This week in the midst of our belated Christmas/ Annual Immediate Family visits our in Arizona & California (which ends in a few days), we’re sharing with you a recent Surprise 30th Anniversary Party that we were lucky enough to capture! One of their daughters had reached out to us about wedding photography the year prior that was literally one December ago, so it was great to hear from her again in such a momentous month for their family! Over a month prior to their event, she reached out to us seeing if we’d be available a couple days after Christmas to be able to capture a surprise party she and her siblings were throwing their parents for their parents’ 30th Anniversary!
In November we’d decided we were not going to take on any other clients for 2019, but a few folks reached out to us about capturing huge Family Portrait Sessions literally the week of Christmas on the only date the entire family would be together during the year, so we figured even though we were already working 7 days a week through Christmas editing, designing, printing, packaging, shipping, and delivering for our 2019 clients, that we’d (in the spirit of Christmas) kindness make an exception for these families and open those 3 of our dates a couple days before and after Christmas for availability since they were looking for family memories to be captured on the rare occasion where they’d all be together-!
We’re so glad that we made time for this family-! We arrived at Iron Hand early since we didn’t want to ruin the surprise and were glad to see the back left corner partitioned off to hide guests since the rest of the Wine Bar was functioning and open to the public. We hid in the back corner practicing the lighting for when these two would come in for their surprise 30th Anniversary and anxiously awaited a text as their 40 guests mingled around us. Their kids tricked them into thinking that maybe they were stopping by for a quick drink or snack, so things were in motion!
Finally it was time and the kids ushered their confused parents into the wine bar at The Armory! They walked into the building suspecting nothing and were met with “SURPRISE!” and cheers as they approached the hidden party area!
These two were in utter shock, so their kids did very well! Guests hugged and congratulated them on their 30th Anniversary as they tried to realize that they were at a party for themselves!
We photographed everyone mingling and them heading around to thank all of their guests!
Their kids did a great job organizing the entire Surprise Party! So many loved ones and guests showed up to celebrate the 30th Wedding Anniversary and seemed to really enjoy the wonderful company, wine, and foods!
Near the end made sure to set up some studio lights and capture some group photos of these two and their family, friends, old classmates, and more!
((We even squeezed in a photo with all 50 guests!))
By the time we left the party they had another hour left in their party area to enjoy their appetizers, drinks, and mingling (though many probably stayed since Iron Hand Wine bar was opened until 11 p.m. that night)-!
Thank you so much to your daughter and your kids for hiring us to capture your 30th Anniversary Surprise Party and we hope that you all had a blast the rest of the night! We hope that you all love the photos from the party and had a good rest of your holiday weekend-! We’ll check back in with you all when we return from our belated Christmas immediate family visits in Arizona this week!
___________Unrelated: We’re so thankful for our petsitters being at our home with our pets while we’re away. We’ve enjoyed our belated Christmas visits to our immediate families across the country in Arizona and California, but are also looking forward to getting home, organizing, being with our pets, and finishing up the last photography work of January before we head into February with more wedding meetings and updating our entire website with 2019’s weddings and portraits-! It’s been a hell of a year, so coming up next week we’re doing our Best of 2019 Weddings annual blog post highlighting our favorite wedding moments from the past year next Weekly Wednesday-!
We’ve never done but should also do a Best Of Portrait Sessions of 2019 (and previous years) at some point, but we’re about a year behind on updating our weddings, Family Portraits, Engagement Sessions, pricing, Infant Sessions, and more on our website, so that and Wedding Consultations in our office take precedence this winter. We’re hoping for a bit of breathing and down season in the second half of February (because we also have to re-clean and re-organize the offices and studio TOO), but for now we’re happy that we were able to get out to our immediate families for a Belated Christmas! 2019 was crazy because we skipped it, but then ended up going to Arizona for one immediate family at Easter, then the other immediate family for our niece’s baby shower & BIRTH! It all panned out in the end without us planning it, but we’re glad that we got to meet the new dog Abby and see our 4 month old niece again! (We even took Professional Portraits for the Maternity Announcement for one sibling and some portraits of our niece who was born 4 months ago-! 2 kids in one year: our first niece from Jason’s only sibling & the next kid is on the way from Jenny’s only sibling!) We’ll catch you next Weekly Wednesday with our annual Best of 2019 Weddings!