It’s always exciting to shoot the first wedding of the year. The much needed break after a busy summer and fall brings rest and builds anticipation for what’s to come. There are a lot of amazing days I look forward to being a part of, but I felt really privileged to be invited to join Eliza and Mark in New Orleans last weekend. They are two genuine people I now feel like I could call friends since they were as welcoming and gracious as I could have hoped.

It wasn’t long after we found out about Dax that I let Eliza and Mark in on the news. They left the decision of still shooting their day up to me and in the end I knew it was something that could be hard, but that I could handle especially with my husband by my side. I put an extra back up plan in place and invited my amazing friend Tami to document the wedding with me so that they would have the best coverage I could give them. If I had control over all timing, I would have given myself more time off after Dax was born before I started shooting weddings… but if there was one wedding I had to choose to photograph with a baby this would be the one.

Our trip south was also a much needed break from this endless New York winter, and being in Louisiana felt like heaven. Flowers were blooming and petals covered the sidewalk… I swam in a pool outside… the sun shone brightly every day. I’m really grateful that there was not in fact 80% chance of rain like the forecast predicted the week before. We were tempted to find a way to spend a month or two in nola in future winters we loved our stay so much.

So I have to ask : who is ready to bring me south in 2016?