The Photography Blog of Erica Rose - Illustrative, Boutique Wedding Photographer
I am dying to know! {Yes, I might actually be dying to know…}
We’ve had guesses all across the board. My sister is absolutely convinced we’re having a girl…almost everyone else seems to think boy, except Jamie who is kind of expecting a girl at this point. Either way, I’m going in prepared. I made two hats last week. One pink, one blue.
Trust me…there is no more room in the inn.
And yet, sometimes it seems like this baby is never going to come!
A few days ago I read an article by Elizabeth Messina…one of the quotes that stood out to me was “There are few things you get to take home with you after your wedding day: your spouse, your ring and your photographs.”
…and your photographs.
Not only do you spend months planning the wedding day celebration, but this single day is the beginning of a new marriage. It is probably the most important day of your life…and the only things you get to take home from it are your ring, your spouse and your photographs.
Wedding photography is about documenting the story of a couple’s wedding day in a way that will preserve their memories forever. Often when I get feedback from my brides & grooms, the images that speak to them and bring back the most emotion from their wedding day are of the unscripted in-between times or the images that capture the scene. It is my responsibility to preserve the visual details and those moments that can’t be anticipated.
I am definitely not undermining the importance of capturing beautifully composed shots of the bride & groom, the wedding party and the family. Not only are those shots important, but shooting them well probably takes the most skill and experience as a wedding photographer.
What I am saying is that a half of the story lies in those other things that you can’t plan for…images capturing the scene, the emotion, the candid moments. I think that a lot of couples make the mistake of underestimating the importance of those photographs and therefore not booking their wedding photographer or their wedding photography package accordingly. I also think that some photographers out there miss the moments…the better half of the story.
heirlooms.
place has huge significance for some couples.
Paul and JJ were married in the same church where her parents were married, almost 40 years ago to the day.
Sometimes its the shot on the way to the shot you’re about to pose…
…or between the posed shots.
…during the posed shots when something unexpected happens.
Jill made 1,000 paper cranes by hand…all of the paper goods for the wedding…bouquets for herself and the bridesmaids.
People choose their venues, and style their decor because it speaks to who they are. 
I’ll leave you with just one more:
This is my absolute favorite picture of Jamie and I from our wedding day. If Vanessa had tried to pose us specifically into this position I’m sure it would have been a super awkward shot! But, I’m sure glad she captured this moment, because for me this is a priceless image of our wedding day.
Something has been brewing in my brain in the past week about photography and why I love it…why its important to me personally, apart from business. Something struck a cord when I saw one of my 2011 brides change her profile picture on Facebook to a picture of her and her grandpa dancing at her wedding. It was a picture that I had taken. That week her grandpa had sadly and unexpectedly passed, just a few short months after the wedding day.
Pictures are memory holders for me. A single image can often bring me right back to an experience, so strongly that its like I’m seeing that moment flash through my brain for the first time. That is what makes photographs so powerful and meaningful for me, and why I love to create those kinds of photographs for other people.
The funny thing is that often, the photos that strike that cord in me and seem to contain moments of time are not always the photos that you would expect to be able to do that. They’re definitely not always of people smiling and looking at the camera, often they aren’t technically perfect. They are always triggers because of the way they capture the feel, the emotion and the detail of a moment that you want to hold on to…those moments that you try to visualize so that you’ll remember it forever. Sometimes without capturing a photograph those perfect and important moments are lost, or at least diminished in our imperfect memories.
Last night I looked through the last few years of our personal photographs. There aren’t as many as you might think! I have to admit that before I started shooting weddings full time, I had my camera out way more often…really, always. In the past 5 years or so I’ve taken way less personal photographs, which is something that needs to change (actually, I’m sure it’ll change when we have the baby, you know I’m going to be one of those crazy camera moms!) I pulled out a few photos from the past 4 years that are powerful to me. You’ll see they’re not perfect, and most of them won’t make sense to you as ‘powerful’ but that doesn’t matter, because they’re my memories and no one else’s.
The first night after moving to Unalakleet in 2007, Jamie and I had gotten engaged about 8 weeks before.
Winter in Alaska teaches a new appreciation for the sun. This is us on a snow machine ride out of Unalakleet in February. One of those ‘umm…is this my life? How did I get here?’ kind of moments.
Paris, on our honeymoon. 
Amsterdam, also on our honeymoon…this is not a technically awesome shot (obviously) but I’m wearing TWO rings in it, and I look pretty happy about it.
Our first married Christmas with Jamie’s family. When we got there, Norm just curled right up to Jamie like he never wanted to leave.
My grandma and grandpa’s house in Minnesota, I hope I always remember it like this.
One of my favorite trips with Jamie. Cold and rainy in Newport RI, eating some of the best clam chowder I’ve ever had.
We took the train into Grand Central at 5am. I felt like I was in a movie.
He looks like one of those keebler elves, right?! I loved this photo instantly.
Blackberries in my mind = BC in summer, and being engaged.
Our second anniversary. I love this one for no reason I can put my finger on. Its our desktop right now.
Coffee date in Milwaukee.
Me and my momma in Mexico last February! Take me baaack…..
At a market in Oaxaca last spring
Two of the sweetest boys…also in Oaxaca.
Lost in New York.
Sweet home Chicago! My sister took this one when she came to visit once…downtown, freezing cold, a billion Christmas shoppers, perfection.
I’m working on another post…a kind of ‘part two’ to this one. Its got a hundred wedding images right now (literally)…I guess I want to show you more about why I shoot weddings the way I shoot them, why sometimes the unexpected, unplanned, unposed photos are the ones that have the ability to speak, and therefore why I think its such a good thing that wedding photography has been evolving into something different in recent years.
SO if you’re interested in that, stay tuned! As long as theres no baby, I’ll probably be posting that in the next couple of days.
I haven’t written a lot about my pregnancy on the blog, but I’ve been feeling like I want to share a little bit about how things have been going…and a couple pictures too.
Here I am at 16 weeks! I took a picture at 5 weeks when I found out that we were expecting a baby, but I LOST it. It was wedding season, my cards were in constant use and somehow my little self-portrait was lost. So this is the first documentation of my pregnancy. Tiny little bump, 16 weeks in. At this point I was feeling pretty great. If there was a word for my first trimester experience it would be: hungry…or tired…but probably hungry. I wasn’t sick, but I was always hungry and almost always tired. By 16 weeks I was feeling great, not pregnant at all really. 
Here I am at 20 weeks! This is when I decided to finally make an announcement about our news on Facebook & my Blog. I was nervous about sharing this, mainly because I was nervous about being pregnant, about the pregnancy going well and the possibility that I might lose the baby. I don’t know if every other pregnant woman feels that way, but that was me. By 20 weeks I was still feeling great, and had felt the first flutters of the baby moving. At this point we were also preparing to move to Alaska where Jamie would start a new job. I was so overwhelmed with all of the changes going on and the prospect of moving away from Chicago, that the coming baby hadn’t sunk in by this point. Maybe thats why this pregnancy has flown by. The word of my second trimester: Transition.
Here we are at 28 weeks, about 2 weeks in to our move to Alaska. It was cold, and I was finally starting to really ‘show’…at least the belly has kept me warm this winter! 
This is the most recent picture I have. 35 weeks, almost full term! As I write this I am 37 weeks and 2 days, so I should probably keep taking pictures…but I don’t really want to : ) As of today’s doctor’s appointment I had gained 40lbs – yikes! My face has gotten rather…er…full? I don’t like it. I know, I know I’m pregnant and its normal and all of that. Maybe I’m too vain. Whatever.
I’m still feeling pretty good most of the time, and I go back and forth between readiness to have the baby and being completely fine with the 3+ more weeks that we’ll be waiting (I think) for the arrival. I am so thankful about how ‘easy’ (relatively speaking) my pregnancy has been so far…Jamie keeps telling me how great I’m doing, and I like to hear that. We’re still toying with names and getting things settled but really I’m just trying to stay relaxed, spend good time with Jamie, see friends, and get lots of sleep! I think it’ll be easier for me to handle labor than the weeks of sleep depravation to come, I’m an 8 hours a night kinda girl.
I’m nervous about the labor and about the nursing and about the lack of sleep, but more than all of that I really am excited about this baby. To see if we’re adding a boy or a girl to our family, to see what our baby will look like, to watch Jamie as a dad, to introduce him or her to our family and friends. Its going to be pretty amazing, I know it.
When I was younger my parents would often get me a gift for Valentine’s Day. I’d usually wake up to find a card and some kind of cute gift on the kitchen table. Pink and red socks, some flowers, good candy…something like that. I still love little surprises like that, the excitement over cheesy Valentines Day socks or red nail polish is not lost on me!
V-Day shouldn’t be a crazy day of pressure where we have to live up to someone else’s expectations for the day, but why not turn the day into an excuse to show a little extra love – right?
It doesn’t take much.
Even just some red paper hearts or a cupcake with sprinkles on top….see?
