Christa & Paul's Engagement Shoot

Our friendship with Christa and Paul began at Northwestern College where Christa and Kelsey were fellow art majors. Kelsey is actually going to be a bridesmaid in their wedding in September and they've asked me to be their photographer. I am very excited to take pictures for their big day! A couple weeks ago, the four of us headed down to St. Anthony Main in Minneapolis for an engagement photo/video shoot and we had a lot of fun! During the majority of the shoot, I was actually getting video footage for Christa & Paul's "Love Story" video. Kelsey was taking most of the pictures. But there were a few times when I had a photo idea and she was gracious enough to let me steal her camera for a few quick shots!

During the time that I was NOT stealing Kelsey's camera from her, she captured a lot more shots than this and I thought they turned out really well. Check out her pictures of Christa and Paul here.

Avery Abelle

After nearly 41 weeks of growing in preparation for the world, Avery was ready. On September 9th, Kelsey and I walked to Subway for dinner and then came back and played some Wii. About this time, the contractions started, but we didn't think too much of it, because it was about the gazillionth time Kelsey had experienced contractions. Three hours later, we started taking it a bit more seriously. We left for the hospital around 2:30am, and after Kelsey's epidural, we actually got a short bit of sleep. Around 9:15, Kelsey started pushing and at 9:44am Avery arrived! These first 4 pictures were taken during her first 5 minutes.

Check out that beautiful new mom! After delivery, we all stayed in the hospital for 2 more nights. We enjoyed some postpartum Papa John's delivered right to our room, Kelsey drank about 2 gallons of water per day, and Kevin was so tired that he slept soundly on his pull-out couch. Kelsey was just as tired, but she was more attuned to Avery's cries, so I'm not so sure she slept as well...

Avery is a very energetic girl. She is also very strong and stubborn. She is almost always wriggling around, flailing her limbs in every direction. From Day 1, she was able to hold her head up without any support. She likes to fight sleep, she loves being held, she loves her books, and she loves music - she gets mad when we take either of the latter two away.

Happy baby, angry baby, sleepy baby - Avery rotates quickly between the three personas, and often in that order. Hungry baby also shows up often, scattered among the three!

Avery was about 2 weeks old when we brought her along to Afton Apple Orchard. She liked picking raspberries a lot more than picking apples - probably because the breeze made it feel much cooler around the raspberries.

Our beautiful little girl.

Kelsey Propaganda

This is a fun little video that Kelsey and I made earlier this year. To give you some background, there's a photographer in Louisianna named Kelly Moore who is the absolute best wedding photographer in existence, in our opinion. Kelly and three other great photographers put on a photography workshop for women that Kelsey really wanted to attend, but since it's in San Diego, we couldn't really afford tuition and travel costs. But they offered a scholarship to the winner of their contest - basically they asked people to submit anything, as long as it had the words "Love Affair" in it (the name of the workshop). This is our submission - I thought it was worth sharing! Kelsey didn't win, but that's okay because we found another great workshop that we can attend together instead!

Marcia & Troy - August 9, 2008

There were a lot of couples that got married on 8/8/08 for good luck. Marcia and Troy got married the next day - they told me they don't need luck to keep their love alive! These two loved each other very much and were so much fun to work with!

When I first met with Marcia and Troy, Marcia told me that her biggest "splurge" would be her wedding dress, which she ordered from Italy. True to her word, the dress looked amazing!

My own lovely wife, Kelsey assisted me for this wedding. (She was 8 months pregnant at the time, but she stayed strong all day and had a lot of fun!) This last picture is one of her shots.

Sondra & Travis - July 25, 2008

Sondra and Travis were a great couple to work with. They were a lot of fun and it was great to watch them thoroughly enjoy their day!

We had originally planned to go to a park for group photos, but just as we were about to leave, it started to rain! By the time the rain stopped, we didn't have time to make it to the park and back, so Kelsey and I scoped out our options and found this great spot nearby. The only problem was that it was across a busy street - but as you can see, the bride had no problem stopping traffic!

Everyone had a great time at Sondra and Travis' reception. My favorite part was when Travis wheeled his grandmother out onto the dance floor where she joined in with the party!