Holiday Maternity Photoshoot For Winter Baby

Hi Mama,

How are you doing today?

I’m doing alright. I have four more weeks of work before I take my maternity leave and less than 6 weeks until my baby girl is due. Daddy and I are gearing up for her arrival and are so excited! I’ve noticed that we have become a lot closer in the past few months bonding over the fact that we are creating this child together and I love it so much.

As some of you may know, my husband and I got married in Vietnam back in 2013. I have a YouTube video that talks about our Vietnamese wedding experience as well as a blog post about why we got married so young if you’re interested in learning more. The wedding experience was amazing and I’m so happy we got married in Vietnam but the traditions were very different than an American wedding. Because of this, I told myself that when we had kids, I wanted to do all of the traditions that go along with pregnancy: a fun baby announcement, baby shower, and a maternity photo shoot.

Today I just wanted to share some of the photos from our holiday maternity photoshoot that we got done this past December. One of my dreams has always been to have a beautiful Christmas tree in my own house so being our first Christmas in our home, I wanted to capture that along with the excitement of preparing for Fawn girl’s birth.

The photographer I chose is Lauren from Inspire Me Imagery. I ended up going with her because she was local and also because I liked the way she does documentary style photos along with posed photos during her sessions. Huy isn’t the biggest fan of the camera so while I decided to put him through a photo shoot, I wanted to do it in a way that didn’t make him feel too awkward for the entire hour. I think Lauren did a great job of capturing us in the comfort of our own home and I’m hoping to use her again for newborn photos. If you are in central New Jersey and want to check her out, here is her site. 

Recommended video: Our Maternity Photoshoot 

 

Holiday Maternity Photoshoot to Welcome Our Winter Baby

To start the photo shoot, we went outdoors to take some posed shots in the natural light. We literally just went in our backyard and it worked out perfectly. I was so in love with my blue dress that I actually bought at a thrift store for $6.50. I had purchased it in November and the shoot was in December. The dress fit me in November. By December I could not zip it up in the back but we still made it work. 😀

Once we got a few shots outside we changed our clothes for the indoor shoot. I had given Lauren some ideas of some of the photos I wanted to recreate for the shoot and she was really good about trying all of the ideas I had sent her. A lot of the ideas I sent were black and white and silhouette style photos.

It’s funny when you’re being photographed and you don’t see the images but the photographer keeps saying that they are beautiful and perfect. I had no idea if she meant it or if she was just saying that to make us feel good but when I saw the images I knew she wasn’t lying. I was so impressed with how  everything came out. And the tree was the perfect backdrop for our festive holiday themed shoot!

When I talked to her about what I was looking for, I also told her that I wanted our dog, Peanut, to be involved in the photo shoot as well. After all, he is our son! And since he’s a good boy he cooperated well for the photos and even made us laugh with how dramatic he acted in the photos. We love to joke and say that he’s in denial that he isn’t going to be the only baby in the house anymore. I think he’s starting to catch on to what’s going on around here.

Like I said before, Lauren likes to capture more natural photos as well as the posed ones, so I enjoyed getting some photos done in the nursery (which is still not done but I’ll be sharing photos of it very soon!). She said she typically likes to take photos of parents folding the baby clothes but we decided to plan where to hang the mobile and to open a baby gift instead. These photos are going to be so much fun to look back on once Fawny is here.

I can’t believe how many beautiful images Lauren was able to capture in just one hour! The experience was smooth and totally worth the money. Lauren was on-time, professional and made us feel comfortable even though posing for photos can be awkward. I was also impressed with how quickly she got the edited images to us. The shoot was on Sunday and by Tuesday afternoon I was enjoying the photos! I’m looking forward to hopefully working with her again for the newborn shoot.

Which photo is your favorite from our holiday maternity photoshoot? Did you have a maternity shoot with any of your pregnancies? Tell me about it in the comments below!

xo

Mother of Fawn