One of my Favourite Christmas Gifts
I sit here as a thirty year old woman thinking about how I've known Any for half of my life,
we met when I was fifteen and she now has a husband and three beautiful children who all look like her. Over the last few years I've photographed her and her family lots of times and every time it's the same, I'm welcomed in like I'm one of the family, we hug, we laugh, we get great photos.
This shoot however is all the more special for me, you see Amy is actually American and this Christmas her parents came over to stay. I was thinking "ok so we HAVE to do this shoot, who knows when we might get another opportunity". So after a bit of planning, replanning, a long family trip home for their family, her mum's lost bag, the journey to find the bag, not finding the bag, a man finding the bag and the bag finding it's way home we finally managed to make it happen!!
I hadn't seen Amy's parents in about fifteen years but they hadn't changed a bit, they were the same warm, wonderful people they were all those years ago and instantly I felt one of the family again. We did the shoot at Amy's husband's Chris's parents house and they were just as wonderful as I knew they would be, so welcoming, so fun, so light... just family personified. We got so many photos that made me well up with tears of joy and pride when I was editing them.
There's another thing I should mention, Amy has a sister, Kaitlyn, she has a husband and two amazing boys but she still lives in America and couldn't make it over. I know the fact that Kaitlyn hasn't met her youngest neice yet is a massive source of sadness for her so I was adament that I wanted all the kids to have a photo together.
So Amy got out the iPad and found the cutest shot of the boys and we sat down Amy's kids with Kaitlyn's kids (virtually of course) and they had their photo taken together and god it made me so happy.
Take a look for yourself and see what this shoot looked like...
