No sibling rivalry here!

Not sure these guys could've been any sweeter!  They truly love each other and as a mom of an older daughter and a younger son, this was HOPEFULLY a glimpse of things to come.  H and M were so happy together - like best friends!  A true gift that every parent dreams of!


H was a total trooper!  She was completely into the photo session and put on a great smile even though it was absolutely FREEZING outside!  I think that even if we had her in the water, she would have had the same gorgeous smile on her face.  She was like working with a true professional and I loved every moment of it!  

Sitting pretty at one of the most beautiful locations!

M is absolutely adorable.  His freckles were AWESOME and he has this great infectious personality!  A very genuine person, very warm, friendly and was willing to do just about anything I asked him to do!  He didn't even put up much of a fight when I asked him to plant a kiss on his big sister's cheek for a photo.  Super sweetie!!!

Such a cool guy! 

Add in two amazing locations, and I think that's a recipe for an exceptional photo session.  These two kids were a complete and total pleasure to work with.  Great kids, warm (personality, not outside!!!) kids, and NICE kids!  Way to go Mom!!! 


H and M, you guys were the best!  Thanks so much for a super fun afternoon!!!  Can't wait to show you the rest!


xoxo,
Ally

Boy meets girl.....

Boy courts girl through high school, college and several moves throughout the country.  And then he enters a contest to win an incredibly beautiful engagement ring from Tapper's Jewelry Store.  

E and M have quite an amazing love story.  It started back in high school (to know me is to know that I'm a sucker for couples that meet in high school.  These two actually DATED in high school.  So cute!).  You can read the whole story here.  

Well...when we found out that E won the ring, we were asked how late we were going to be at the studio that evening.  When we asked why and were given the answer, we JUMPED at the opportunity to photograph an engagement.  

At 7:30, Tracie from Tapper's came down to get us.  We all but ran down the hallway (with our super excited 12 year old and 10 year olds in tow - they were almost as excited as we were!).  We walked into Tapper's and waited while E and M were "interviewed" one last time.  It was really a diversion tactic that E set up so that his whole family, M's whole family and we could get down to the store to be able to photograph the question being popped.

Down on one knee.  M sees her ring for the first time.

Just realizing what's REALLY going on!

YES!!!!!!

The first kiss as fiancés.

When the door opened, and E and M came out, M saw everyone around.  E got down on one knee with an opened ring box, and asked M to marry him.  

I was teary, my daughter was teary, both moms were teary, E was teary....you get the picture!  And ya know what?  SO DID I!!!  

This was such an incredible event to be a part of!  There's nothing like the beginning of something absolutely beautiful.  Family, love and diamonds....  Does it get any better than that???

In front of the winning video that E submitted to win the ring.

Many congratulations to you, E and M!  We hope that you're as happy for the rest of your lives as you are now!  

Thank you for letting us help you capture this amazing milestone in your lives!

Hail to..... wait - which?

I couldn't resist this one....  One more little "buy local" rant and then I'll (try to) leave it alone for a while.

As a follow up to my "Meditations on Buying Local" post, this shirt appeared on this link at Rivals.com....  

I'm sure many of you saw this already since a lot of people got a kick out of it and posted it on facebook especially here in Michigan where we are based.  For those of you who aren't in Michigan and may not know, Michigan State University's team name is the Spartans and their colors are green and white, but the University Of Michigan Wolverines' fight song contains the opening line "Hail to the Victors" and their colors are maize and blue.  Needless to say this was a pretty bad mistake to mix them up and put them on the same t-shirt.  I hate to sound like a broken record but putting your loyalties aside for a second and your urge to talk some smack if you're a Wolverine or a Spartan, what this really is is a commercial for buying LOCAL.  Do you think a local Michigan based t-shirt company would make a mistake as ridiculous as this?  No way.  Why would you want your school's logo hijacked by some national corporate brand like this that doesn't have a clue about it?  

Now granted college athletics is huge business and national brands Adidas and Nike are the official outfitters of the sports teams at the two schools so you can't really avoid buying the apparel from a national company.  That's the way it is.  But I think the point here is there are local independent retailers you can support that sell licensed t-shirts with your alma mater on them who would never make a mistake like this.  Local merchants have a feel for the local community and have a vested interest in it.  National chains....not as much as evidenced by this shirt.  Maybe that is a generalization that isn't 100% fair, but c'mon.  This actually made it to their website.  Not one person at Pink cared enough or bothered to check on this?  A business sports reporter actually pointed it out to Victoria's Secret which is what prompted them to pull it off the site.  Once again our message is not to boycott national chain stores, but rather in a case like this let Pink stick to what they do best and when you are considering buying some gear for your local team consider a local option first.  If Pink bothered to get the shirt right and you could buy Pink products from local merchants then I guess it would be different, but they didn't and you can't.

Such a gorgeous family...

Such a beautiful couple!  No wonder they have two stunning kiddos!

The D family was in the studio a few weeks ago and did we have the BEST time!!! Seriously, I think we laughed for the entire session. Doug and J bonded over football in the good old days and K and I bonded over football and how the boys are SO enthralled with it! It makes a good session great when you can chat about common interests!

And then there were the kids.... J and K are so photogenic and so funny! They had me in stitches with their karate poses and attempts at blowing great big bubbles from their new package of Bubble Yum. 

Isn't she a beauty?  What an angel face!  Such a sweetheart!!!

Hands down, one of the most amazing smiles from a young man.  Mr. Personality here!!

The session ended with a bunch of high fives and hugs all around.  You just gotta love when clients leave from the session and you talk about them for the rest of the night.  All good things, of course!  Like how they're the kind of people you'd like to be friends with...good, kind, nice people.



Oh!  And it doesn't hurt that ALL four of them are VERY EASY on the eyes...  :)