One week married! Happy anniversary to my darling lovers Shai & Dalton.  My heart adopted little sister is now my cousin. It's been one week and I'm just starting to finally feel like I'm recharged again. I think I wore more hats for this wedding than I ever have in my life! And I have a tendency to wear a lot of hats at weddings. Pun definitely intended. I was a bridesmaid, I was helping coordinate getting everyone to everywhere they need to be, I was taking portraits and directing my husband and my brother-in-law as they took all the other photos... They made me oh so proud...I must add!.., my sister and I had a blast making all the bouquets and boutonnieres and flower headpieces. The last two months of their engagement I have been traveling back and forth across Washington and Oregon... It has been a very full last few months. But we did it, we got them married! And it was truly an incredible day.  Now here is to the rest of your beautiful lives together, my special little souls!! 🥂

"I've enjoyed all the parts of my career" - Dolly Parton

As I reflect back on the last 20 years of photographing weddings, my heart is full. I have photographed all kinds of people with all different personalities and all different ways of dealing and managing stress.... And I have loved every experience. I haven't loved every moment, but the difficult moments helped me appreciate all the great splendid moments. This spring will mark 10 years of photographing with my business and life partner @mesessa. I can't believe those years have gone by so fast, we've had so much fun. There's so much joy in weddings, yet there is also sometimes crippling stress.  Through all of it Michael has supported and inspired me... and picked up the pieces when I have fallen apart. There's been a number of ceremonies that we have caught a glimpse of each other and we both have a tear brewing in our eyes from just being truly loved.  It has seriously been feast or famine, but I don't regret any of it. I truly love my job.

Shai and Dalton - these two met while working on a film I am making about how my grandparents met. My grandparents met….immediately starting dancing. By the end of the dance my grandfather knew he was going to marry my grandmother. It didn’t happen quite as fast as that for Shai & Dalton……but I knew that night that they would fall madly in love and together until they grow old. Less then a year after filming….they were married. So I wasn’t wrong.

Summer is the best! I’ve been playing around at Lake Cushman with my underwater housing.

Don’t let summer pass you by… $50 off any of our portrait package!

Anyone feel like an epic day at sea? Perfect for elopements..anniversaries...perhaps a proposal. Our friends started up a sailboat chartering business, taking folks out on tours of the islands around Orcas Island....Dolphins, Orcas’, Sea Lions, Sea Otters… its seriously a dream! Check them out - True North Sailing Charters. We are working on promotional imagery & a video for them, its been a blast putting it together. Not to mention, Michael's drone work is gorgeous!

Recently, Michael and I were nominated to compete in Rangefinder Magazine’s 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photography.   It was an incredible honor to be nominated, this was the greatest compliment of my entire career!  This summer marks 10 years for me working full time as a photographer.  I have not taken on a single job other than photography in the last ten years.   I have truly dug my heels in, and did whatever I could to keep this passion a float.  I have had some very difficult years, but it has been incredibly fulfilling to do what I love for a living.  Photographing with Michael over the last 5 years...has truly been a dream come true.  To work side by side with your life partner...words could not describe.  It has brought us so much closer as a couple...it has taught us very quickly how to communicate with each other effectively….and how to be loving to each other under a ton of stress.  We did not win the competition, but honestly just being a part of it was winning enough for me.  I am so grateful to be a photographer.  

This week I got to see Lionel Richie in concert, it was really neat.  He said something at his concert that really gutted me, he said “I look at my life and I cannot believe that I have had the honor to write and perform all these songs...and to do what I love, most of my life.  And it wouldn’t be possible without…...incredible competition”.  This brought tears to my eyes because I feel the same.  There has been times in my career that I have plateaued….and I have brought myself back up again, reinventing myself & my work from the inspiration of my incredible competition.  It's very difficult to stay relevant as a photographer in Seattle, but continuing to fight for it...has made me the photographer I am today.

Here are my 30 favorites of the last 5 years that I submitted to Rangefinder.  

Thank you for listening.  Thank you to Michael, my Mom and my beloved Grandfather for supporting me...  I wouldn’t know how to run a business without all the patience and training from Mom & Grandpa... I wouldn’t love every shoot as much.. without Michael by my side.

We had a cozy time with these two in Vancouver BC last weekend.

They have spent so many years in this sweet little apartment ...made so many memories...and now they are about to embark on their next big adventure...the next chapter...moving to Spain! We could not be happier for them.

At the same time....we will miss being able to drive a few hours to see their wonderful faces....we will miss this apartment as well...all the late night chats...the belly laughs...the G&T's. Over the last 9 years...these two have been an extraordinary part of our lives. We will miss them.

At the beginning of the year we spent 6 weeks in India.  We were doing some filming for a nonprofit organization that had a stall at the World's Book Fair in Delhi.  We were able to have a get away in Goa for a couple of weeks...it was a dream.  We love India.  We have been going to India for the passed 9 years.  I guess we just can't get enough of it ;)

We recently went down to Arcata, California to babysit our beautiful little nephew Ryder.

He was pretty under the weather....but we still had fun.  Enjoy the photos!

Anshul & Bhawana's newest member of the family!

These two love birds are from Brazil.  They met dancing, of course!  Taking their engagement photos was so effortless, their chemistry is just incredible together.  Enjoy!