You guys, I was editing these photos while also talking with a friend and I kept interrupting our conversation to shout things like “THIS PHOTO IS SO DREAMY!” or “AMEENA AND SAHIR ARE JUST SO SWEET TOGETHER!!” or “OK BUT AMEENA ISÂ ACTUALLY A DISNEY PRINCESS!” And it was in the midst of this incredibly interrupted conversation that I realized I should probably just blog these photos.
Six years ago I photographed my first Indian wedding because Nabila + Aly trusted me to document their multi-day wedding weekend even though I had no experience with Indian weddings before that point. Every single time I get the joy and privilege of documenting another beautiful Indian wedding I always, always think of Nabila and Aly and how thankful I am to them for giving my first “in” into this beautiful world. I’m forever grateful to them. I’ve since photographed seven other Indian/fusion weddings over the years and, while they’re some of my most favorite images I’ve taken (not to mention, clients I’ve had the honor of working with), I’m pretty sure I’ve only blogged two or three of the weddings because if I struggle to narrow down images to a blogpost for a single day wedding then multi-day weddings certainly never get narrowed down enough to make it to a blogpost. SO I’m trying something new! I’m going to (attempt to) blog Ameena + Sahir’s exquisite wedding weekend day by day, as I edit it.
This post is from the first of their wedding events — the Mehndi. This was the most low-key of all the events, mostly henna + mingling with all their family and friends who had come into town for their wedding + sharing delicious food. Something I hadn’t ever seen before and particularly enjoyed was the singing game they played at the end of the evening where Sahir’s friends and family competed against Ameena’s friends and family. The bulk of this post (and the inspiration of all the shouting referenced at the beginning of this spiel) is the portraits we took of Ameena + Sahir together. They hadn’t seen each other for about three weeks leading up to this and had been so busy with all the wedding prep so it was so refreshing to pull them away from everything and everyone and just give them a moment together to breathe deep and just be. Together. It’s one of my favorite things to offer to brides and grooms on their wedding day — moments to steal away from the hustle for even just a few minutes and feel deeply. They actually texted me from their honeymoon to tell me that each time Ameena went to take a photo of Sahir on their travels she instructed him to take a deep breath like I had taught them and it made me smile so huge. One of my biggest goals is to use photography as a tool to help clients be present on their wedding day so I was thrilled to hear Ameena and Sahir were still using what I had taught them even as they travelled around the world.
Ok wow, that’s enough typing, Jillian. On to the photos. Enjoy some of my favorites from Ameena + Sahir’s Mehendi night at Noah’s Event Venue.
 I should be back in the coming weeks with my next post to share their Pithi at the Renaissance Dallas with y’all – YAY!
Goodness gracious, I shot this bridal session about a year ago and I’m just now getting it up on the blog. I was obsessed with it when I shot it and am still obsessed with it a year later. What finally kicked my blogging it into gear was needing to show a current client what a studio bridal session might look like so I’m thankful for the extra incentive to get this out into the world. Blogging is hard because all my work hours are all used up on editing and email — and sometimes just editing (can I get an amen from the clients waiting to hear back from me basically all last week?). But blogging is important (at least to me)Â and I’m proud to share these images with y’all.
Shoutout to Taylor being the beauty queen that she is and also to Everly Alaine for the exquisite (as always) bridal bouquet. These photos were taken at the old location of The Darkroom (they’ve since moved to a new location that I haven’t yet had a chance to shoot in).
I blogged! I know you know this already because you’re reading those words I just typed into the blogpost but I’M JUST SO PROUD. Let me tell you, I thought that blogging was difficult to keep up with before I had kids but then my working hours got cut half in that transition to photographer-and-mom-Jillian which means literally all my working hours are spent on keeping up with email + editing + shooting (it’s a work-smarter-not-longer type situation over here while simultaneously raising babies but then sometimes I’m also editing photos at midnight so, ya know, a bit of both haha). But I made room for this blogpost the past few days (even though there is a wedding edit I’m working my way through and about a dozen emails waiting for a response from me and two photo sessions that need culling) because I realized my blogging rate kind of makes it look like I’m not shooting much these days when the reality is I’m still shooting SO MUCH and still very much love my job I’m simply lacking in the work hours to actually share much of my work in blog format. There’s also the whole “no one looks at blogposts anymore because we live in an Instagram world” but the fact of the matter is that my work is best viewed/understood in a longer storytelling format than in single, square images because my heart for documenting weddings is to do so very much in a storytelling form so BLOG I WILL (try). Lalalalala that’s so many words just to explain my lack of blogposts and the explanation for why you should join me in being very proud of myself for getting this post up hahaha. NOW ON TO THE REAL REASON WE’RE ALL HERE:
You guys, I just love Allie and Connor. I love them. I love their sincerity. I love their quick wit. I love the way Connor looks at Allie. I love their smiles. I love their obvious love for their families and their families’ obvious adoration for the two of them right back. I love that they had a mini donkey at their cocktail hour and that Allie had specifically called ahead just to make sure it was “the fuzzy one” that was coming. I love how kind they are to everyone. I love their ease. I love that Allie told me so confidently in the middle of a crowded reception dance floor THREE YEARS AGO (when she and Connor were in the wedding party of Natalie and Kevin‘s wedding that I also photographed) that they’d be getting married and that I would be the photographer at their wedding too and now HERE WE ARE. So I’m obviously a REAL BIG FAN so I’ll stop my love letter now and show you some of my favorites from their wedding day back in January. And when I say “favorites” I also feel the need to acknowledge that some of my favorites didn’t even MAKE the blogpost which feels lame because it’s like WHEN ELSE AM I GONNA GET TO SHARE THOSE WITH Y’ALL but also I didn’t think anyone would make it through a 500-image blogpost. I’m already questioning if I’m deterring y’all just by the amount of words I’ve written before getting to the already mega-long post so HUSH ALREADY, JILLIAN.
These next ones are from when Allie’s dad saw her for the first time all bride-ed up.
Be sure and take a moment to really look at Connor and Allie’s facial expressions in these next two photos — the depth of mutual respect and trust I see in these next photos between the two of them for real makes me get all weepy.
You can see in the bottom right corner of the first frame that their flower girl caught them kissing right after the ceremony and they had to backtrack real fast hahahaha. Right after this the flower girl told them that at her wedding she wouldn’t be kissing anyone.
(Please don’t miss Allie’s face when she caught a glimpse of her parents slow dancing together)
Guys, to give you some context, when those streamer cannons started going off for the exit they were SO INCREDIBLY SURPRISINGLY LOUD (because we were indoors + there were a lot of them going off at the same time) so looking back at these photos of their reactions running through them cracks me up.
I look at these photos and am just so thankful this is my job (bonus: a job I love that I can still do while also staying home with my two small children) and that these are the people I get to serve. Unbelievably thankful. Also jazzed that Kari coordinated this lovely day plus I always do a happy dance when Holly Viles Design is on floral duty.
Vendor Team:
Guys, this session is my whole heart for all family photography. As much as humanly possible, I want you to play and enjoy and  remember how much you love love love being theirs.
Keep in mind, I say that as a parent of a three-year-old myself and BELIVE ME I KNOW that sometimes things are not this playful — that sometimes we have to adapt and calm and soothe and just breathe with our small children to get them through a storm of feelings they don’t yet know how to process. But those moments, of being the calm home-base for our children, can be beautiful too.
More than anything, I don’t want family photos to just be portraits of people standing next to each other. I want them to be portraits of people connected to each other, engaged with each other and enjoying each other.
Here are some of my favorites from Hana + Elia’s delightful mother-daughter session (from a round of mini sessions I did at the Lumen Room last August) where we blasted “The Greatest Showman” and they sang and twirled and laughed and were together, connected.
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