This little one year old has grown so much. She is on the cusp of walking, always following her big brother, and scientific in her discovery of the world around her. Ruzena is a doll, and I loved photographing this milestone of one year along with portraits of her family. With shades of ivory and cream, yellow, and light blue this family put together a perfect ensemble. In the end clothes got a bit dirty… and wet, but it was worth it to go in the creek! I appreciate that their parents weren’t afraid to let them play, and I think it made the session even more fun. Take a look!

I don’t know about you, but planning the schedule of a wedding day is hard work. What time should we finish getting our hair done? When will the flowers arrive? How long do we need for family photos? They questions easily pile up until they overwhelm you and you abandon them to be answered another day. For those of you working with a wedding coordinator, you can sit back and relax as they do the work for you. If you are doing the planning yourself, then read on!

Take a step back and ask yourself some bigger questions before you get down to the details. What’s most important to you on your day? How do you want to experience the day – and how do you want your guests to? I’ve written posts in the past about wedding day schedules, and featured different weddings to show the order of events for that particular day. This time I have something different for you.

Recently I put my first wedding photography guide together for clients. I know, it only took 5 years and the pressure of less time due to a baby for me to get my act together. I’m more productive under pressure, which I think works well with being a wedding photographer. In that guide I made a list of the typical events on a wedding day : bridal party photos, ceremony, cocktail hour… the list focuses around events because that is how I approach them as a photographer. There are average amounts of time that people use as well as spaces to include the time each person would like to devote to each area.

The goal is to break up the day into smaller portions so it’s easier to see where your time is spent and make sure you spend it how you want to. I think it’s safe to say that everyone wants to enjoy their wedding day, but not everyone schedules it so they can do so. If you want to see the list I wrote up take a look here and feel free to download and share. However if you copied it and used it as your own guide that wouldn’t be cool. If you look at the document and think – wait so you’re saying I only need 6 hours for my wedding – that’s not exactly true. All transition times need to be added in between each event. Also, this sheet is just a bare bones version of a wedding day distilled from those I’ve encountered and once clients take a look and see what to expect, we still talk through the day and make sure it flows the way they want. It’s not perfect but maybe with your feedback it will be! You’ll have to let me know what you think!

It was a set up. Well, that makes it sound too staged and this story unfolded more organically. What really happened is Kate started a new job and there met Judi, the wife of John’s best friend. She could tell they would be perfect for each other, so in between work conversations John was always brought up. Sure, Kate thought it was a bit strange that she was always hearing about John, but before she knew they were all getting together for dinner and games and having fun. Soon they were off on what they would later call their first date – Kate didn’t know it was a date and John still jokes that she showed up in gym clothes.

They began dating, basking in the afterglow of a new relationship, when Kate was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She didn’t know what would happen to their 4 month relationship, but John stayed by her side the whole time. Their relationship grew through the testing and trials and they emerged stronger. He kept her smiling, and together they would dream up what they would do once she was better. On the top of their list was to dress up and go to a nice dinner at Lightfoot in Leesburg. It took around 7 months to actually make it happen once Kate was better, so it wasn’t a night that seemed out of the ordinary. However when they came home, John gave Kate a white orchid and tied between the stems of the flower was a ring. He got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

People always have more to their story than what you see. Not only do I think Kate and John have a relationship that will last, I think they’ve worked hard to get there. When I was in the DC area we meet in Leesburg for their engagement session, walked by Lightfoot and talked about their upcoming winter wedding in Rochester, New York. Full of life is how I would describe Kate and John, and I hope I’ve captured that in these images… enjoy!

This is me, about to start a run on last week. Daphne came along, and slept contently in the chariot, not making a peep… until I turned around and was three miles from home. Thankfully she fell back asleep at let me push her quietly the rest of the way. We went for 7.5 miles, the farthest I’ve gone in probably 7 months or more. (Runner confession : I generally don’t do a great job of tracking my mileage). On this run I felt distinctly different. More like myself, and not the pregnant version I had been.

Deciding to run a triathlon after having a baby was just a way to trick myself. Yes, I do enjoy triathlons and racing… but not when I’m out of shape. I signed up so that I would have a goal. I knew that I needed something to look towards and commit to so that my efforts would not just be focused on reversing my suddenly changed and out of shape body. It was pretty easy to be focused on that.

In addition to getting a training plan from my husband the coach, I started talking with my good friend Julie. She lives in Moab and hearing her stories about climbing in the red rock landscape make me want to move out there. The grass is always greener, right? She has her own business (hooray small business owners!) consulting to help people perform to the best of their ability both athletic and otherwise – but you could sum it up by saying she’s a sports psychologist. While Matt could tell me what to run when it was up to Julie to help me do the run.

I knew that with a baby I would have even more – and often legitimate – excuses for why I didn’t have time for running. I already have more wrinkles from the last three months than I do from the past year, so I definitely have been missing out on sleep. So how would I actually commit to training and not just skip every workout to take a nap?

It hasn’t been easy. Most days there is an internal dialogue battling back and forth convincing me to stay home or go out. The hardest part is getting started on the workout. With Julie I’ve worked on reconstructing my thought process and priorities so that I make time for workouts and more often than not get out the door to complete them more successfully.

I love it. I find sports psychology intriguing, especially after having the opportunity to be tested regularly as a collegiate runner. I’ve seen how my mind easily doubts and makes excuses… with everything, not just athletics. The way we approach our whole lives is tied in to how we view ourselves, face challenges, and learn from experiences. Maybe that’s why I love running. I’ve learned so much about life through my experience as a runner, and most of all I’ve learned that you can do a lot more than you think you can.

Beth spent the year after grad school in Vienna. She lived in a house owned by Wake Forest for study abroad students and was a kind of dorm parent, offering stability and familiarity to those adjusting to their year in a new place. Of course, it was a change of pace for Beth as well and while she loved exploring the hidden treasures in the landscape around her, she too longed for home. It was at a tiny chapel she hiked to that she spent time thinking and praying about her future. A few years later, with her relationship to Daniel well established they traveled together to Vienna to see some familiar sites and share a part of Beth’s past experience together. They hiked to that very same chapel, and Daniel proposed.

I spent an afternoon walking around Georgetown with these two, talking about life and the plans for their upcoming Pittsburgh wedding. It was the most beautiful day and it reminded me why I love the Virginia area so much – almost making me question our leaving. You can’t bottle up light like this. Beth and Daniel have a kind of welcoming personality that invites you in, and I have a feeling their wedding will be full of similarly genuine people who I can’t wait to meet and photograph!

Enjoy looking through their engagement photos and feel free to follow me over here to see more recent work.

Beth! complete natural and you just look stunning! I’m glad you chose the red dress too

You guys look so good together! Daniel spent an afternoon on a bike, riding around the local parks to find the best locations. I think he did one heck of a job, we had the prettiest places and who knew DC had so many natural spaces?

Georgetown is full of character – including this adorable Fiat we cozied up to for a few shots!

they have a few sweet swing moves they weren’t afraid to share, and if it’s any indication I can’t wait to see what they break out at the wedding!

I’m so glad we had the chance to capture these images in Georgetown, and can’t wait to see you both on your wedding day!

Yesterday we woke up with the sun shining. Our night of sleep was made more luxurious by the new sheets we bought and deemed a mother’s day present. Matt made chocolate waffles with strawberry sauce and we drank heart coffee while singing songs to Daphne. She laughed and cooed as we marveled. After showing up for church at the wrong time the day was spent enjoying each others company and being a family. I celebrated my first mother’s day as a mom.

Little Daphne, you are at a stage that is absolutely captivating for us as parents. We do everything we can to make you smile, which usually includes some type of singing and these days you enjoy the Beatles. You now laugh occasionally when you get your diaper changed and I’m fairly sure you’re ticklish as well. What’s growing most noticeably is your length. Your legs stretch far across when we hold you and you love to balance and practice standing while we hold you up. When we sit in the kitchen you watch the dogs walk around and play with each other, and if your smiles are any indication you will soon love crawling around with them and pulling their tails.

If anyone were to ask what we thought about being your parents we would both say it’s amazing and completely worth it.

Worth it includes the fact that getting up to start the day I woke up twice to feed you during the night. Instead of getting up to leisurely read the paper your dad changed you and rocked you back and forth when you needed to nap. You sleep for three hours in the afternoon, which I’m sure you planned as a present, but the majority of the day was spent talking, reading and playing with you. It’s an entirely new way of life that is not focused on what we want to do but on taking care of you.

It’s absolutely worth it, but those words are too short a summary for the challenges and frustrations, joys and triumphs that come with raising a child, a journey we are just beginning. We dwell on the best moments because those are the ones we want to remember, the ones that get us through until the next. It’s easy for life to seem peaceful and perfect when you look at one image, but when you see a few of the other 74 shot you know that life is as fluid and unpredictable as ever.

It took about two hours to get you to bed last night, Daphne. You just didn’t want mother’s day to end.

It was a gorgeous view. This month’s download comes from the great state of Montana, where last year I photographed Hilary + Andrew’s wedding. Feel free to update your desktop or device with this image and enjoy – as always personal use only, please!

There are a few families – four to be exact – that I have had the privilege of photographing consistently. We get together every one two years and capture the next milestone. I saw them as new parents when their first born was a few days old, watched that baby change into a child and become a big sister or brother. I love the consistency and chance to create images at every stage in their lives

Celeste is the little sister to Ava, and just turned one year old. She is a little girl on the go who will walk wherever her legs will take her. She was the focus of the session, but we captured images of the whole family as well to get a complete picture of where they are now. Here are a few of my favorites from our shoot…

This is the year. The year that I jump on the bandwagon – not the juicing or paleo bandwagon (although I’ve considered both) – but the PASS bandwagon. I’ve known about PASS for a few years, and if you are a photographer you probably have too. It’s a photo sharing software that makes it insanely easy to share and view images. In the past I used Nextproof to upload wedding images and allow clients to proof, but the previews were small and it wasn’t very easy to organize your favorites. With PASS you can easily view all of your images, share them on facebook, twitter or pinterest, and download them immediately. Crazy right?

The gallery is what finally sold me, and you can take a look for yourself here. Meghan + Mike are approaching their one year anniversary *congrats!* and you can see some highlights of their day. Each gallery is live for a year, and unlimited downloads are included for the couple. That means you can easily save a few images to your phone or ipad, save the whole batch on your computer at home and have the security of knowing your images are available to re-download should something happen within the year that causes you to lose them.

hip hip hooray!

Georgetown is so incredibly charming. I spent the afternoon there yesterday with Beth and Daniel, and have a few more days in the area before heading home. Daphne must take after me, because she is doing great with the travel and I think I’ll be able to call my first work trip with a baby a success. Today we are planning to go to the National Gallery and find a nice spot for lunch. I’m so excited! I love to enjoy art and find new restaurants when visiting a city.

While I’m not traveling all over the map like last year, I do have some trips planned and they include : Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Detroit and Syracuse to name a few. I can’t wait to explore each of those cities and see some of you along the way!