Let me just start by saying that I absolutely love this family!! I met this family about 11 years ago although it doesn’t seem like it at all. Pastor Mo and Ms. Shontel were my very first youth pastors and I can vaguely even remember my very first youth service. When I stop and think back I can remember sitting and listening to Pastor Mo preach. I also remember numerous camps, conventions, and a missions trip to Jamaica with them! Pastor Mo and Ms. Shontel were awesome youth pastors!!! I really cannot say just how much this family means to me! I guess you can even say that I owe a little bit of who I am to them.
Fast forward a few years and Pastor Mo and Ms. Shontel now have two boys that are absolutely adorable. A couple of weeks ago Heather and I went and stayed with them for a weekend and took some pictures of their beautiful family!
Ms. Shontel’s sisters and their families also came over for some big family pictures.

I just love this picture! Dogpile!!

The boys play for the Des Allemands Gators so for their Christmas cards this year they are all sporting their football gear!

So much fun:

These boys are a mess and are as different as can be.

The whole gang:

Pastor Mo started it!
‘

Pastor Mo and Ms. Shontel, Thanks so much for everything! Heather and I enjoyed our trip! We love y’all so much!!

—-Miranda——

We shot Hannah and Cody’s wedding last night and had a great time. We’ve been wanting to post her bridal pictures for a while, but had to wait till after the wedding to do so. We had so much fun shooting her bridal pictures. At first we were a bit worried because so many of the spots we take pictures were completely under water (for those who don’t live in the West Monroe/Monroe area, we have been having a lot of problems with flooding). But now I’m really thankful for the flooding because it made us improvise and think outside of our comfortable box. We always strive to stay fresh and try out different spots, but sometimes its difficult with bridal shoots due to the constraints of having to get dressed and keeping the dress clean and etc. Hannah was such a trooper and pretty much just followed us anywhere we suggested. Thanks Hannah! And congrats to you and Cody!

See why we couldn’t wait to post them….because she’s such a GORGEOUS bride!!!

Love that setting sun…

- heather

A couple of months ago my favorite youth pastor’s wife of all times contacted Heather and I about shooting a wedding for a couple in their church. Of course we couldn’t turn Ms. Shontel down so we worked through emails for a while getting everything set up.
Fast forward a few weeks and Heather and I headed down to Des Allemands to meet Patrick and Kim for their engagement session! And boy are we glad we did! We had an amazing time with the two of them! They are so much fun and you can just tell that they are so much so much in love!
Heather and I have never had the opportunity to do a shoot in New Orleans. Top that off with an amazing couple and an absolute fabulous shoot!

New Orleans + Amazing Couple = Extremely Hard Time Choosing Only a Few For Blog.

So….sit back and enjoy because this is going to be a long post!

We started out in an open area by their church with some beautiful lighting and beautiful trees:

I love this tree! This tree is very unique and is such a good representation of unity! If you look at the picture carefully you will notice that it is actually two different trees that have grown together and now rooted together. It symbolizes the joining of Patrick and Kim becoming one!

Anybody that shows up in LSU gear for their shoot is number one in our book:

So much fun together:

There is a story behind this picture although I want go in to it! It has something to do with Heather’s directions or lack there of! HAHA!

Next we headed to walk around New Orleans for some beautiful architecture and more great light:

Love this texture:

It would be wrong to visit New Orleans and not get beignets so we headed over to Cafe du Monde for some great food and faboulous pictures:

I think that this next one from Cafe du Monde is my favorite from my day. I just love the lighting!

And I love this next one too. After promising that the last picture was the last picture, I turned around and decided that I just wanted one more. (I think I said just one more picture at least 5 times before we finally wrapped up the shoot.)

Patrick and Kim, You are both so amazing and so much fun! We had a great time with the two of you! We can’t wait till your wedding and catch up with you two again. You two are wonderful people! You made our shoot rock!

—Miranda

First, the GOOD: we have had an amazing year with some awesome clients this year. We have had so much fun with all of our clients and can not thank everyone enough. Our business has really taken off this year in ways that we never really expected. But that brings me to…

the BAD: we are swamped. Literally, we have so much on our to-do list that its scary to even look at. It stares us in the face everyday and laughs at our feeble attempts to conquer it. I know there are so many of y’all waiting for your wedding order and we are going to have them in by Christmas. That is our guarantee. But we have to have a cut-off point. So as of right now, we can not accept any more orders and have them in for Christmas. Of course, people are more than welcome to still place their photo order, but we simply will not be able to have them in for Christmas. We sincerely do apologize.

Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding in this.

- Heather and Miranda

I just love this family. I really do. I’ve been friends with Lindsey for many many years and I cherish our friendship very much. I can remember when we were in high school, we’d get together and “exercise” together (and by “exercise” I mean we would bake cookies and watch tae-bo…no DO tae-bo, but WATCH tae-bo). When we graduated, she and I and a couple of other friends went on a week long cruise to the Caribbean; and when I think back on that trip I literally laugh out loud thinking of some of the memories we created. I’m so thankful that Lindsey has been a part of my life, and I look forward to many many more years creating fun memories .

When Lindsey asked us to do family pics while they were in town, I was super excited because I’d finally be able to meet their precious Anniston. Anniston is truly a miracle, and you can read about her story on Lindsey’s blog HERE . It was so much fun spending time with them while we took pictures.

And aren’t they such a CUTE family!

I love love love this:

And I love the way Lindsey is looking at Stan in this pic:

Lindsey brought a basket and blanket for pictures and it was such a great idea! Look how adorable…

I could just kiss those cheeks all day!

While Anniston slept for a little bit, we took a couple of pics of the mommy and daddy:

They are such a loving family. Anniston is so lucky to have them as parents.

Love that smile!

Lindsey, thank you so much and I can’t wait to see y’all again soon! We’re still going to come visit y’all one weekend :). Love ya!

- heather

Couples like Lauren and Beau remind me how much I love my photography job. How can anyone NOT like being a part of someone’s happiest and best day of their life? Since I am also a nurse, I have the responsibility and privilege of helping people on some of their worst days. There’s a big difference in helping someone recover from open heart surgery or a heart attack one day and bustling a bride’s dress at her wedding the following day. But in the end, I just love people and the connections that people share. I love “love.” And I love photographing love. Lauren and Beau made it so easy for us to capture their love for each other. (And apparently shooting weddings has turned my old bitter and cynical self into a big mushy love sap. Before you know it I’ll be talking about how much I love movies like “A Walk to Remember” and “The Notebook” .)

Lauren and Beau, thank you so much. Y’all rock and we can’t wait to do y’alls “after the wedding” photo shoot!

They got married at the BEAUTIFUL First Christian Church in Monroe! Seriously, there were stained glass window and chandeliers in the bridal room! How awesome is that! The gorgeous dress:

And the shoes:

The rings:

I LOVED Lauren’s flower choices. These bouquets are just amazing!

Lauren looking breathtaking:

And Beau looking quite handsome himself:

I have to say that my favorite part of the day is taking the “first look” photos if the bride and groom choose to see each other before the ceremony. I look forward to it the most and they are always the first pictures that I go back and look at after they are downloaded. You just can’t beat the raw emotion that these photos capture.

Plus, doing a “first look” allows for plenty of time for portraits of the bride and groom.

We had some fun with the bridal party! Oh, and do you recognize Bridgit in this picture from her awesome wedding seen here?

But for some reason the guys didn’t want to walk arm in arm together

Right before walking into the church:

This is one of my favorite bride and father pictures EVER!

Like I said earlier, the church was so pretty!

They had their reception at Austin’s. I love this venue.

I thought the cake topper was so unique.

I really enjoyed playing around with some off camera lighting with the couple. We’ll definitely be playing around more with this technique.

I got some pictures with my camera flash on for their exit, but I actually really liked this picture not using my camera flash.

Ok, that’s all for now. Miranda and I are finally starting to get caught up on our business work, so there will be lots more posts coming up within the next few weeks.
Stay tuned!

- heather