Let me tell you a little story.

It was March 2020 (no, it’s not going where you think!). We had just gotten engaged. It was time to work on Save the Dates. (Okay honestly though, that might be a more entertaining story…several postponements and two weddings later.  But I digress!) I booked a session with one of my favorite photographers and the day of the session arrived.

Now, one thing you need to know about me? I hate mosquitos. I’m also the biggest mosquito magnet. And I am legitimately allergic to them, because apparently that’s a thing according to my allergy test results. And I have since been getting allergy shots that include mosquito in the serum. Again, I digress…

All that to say, I knew they’d be out to get me during our engagement photo session, so I DOUSED myself with Deet. And I mean DOUSED.

So as our photographer was prompting us, telling us to put our faces together, telling Marc to put his nose against my temple, telling him to kiss my collarbone…he was inhaling – and tasting – Deet. And let me tell you, Deet does not taste good. And on top of *hating* photos, suffice it to say my fiance was not thrilled. He started complaining about the Deet, I told him to just smile please and stop complaining, and then neither of us were having fun.

Are our pictures beautiful? Absolutely, yes.

But what do we think about when we see them? Honestly…he thinks about tasting Deet and I think about getting annoyed at him as he complained about it.

Luckily we planned for a wardrobe and location change halfway through, so we could get our act together and then genuinely did enjoy the second half of our session. But believe me when I say that looking at those first half of pictures…you all would probably see beautiful photos, but we FEEL something else! Isn’t that wild?

So please, learn from us! If you don’t FEEL good in the moment, no matter how much you try to fake it, you’ll look back and feel what you were feeling during your session. Make sure you prioritize getting a good night’s rest the night before,  try as hard as possible to be on good terms with your spouse even if you’re stressed, and take some deep breaths if those kiddos are driving you up a wall! Try to embrace the chaos, have FUN at the session, and trust that I’ve got you. Then you can look back on your photos and truly love them – feelings and all!