Yesterday, 3 amazing girls and talented photographers flew across the country to spend the day with me. Jamie and Anne-Camille are from Arkansas and Elizabeth is from Tennessee. These girls are hard core. They flew in Friday night and flew out Sunday morning at 6am! Jamie and I had been discussing this session for a couple of months so I was so excited when the day finally arrived!

Saturday morning we discussed marketing, branding, album design, pricing and packages, and shooting. In the afternoon we went out and shot a super fun family and then we came back and discussed post processing. It was a lot to take in in such a short period of time, but I could tell the girls are so passionate about their businesses and they were as excited to learn about it as I was to share it.

We were all so excited for the shoot, but it had been raining all day. I could tell the girls were getting a little nervous about the rain and I was bummed that after coming all that way we didn’t have a beautiful and sunny California day for them. But I knew it would stop raining. We had a little angel looking down on us and I knew that she wouldn’t let it rain on her family’s shoot.

Julie contacted me and I knew right away that her family was perfect for this shoot. It was just meant to be. January 24, the day of our shoot, marked what would have been their first born daughter’s birthday. Joy was stillborn on January 24, 2002 and would have been 7 years old. Julie wanted to do the shoot to remember and celebrate her daughter and also to show how much their family has grown since then. Julie and her husband, Jason, have been through a lot and their story is so inspiring. I was so honored to be able to do this shoot for them on that day and I know the other girls felt the same.

And guess what? The second the Carson family pulled up in their minivan with their 3 beautiful daughters, it stopped raining and didn’t rain again all day.

Here are some (okay a lot!) of my favorite images from their shoot. By the way, Julie is a super talented seamstress and made all of their shirts and headbands!

Haylee is 4. She is a ball of energy!

Lucy is two. She is a tough and spunky little girl!

Janey is just three weeks old! She slept the whole time. I only heard her cry once!

Jason was SO awesome! Anything we needed he was there for us. He’s a super Dad and you can just tell these little girls have him wrapped around their fingers!

To celebrate Joy’s birthday the family sent 7 balloons up to heaven.

Julie is the coolest mom ever! She told her girls to go jump in the puddles! Love it!

And just in case that wasn’t enough for you here’s a slide show too

I stole this from Julie’s blog. Jason took it and I just love it!

And here are some of me in “action” that Liz took.

And one of the girls with our beautiful models

It’s hard to see, but can you see the girls awesome camera straps? They were provided by Shealynn Benner. Have you seen these? As soon as I saw them I fell in love. I wanted to start my own camera strap company a few years ago and just never knew how to do it so when I saw Shealynn’s camera strap covers I immediately bought one for me and one for my BFF. I bought another one a couple of weeks ago and Shealynn was kind enough to sponsor my mentoring sessions! The new red and white damask she has on her shop is my new fav! Thank you Shealynn! The girls LOVED them!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Jamie, Anne-Camille, and Liz for coming such a long way to spend the day with me. I hope you left inspired, excited, and with great memories. You are all extremely talented and I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for all of you and your businesses. I’m so grateful to have met you!

If you are interested in booking a “Day With Drew” shoot me an email for more details {drew at drewbphotography dot com}!