From the Joker to a Pig....

I have had some of THE most incredible days the past week! I will post more about that tomorrow as it's been a complete non-stop birthday week! I never knew birthdays could be THIS fun! :)
Anyways....I always love to post about new movies that I see....and we are on a little movie role tonight!
Earllly this morning we got back from going to the opening show for The Dark Knight! That was the first time I had been to a midnight showing and I want to go to all of them now because it's just so much fun and makes the movie 10 times more fun when the audience is all sooooo excited and claps and cheers at different parts! That's the way it should be! :)
I went to the movie slightly scared that I was going to be totally freaked out because everyone was talking about how scarry the Joker would be!
It actually turned out to be SUCH an incredible movie and Heath Ledger played the Joker so incredibly well I was blown away! It was one of the most intense movies I've ever watched but so wonderfully done and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!
I highly recommend it if you can handle scary looking people! :) But Christian Bale makes up for it in the beautiful people area to balance that out;) GO SEE IT!!!! I loved it even more because the whole thing was shot in my awesome city, Chicago, so I recognized everything! So fun!
Now we are going from popcorn and pizza to salmon pate and shrimp cocktail and watching one of my all time favorite movies Penelope! It is an incredible movie about a girl with a pig nose and yet has such a wonderful message! Loving who YOU are:)
I hope you all are doing wonderful and enjoying this beautiful summer! :)

Just a number? Not so much!

Well I just got back laaate last night from our camping adventure! First we headed out for 3 days for a camp out for my girls group from church! It turned out wonderful....despite the torrential rain both nights! It was such a fun, sun burned, emotional, crazy filled time! I guess the girls want to do this like 4 times a year now because we had so much fun! It actually turned out to be so jam packed that I didn't take any pictures....maybe because I didn't bring my camera....but I don't know!;)
After that trip we headed straight to my cousins for a mini camp out there and started it with a nice little 14 mile bike ride along the Fox river! Glorious! I have determined that I will LIVE outside someday....lol!
Anyways....onto the actual topic of the post.....21.
Yep. That is how old I will be in a little over an hour. I reallllly don't know what I think about it all! It is strangely weird, scary yet thrilling at the same time! I know it is a new season in my life that I am no longer a child whatsoever....according to the state that is;) But according to me.....I will always be a kid! I want to always see the best in life, to have fun in whatever situation, and to have not a care in the world! I feel like I grew up pretty quick being the oldest of 7, starting my own business at 17, and graduating early....but being an adult is pretty much just like it was for me being a child yet with all the capabilities to be able to reach the dreams that I had back then!! It's amazing!! I am so excited for this next phase it feels like a huge orchestra behind a curtain about the break open! YEAH!
I love you all!! Thank you for allll of your encouragement in watching me grow up the past years! :)
Here's to being a kid forever!

Joy & Jamie ::: Wedding

Ahhhh the wonderfulness(is that a word?) of shooting another photographers wedding! It was a complete dream come true! After being a photographer for a few years you start to learn the tricks of weddings and EXACTLY what you want and don't want for your own wedding! This was no exception for Joy! The day went off perfectly with so many incredible details that only a seasoned wedding vendor could pull off! Everything from the hotel room that we shot in to the time of day everything was planned and the amazing amount of time dedicated just for photography spoke Joy just as much as all the hot pink details throughout the wedding! It was incredible! The whole wedding was at Jamie's grandparents incredible house that I would buy in an instant....just picture Anthropologie in a California style house! Ah! I love it! :)
I am so so excited for Joy and Jamie! I couldn't get over how excited they were and am so excited for their future life together!! Have fun in Santa Barbara you two!! :)
Here are some pics....and the slideshow of course!







I'm heading out in about 5 hours for a 3 day and 1 day camping trips.... in a row!! Can't wait! I hope I'll have a tiny bit of internet though! Who knows! I love you all!

HAPPY 4TH of JULY! Yay!

I hope you all had a loud, fun, food filled, laughing, bright sunny, patriotic, crazy day!! I sure did! :)
I just got back and the fun of the last two month hasn't stopped as I just picked up my incredible friend Amy Conner from the airport this morning! She flew in from Nashville to shoot a wedding with me tomorrow and got the fulllllll effect of Barlowness coming to our huge 4th of July party! It was such a blast and it wouldn't be complete without an INSANE photoshoot with my cousin Lauren and I....but I will spare you most of the photos for this one:) I'm so excited that Amy is here! I met her back in the fall in Nashville and then met up with her last time I was in Nashville and we hung out for like 3 days straight! She is totally a kindred spirit and I love it! I'll post more about our adventures soon! :)

Ps...I do not know WHAT happened to my hair in these shots....obviously I had a run in with a socket or something!! lol!

Marlene & Jeremy ::: Wedding

YAY!!! This wedding I knew was going to be one of the highlights of my year! Ever since I met and did Marlene and Jeremy's engagement shoot last year I was counting down the days! I knew it was going to be amazing just by the length of the 5 or 6 hour engagement session! ha! We just kept hanging out and did the same thing for the wedding too! Marlene was so incredible and even got us a hotel room for two nights so that we could come and party with them! I love it!
The wedding day I am pretty much still in awe about! It was incredible, hilarious, emotional, rainy, sunny, and everything else wonderful in between!
There were several miracles wrapped into the day also which always adds a nice touch to everything! From it being forcasted for big storms and the sun coming out right before the ceremony to Marlene saying while it was about to rain and things were looking a little grim that she was still waiting for God to whisper something to her and all of a sudden on the radio Alicia Keys belts out, "Everything's going to be alright!" Amazing! :)
These two totally deserved it too! They are some of the most generous and down to earth people and yet SOOO funny! I think we were laughing close to the whole time!
I think one of the sweetest parts of the night was when Jeremy's sister got up to do the toast and was talking about how they were just waiting and waiting for Jeremy to get married and were telling him to ease up on his expectations but he wouldn't and finally found Marlene who is absolutely perfect for him! I am so excited about their new future together!! I love you both sooo much!! :)






Here is the slideshow!! The wedding was all at the GORGEOUS Patrick Haley Mansion in Joliet! Check it out!

Cake and other sweet things.

Yesterday, we got back from a SERIOUSLY seriously unreal couple of days in Joliet for a wedding that I was looking forward to since last year! I'll post more about that tomorrow.... but tonight here is just a little sample of how hilarious the time was!
We got back from the wedding around 12:30am and started getting our PJ's on but then decided to hang out with my friend Josh Smith and his guys..... instead of wearing normal clothes...you can see in the slideshow what we decided to wear. We were only going to go down to the hotel lobby for 10 minutes max...but that 10 minutes definitely turned into an hour and a half of eating cake that, Marlene, the bride sent us home with(it accidently got dropped on the way home so we decided to make the best of it and feed it to each other!)....after awhile she even joined in with us to hang out!! I LOVED this weekend and the people. I definitely can't believe this is my job! Oh...and also we WERE NOT drunk here....just waaaay slap happy from shooting for 10 hours and the fact that it was 2am in the morning!
Also, the song we choose for this we thought was brilliant since it is WAY overplayed and now quite cheesy;)
This if you were wondering is why the internships are SO fun!

Also, here is a monotone video to balance out the last show to explain the exhaustion afterwards;)

I love you all!!! Time for bed before a FUN day tomorrow and end of internship camp out tomorrow night!! Can't wait!!

Shannon & Mike ::: Wedding

Only a couple hours before shooting my next wedding...I figured it is time to post the slideshow from my wedding on Saturday! haha! Last weekend was Shannon and Mike's gorgeous wedding! It seriously couldn't have been a more perfect day! The wedding was at the HUGE Calvary Church in Naperville and the reception nearby at a beautiful golf club!
Shooting everyone afterwards was one of the most fun times! I felt like I was on a fashion shoot! And the group was up for anything! I am so excited for Shannon and Mike and couldn't be more honored to be a part of their beautiful day! To see more about how amazing and HOT Shannon and Mike are check out their engagement shoot a couple posts below!
I love you guys!!!
Check out the slideshow!!!!

Sorry I'm not posting actual pictures in this post as I don't have my regular computer with me right now!
I love you all!! I'm hoping to sleep for the next 12 hours!! ha! :)

OUCH.....and screaming bloody murder.

Sooooo, this morning I was SO proud of myself! My intern Laura and I headed out to run a couple miles around my favorite lake near us! I was getting into a nice pace and rounded a corner near all these trees when all of a sudden a saw this crazy black thing dart right out of the corner of my eye and then all of a sudden flew RIGHT onto my head pulled my hair and flew away!!! I was screaming so loud Laura who was up ahead thought I fell into the lake or something! I was SO freaked out that a huge bird just land on my head and I could feel the feet on my head and everything! Ahh!! As I was finishing the run everytime I would run past that area I would run with my hands on top of my head.
Finally when I got home I was just figuring that the crazy bird flew into my hair because maybe my hair looked like a birds nest or something! ha!
After telling my dad though...he started laughing because apparently JUST last night in the national news on Drudge Report there was a warning to Chicagoans to watch out for male blackbirds who are protecting their domain! And that they were attacking people who got near the nest! Apparently mostly bikers...but I guess I was running fast enough that it was the speed of a bike;) HA! SO random....
I hope you are all doing amazing!! The internship is going AMAZING and as always I LOVE my new interns!! We have a lot of hilarious pics to post...coming up soon!

Shannon & Mike ::: Engagement

Last Christmastime, I was at party for a group that I've been a part of since I was probably 14 called The Fellowship....basically just a get together that we would have about once a month for about 10 of us(homeschoolers) to hang out! It was so much fun and now that we are all older and in school, jobs, and getting married it's more like a once or twice a year occasion!
Shortly after I joined the group another girl Shannon joined and was a wonderful addition to the group... so fun, SUPER smart, and a wonderful friend! After awhile though she moved down to Florida with her family for a contract job that her dad had down there....that was only supposed to last a couple months....after more than a couple month we figured she just decided to move down there or something! Well....apparently the job lasted longer than expected, which was perfect for Mike.....Shannon's math tutor....who after hitting it off during the training then they started dating and are now engaged! On that night last December, Shannon and I were talking for awhile and finally I noticed a nice sized rock on her finger and TOTALLY freaked out!! I'm so super excited for her!!! Her and Mike are more than incredibly perfect for each other and I know they will have little kids that are little Einsteins right when they are born ! I can't wait for their wedding on Saturday!!! Yay!!




Soooo the next internship started today....and it's been THE perfect day! So laid back and relaxing...I think I always say that at the beginning of an internship...I guess I shouldn't speak until next week! ha!! Love you all!

Joy & Jamie ::: Engagement

The day before my friend Beth's wedding I did a SWEET photoshoot for another photographer Joy Jensen! So two days in a row I got to shoot other photographers! It is such an honor to be asked to shoot another photographers wedding because they KNOW what they are looking for! It's pretty exciting yet nerve wracking at the same time! :) I met Joy a couple years back out in California for a conference we were both at and then saw each other in the airport on the way back! We were about to be able to sit next to each other but last minute they were overbooked so I stayed behind....we were able to get together after that for lunch one day and totally hit it off! I'm so incredibly proud of Joy and what she has accomplished in her business! She's an amazing photographer so check out her work! Enter: Jamie. Joy emailed me a couple months ago letting me know she had just gotten engaged to Jamie, a fellow photographer that she used to work for had been trying to match up her nephew with Joy and finally everything just clicked with lots and lots of planes being delayed or canceled so they HAD to spend time together! I love it!! Even God was trying to get them together! haha! :) They are so perfect for each other and I'm SUPER excited for their life together!
Their shoot was on a gorgeous Saturday morning, just walking alllll around Chicago. And I swear I could shoot all around Chicago for 50 years and still never shoot in the same place! ha! Not that I'm ever going to do that! :) I seriously can't wait for their wedding at the beginning of July! Check out their adorable pics!