This post is sectioned by the different types of photos I took.  Some of the things are pretty random that I just felt like trying out on her (ie: lace shadows, flour, fog).  We were very limited in time (45 minutes for the whole shoot!) but we were able to get it all done.  She was super excited about my ideas and I think they turned out pretty neat.  Some of you may wonder WHAT is the white stuff all over her in some of the photos?  Well, one idea I had was to cover her in flour and have her dance it off creating what looks like a big cloud puffing up around her.  It looked really neat.  I should have probably separated this blog post into a few so it wasn’t so long, but I want to get to blogging some engagement sessions before my wedding season hits (next weekend!)  I have a super busy year coming up with weddings all around Iowa and even in Jamaica next month.  So pretty soon here the blog will be full of all of the amazing weddings again!

I need to give some credit and thanks where it is due!

Hair and Makeup was done by the amazingly talented Allison Kidney (makeup) and Jenny Raasch (hair) of Estilo Salon & Day Spa. (They also do wedding hair/makeup!)

I also want to thank Kaytie for allowing me to use her as my guinea pig and dump flour all over her! Also our other cousin Anthony who helped me out with the shoot and had the pleasure of actually dumping the flour all over her.  Something I’m sure he has been contemplating doing since we were kids!

Creating this post was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a long time.  I shot so many weddings in 2011 and I am so thankful for all of them.  At each wedding I shoot 100′s and sometimes 1000′s of photos.  How do I possibly narrow all of them down into one blog post?  Well I tried.  It’s still pretty long and there are so many more photos I WANT to post.  To see a better re-cap of every wedding you’d need to go back through each blog post of the year.

Thanks again everyone!  I had such a wonderful 2011!

These are in no particular order.

A few months ago I photographed my friend May and her husband Brad for a Rock the Dress session.  They wanted me to photograph their wedding, but unfortunately I was already booked for their wedding date.  So we settled for this instead.  He wasn’t able to make the first shoot, so we split it into 2.  Isn’t she gorgeous!?

This shoot has been in the making for about 3 or 4 months.  I’ve had some specific ideas about shooting with a lavender theme for a while.  Kelsey and Chris were nice enough to let me put it all together and use them in my dream shoot.  Some things didn’t work out quite like planned (original location was raining, designer dress too big, etc.)  but when do they ever?  It was all so lovely regardless!  I had so much fun designing the table theme and how Kelsey was going to look that day.  I even made the lavender cupcakes and lavender lemonade myself!  I can attest (as can they) that they tasted great!  Here are where some of the details came from (for bride’s that may be looking):

Kelsey’s make-up:  Alison Kidney (Estilo Salon in West Des Moines)

Kelsey’s Hair:  Liz Brown (Estilo Salon in West Des Moines)

Headband:  Bohemian Headband made by Mignonne Handmade on Etsy

Various table details (vintage cupcake stand, vintage candle holder, vintage milk jug, bird cage and other items were all found on etsy from various stores)

I hope everyone loves this as much as I loved shooting it.  We were very limited as a storm was headed our way, but we got about an hour in to shoot.

I don’t typically post TWO short one photo sneak peeks, but I feel like this session was so awesome that I need to just to hold over everyone that wants to see more.  I plan to have the entire session posted tomorrow night.  In the meantime check out Kelsey’s fierce-ness (yes, I made up a word).