Engagement Books... a labor of love!

So we've shot your engagement session and now what?...

The options are endless, but one of my favorite options are engagement books.

I'm a big fan of creating elegant custom designed books of each engagement session.  These books can be great as keepsakes to remember the special time of your engagement or they can also be designed to double as a Wedding Guest Books to be used by your guests to sign at your wedding reception!

The style of books that I design are 8"x8" square shaped and I love them because their hinged pages allow them to lay flat.  I also love that I can custom design the cover to showcase the personality of each couple photographed

Engagement sessions are so much fun to shoot, but they're even better when you get to re-visit them time and time again.  

Here are a couple of the latest engagement books that I've had the pleasure of designing...

Cooking & Editing

I spent the most part of today editing hundreds of images from my past two assignments and as I resigned myself to leave my desk to start dinner for my family I was reminded of how much I hate doing so.

Nothing against my family, of course, but the truth is that I hate making dinner!! If it were up to me I'd rarely cook. In part, the thought of being responsible for what my family consumes every day is too big a responsibility.

However, speaking of responsibilities, I find it funny, that I would prefer photographing a wedding rather than making dinner.  I surprise myself with this thought since a wedding is a couple's most important day of their life and yet that kind of monumental responsibility, I run towards!

To each their own.  Photographing the day of the event is one thing, but my husband, for example doesn't understand how I can spend hours going thru images I've captured, culling, cropping, editing, etc.  But for me, it's such a beautiful creative process to tell a story thru images.  I envy those who find this kind of creative joy in preparing a daily meal.  It would certainly make my evenings a little merrier!

Here's a little sample of what I've been working on today!

I am

I am the type of person that is always talking to herself in her own head.  When I was younger, I loved to write and somewhere along the way, I lost that and I miss it.  Lately, however, as I continue to grow as a photographer and as an individual, the concept of expressing myself thru different mediums has become more and more appealing.

Last month, I turned thirty-four and perhaps this is in part what prompted this desire for self expression.
Sharing my thoughts doesn't come easy but here is a little of how I see myself.

I am a woman

I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister

I am an individual

I consider myself funny and adventurous

I am seen as outgoing by some and as an introvert by others

I am extremely loud inside my own head but often fail to make myself heard

I am a photographer, a runner, a thinker

I am positive, strong and cautious

I am never competitive with anyone except myself

So I constantly need to set new challenges for myself or I get easily bored.

My most fervent wish of all is 

to teach and inspire my daughters to grow into strong, independent women.

Until next time!

Jess