Jessica and Kyle’s ceremony was very sweet and in absolute perfect light! The reception was so fun and made being 37 weeks pregnant not feel too horrible. Their friends and family definitely know how to have a good time which always make for some great photos!

Gotta love a candy table for the kiddos before the ceremony!

Kyle’s years of playing baseball came in handy at the garter toss!

Jessica’s new name! 🙂

Jessica and Kyle’s wedding was absolutely lovely. They were married at the gorgeous Deerpond Plantation and the day could not have gone over more perfectly. I was 36 weeks pregnant while shooting this wedding and to be honest, I was pretty nervous going into it, but thankfully there were no complications. Thank you to all of Jessica and Kyle’s family and friends who were so gracious to me.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part II of Jessica and Kyle’s wedding where you’ll get to see the fun side of their wedding party!

Jessica and Kyle elected to do a first look, where they chose to see each other in a private intimate moment before the wedding. I love when clients choose to do the first look, not only because it gives us lots more time for pictures but also because it is such a special time between the bride and groom and makes for wonderful images for years to come.

Photographing baby Taylor was such a joy! She has a sweet and gentle little spirit and did amazing for our session. 🙂 Taylor’s mom, Sam wanted to get a shoot scheduled before her mother returned to their home country of Northern Ireland. I loved being able to capture these three generations interacting with one another, I know they will cherish these images for years to come.

Enjoy!

Ashley and Will’s session is one of my favorite uptown sessions to date. I had such a good time with them running around finding places to shoot and I absolutely love how their images turned out! Ashley has the most amazing sweet spirit about her and Will is pretty funny with his sarcastic and dry humor, sounds like a match made it heaven to me! Ashley’s smile is definitely contagious, I found myself wanting to favorite every image where she is smiling and looking at the camera. I am so looking forward to shooting the wedding of this sweet couple next year.

Also, a special shout-out to my hubby, Matt who carried my equipment during this session since I was getting close to the end of my pregnancy. He is also the one who found the gorgeous field at the end. Thanks, babe!

Enjoy!

Like I said yesterday in Canaan’s post, I can’t believe how fast these last 2 weeks have flown by. I have dedicated these weeks to getting acquainted with our new guy and transitioning into life as a family of four (as well as helping my toddler make the transition), but now I am back to editing so be expecting lots of posts between now and Christmas! You may even see a sneak peek this afternoon of what’s to come. 🙂

Tiffany and Patrick are expecting their first little one in December and I am so excited for them. Their sweet little girl is going to be blessed with some awesome parents! I had a great time with these two at their Baby Bump session and I know you are going to love how the images turned out. Enjoy!

I can’t believe how fast the last two weeks have gone by. It was just yesterday that I thought I would be pregnant FOREVER and this guy would never make an appearance, and now we could not imagine life without him. Here is a little bit about how he came into the world…

Canaan’s birth was the complete opposite of Oliver’s birth. This is a very good thing since I labored with Oli for about 12 hours. I was at a wedding (as a guest) the Saturday night before Canaan was born celebrating friends and even doing a little dancing, but I felt no signs that he might soon be on the way. But at 3:30am Sunday morning I woke up from a dream that I was feeling pain and in fact I was, about every 7-10 minutes to be exact. I woke Matt up and we timed the contractions for a short while. I came to the conclusion that although the contractions seemed regular, they were not painful enough to get me out to bed so I would just go back to sleep and if they continued I would know it was the real thing. I only got about 30 more minutes of sleep and things were definitely getting worse. I woke Matt up again about 5:15am and by this time I knew we would be headed to the hospital at some point. My contractions were definitely 5 minutes apart lasting for a minute or longer, so we decided if they continued at this rate by 6am we would call my midwife. At 5:58am I couldn’t bare to be in the bed any longer so I went ahead and got up to take a shower and get ready for the hospital. You may be wondering why we weren’t in a huge hurry, but my labor with Oli was so slow that I just had it in my head to take it slow so I would not get to the hospital too early. Matt called the OB office and let them know what was going on with my labor. About 6:30am I got a call back from my midwife, she asked me a few more questions and seeing that I could not talk during contractions (only breathe through them) she told me we needed to leave for the hospital NOW and that 2nd babies come lots faster. Matt was in the shower at this time so I let him know that they wanted us to go to the hospital immediately. We still had a few packing things to do as well as get Oliver’s carseat in my mom’s car but we finally made it out about 7am. At this point the contractions very intense and I told Matt that it would be a dream come true to be 7cm when we got to the hospital but I was probably about a 5. We arrived and were checked in by 7:30am and the nurse soon let me know that I was in fact 7cm! Some of you may know that we had a natural birth plan for Oli, but I ended up needing the epidural at 9cm because of the long labor and Oliver’s loss of oxygen toward the end. I was not dead set on a natural this time because I knew how my last one went, but when I saw how fast the labor was going, I knew we could do it this time which was very exciting for me. It was only an hour and a half of laboring until I had reached 10cm and was ready to push. Pushing was the only thing I had not felt with Oli and so this was going to be new for me and boy was it difficult! We soon learned when Canaan was born after about 30 minutes of pushing that things were so difficult because Canaan was 1.5 lbs larger than Oliver and 2 inches longer! He was born at 8:58am. I am so thankful that Canaan’s birth could be natural although I still say labor is one of worst things ever. But as my Memaw told me, and this will always stick- ‘Labor pains are some of the easiest pains to forget’. SO true, I forget more and more every time look at this sweet face.

Oli has done amazing with his little brother. I was very concerned that he would get jealous and act out toward Canaan but I can honestly say that he has so much love for his brother already. He has kissed Canaan  more than any of the rest of us combined and when C cries, Oli takes him whatever he thinks might make him feel better whether it’s toys, paci’s or anything else. Here is Oli meeting Canaan for the first time. Melt my heart…

This baby has been so precious to me. He slept 5hrs the 3rd night he was home and has really had no trouble as of yet adjusting to life outside the womb as of yet. My entire pregnancy I struggled with feelings that I would love Oliver more b/c I couldn’t imagine loving another baby as much as I love him. But just because I couldn’t imagine it does not mean it was there, now I have TWO that I love this much.

God has truly been good to us.

I absolutely loved shooting Ashley and Tyler’s woodsy engagement session. They are SO nice and look SO great behind the camera! I can already tell that I love Ashley’s style and I know I am going to enjoy all the details of their March wedding in 2013. These two were so comfortable together, which made their shoot a breeze. They had a great time with each other, but were also not afraid to get close and intimate.  Thanks, Ashely and Tyler for such a great time. I can’t wait for your wedding next year!

Julie and Noah are sweet friends from college and I have loved watching their family grow in the last year. Their precious Elijah was born last January and he is the most adorable little guy! Julie and Noah are photographers as well [check out their FB page here] and they blessed us by photographing Oliver’s 1st Birthday Party (which I have not had the chance to post yet).

We planned this session just after Elijah turned 6 months old and his sweet smile was a joy to capture. This is the best time to photograph a baby. They are sitting up, smiley but not yet crawling! I love everything about this session, is this family not gorgeous?

Enjoy!

I had a great time with Brittany and Tyler at their engagement session. They wanted to incorporate some of the things they like to do together, so our session included basketball, scrabble, and even a little archery. It was sweet watching these two interact together, I know they are going to make a wonderful married couple! Someone else who made an appearance in the shoot was Brittany and Ty’s dog, Buddy whom they adore and I think you will see why.

Enjoy!

If you are from N.C, you are all too family with the Duke/Carolina rivalry. I love that Brittany and Tyler are having fun with it!

Introducing Buddy…. Hard not to fall in love with this pup.

The McGinn Family are absolutely precious! Mac and Erin already have the beautiful Molly who was such a joy to hang out with, and soon they will be adding baby girl Harper to the family. It is always so fun for me to see how siblings react to a new baby and I have no doubt that Molly is going to be an awesome big sister. During their session, we discovered that my house is only about 5 minutes away from the Mac and Erin’s house so I definitely look forward to play-dates once the babies are born!

Enjoy this sweet family!