Family Portrait Sessions (that we’re capturing during Christmas week) during the first week of January before we head OUT across the country to visit our immediate families for our ANNUAL trip i.e. Belated Christmas since these last 2 weeks are FULLY dedicated to printing/ shipping for our clients and getting some nice moments with our little family on Christmas/ New Year’s Eve. It’s going to be a long couple weeks, but we’re organized & we’ve set boundaries (i.e. no work on Christmas DAY or New Year’s Eve) so that we don’t lose out on our family time here with our little family. We already feel like 2019- especially the fall- flew by amidst our craziest work year ever, so we do want to feel a little human again in the coming year/ start of 2020. We hope that you’ve enjoyed following the journey over the past 10+ years of photography, this past crazy year, and we can’t wait to tackle what’s in store for 2020-! Next week the blog will be on Christmas Day on Wednesday (which is the last Wednesday of 2019), so we can’t wait to share with you our own personal recent Christmas Family Portraits including our annual bathing suit bottoms Christmas Photo-! Catch you a week from today on CHRISTMAS DAY!