I have been pregnant three times, and as I sit here, listening to the rain and my hubby upstairs putting our two boys to bed after I put our little girl to bed, it’s amazing to me to realize that the pregnancy years are already behind us. It’s a time where it seems like it’s so long, and yet when you look back, that precious baby did come and very soon wasn’t a baby anymore. This is why we always tell our couples to document these life changes, because if we keep living in them, they’ll pass in the blink of an eye. We’re so excited that Jamie & Kyle here wanted to do just that and chose to hike along Afton State Park for their maternity portraits.

I watched a message this past week where the pastor talked about life is how we frame it, and we have to be intentional about what we frame. He had a beautiful picture of a sunset taken from an airplane window. In the bottom right corner were dark thunderous clouds, and the rest of the photo was beautiful oranges, yellows, and pinks of the sunsetting below. The idea is that, while we can’t change the scene of life, we can choose what we focus on. We can take our small frame and frame the dark thunderous clouds, making everything seem dark and discouraging, or we can move the frame within the same scene and focus on the breathtaking beauty of sunset. This is exactly what couples like Luke and Anna are doing. While COVID has made life in general challenging , especially when planning a wedding, they chose to focus on what is beautiful instead of the dark and gloomy corner.

Seriously you guys, we can’t even. We can’t even begin to tell you how unbelievably fortunate we feel to be able to not only hang out with awesome engaged couples on a regular basis, but to ultimately capture this unique time in the couple’s relationship – and to then capture their wedding day? Even better!

What’s better than being a couple’s wedding photographers? Getting to be the couple’s wedding day photographers and then also capturing their maternity portraits! It was beyond fun to capture Rachael and Andy’s wedding at Settlement Hill Farms in Hudson, Wisconsin, and getting to catch up with them again at Afton State Park last week was icing on the cake. I loved walking amongst the empty trees and capturing not only their love for each other, but also their love for their soon-to-be-here baby boy! Rachael is 33 weeks pregnant and beyond glowing!

Daniel and Anna met on Bumble three years ago. The attraction was mutual, and they decided to meet up with each other for their first date. They met each other at the show “Jesus Christ Superstar” — which they now admit was a rather unique first date in that they did not get to chat face-to-face like so many couples choose, but it was the perfect choice for them. They went out to chat afterwards after sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, enjoying the show and have been inseparable since. They love to spend their time traveling and being outdoors hiking, camping, and riding bikes, so it was only natural that we picked Afton State Park as the spot for their engagement portraits — and the fall colors did not disappoint!