Please pardon the interruption in Summer’s series of posts, but I had the intention of posting about this special collaboration since pre-Hurricane Harvey, and then, well…yeah. Life was put on hold for a while.

I am so super excited about this new service and collaboration I’m offering to my clients: styled sessions. By styled, I mean my oh-so-lovely friend and wardrobe stylist, Ashley, will come to your house and plan your entire family’s wardrobe for your shoot.

Cutie McPretty, right?!

Using the clothes you already have, she’ll style every person in the family and make sure you perfectly coordinate. So many of my clients get stressed and overwhelmed about what to put the family in. I’ll certainly still be happy to chat with you about what to wear, but if you’re looking to take all the stress out of the shoot (and have a super fun experience playing in your own closet), you should definitely consider hiring Ashley to help. **She’s even offering a discount for my clients who book her when they book their sessions. When you book your sesh, let me know you’d like to add on her services.

(Also, if you book a senior girl’s shoot with me, Ashley’s styling service WILL BE INCLUDED in the session fee, because a gal sometimes needs a little help to look her most fabulous.)

Before we decided to do this collaboration, she wanted to show me exactly how it would work, so she came over and we spent the afternoon playing in my closet. Yes, yes, I know I have a dream job.

**Insert plug for myself here: Guess what?! You can have it too! Call me for a free coaching consultation on how to make your own dream job a reality. I primarily advertise my coaching service for photographers, but I help women with all sorts of small businesses. Check out my FB group if you’re looking for good business advice.

So first, we started with my outfit because I always recommend Mom starts with herself and plans the rest of the family’s outfits around hers.

For me, specifically, I explained my vision for the shoot and she ran with it. I told her I wanted to do a shoot in my fancy trench and wanted to do something different than our typical crazy, bright colors and patterns on the beach. The goal is to do dark neutrals with the skyline and city life in the background. I love Houston so much, and although we have no intention of moving right now, who the heck knows where we’ll end up? I don’t have any pics of us that are in an urban setting, so I thought it would be fun to change it up. (I’ll definitely share those pics when we have them done by the lovely Stefanie Frazelle. Exciting!)

My recommendation for you if you do this is to have the biggest bed in the house available to lay all the clothes out for the family, so you can visually see how they’ll coordinate.

The hubs was the easiest part. It helps when your man is super dapper and looks good in anything. So on to the kids.

Before she came, I walked into my daughter’s room to straighten it up.

–Sidenote (of course). By the way, I just rewatched my video in my Facebook group (come join us!) about not working for free, because I had mentioned it to someone at a party and I wanted to make sure it was still what I was thinking it was in my head.

And

1. I clear my throat all the time, because I am always on the tail end of some kind of sinus problems, so sorry about that.
2. I can’t bloody finish a sentence! Again, sorry. Super annoying. Here’s the thing, I’ll be in the middle of a sentence and I realize I need to prep the rest of the sentence with another point first and then another point before that. Crazytown. You should see inside my brain. It’s a mess up there.

–So sidenote to the sidenote: Once my kids were old enough to tidy their rooms at least a little, I turned that chore right over to them. When they were both at home all day every day, I’d keep their rooms clean and then I’d walk into my own once-beautiful bedroom and be bummed out because it was never tidy, because I was feeding and following the two hooligans around all day long. I finally decided they can wreck their own spaces, and I would walk into my own beautiful space and feel so much happier.

So I walked over to their “wing” and started to tidy up, and I thought, “Yeahhhhh, nope. This is what you get. Sorry, but I’m not gonna fake the funk for this sweet lady.” Their clothes are clean and put away, and we will kick the crap out of gently slide the toys out of our way to get to them.

And going into this, I fully expected that I’d have to buy an outfit for myself and at least one piece of clothing for each kid. However, Ashley reassured me that we would be able to work with what we have–and we did!

But I mean, really: this was my son’s closet. I said, “Literally, he has three things hanging up. Everything else is shirts and shorts.”

This poor lady worked on the floor with a smile. Ok, I kind of feel bad about that. But, we don’t have any pets, so at least there wasn’t any dog hair.

And then, when we were all done, she sent me a super cute and fun link with everything, because when she looked into my eyes, she could see the black vastness of killed memory brain cells from all of the working/sleepless nights and knew I’d never be able to remember what we picked.

So fun, right?!

It’s so very important to me that I support fellow women with small businesses. For my current and future clients, I hope you will consider treating yourself to a session with Ashley. She is a sweetheart, and I promise you will appreciate feeling well prepared for our family session. Here are her additional links:

https://www.facebook.com/ashleykahnwardrobestylist/

https://www.instagram.com/ashleykahnstyle/

And everyone else, I will finish Summer’s series…um, soon. :)

Thank you, Ashley!

Love, Andrea

andrea.bacle@gmail.com or 508.768.5808