Maternity Photos

When I told Jared a few months ago that I wanted to do a maternity photo shoot, he was less than thrilled. At first, I think he was actually confused. "Maternity photos, like that's a real thing that people do?" Yes, paying someone to take professional photos of you while you are fat and swollen is a real thing, and I wanted to jump on the bandwagon. I still don't think he is completely sold on why I believe this is a necessary part of a first pregnancy. However, he was a good sport and played along because he knows how obsessed I am with taking photos of everything.

I chose my photographer and location carefully. I knew what I ultimately wanted, but I also wanted to make this experience as painless as possible for Jared. My cousins use this one photographer for all of their maternity/newborn/kid/family photos and I always love how all of their photos turn out. Sold. I decided to use a local park sort of back in the woods as our location because I wanted to be able to have a little bit of privacy so that Jared and I didn't feel like we were on display out in front of a bunch of people watching us take our pictures. Plus, I didn't want the location to be too super girly for Jared. He likes the woods and water, so off to Alpine Groves Park we went.

Our photographer, Ariel with Ariel Rose Photography, did such an amazing job and I absolutely love how our photos turned out. She was great to work with and made us feel super comfortable the entire time. My favorite thing about her is that she is so good at giving directions. Posing while pregnant is really awkward and it's hard to tell what I look like because everything feels weird and uncomfortable. Not knowing how I look while I'm taking pictures makes me anxious and nervous because I'm terrified that I'm going to spend all this money and then not like the way I was standing or something. Luckily, Ariel was awesome about calling me out when she could see I was doing something that she knew I wouldn't like. For example, reminding me to relax my face or lift my chin up, trying out different positions to find the most flattering one, and telling me how to hold my arms or my dress to make me look as thin and "all belly" as possible. I love her for that.

Here are a few of my favorites from our shoot!

Ariel will be returning to do Peyton's newborn photos, and I can't wait to work with her again!