Five months ago in mid-January Sue Seall reached out to us about her mother-in-law Millie’s upcoming birthday party! She told us that Millie’s 100th Birthday Party was going to be coming up in Spring and then asked us capture such a big moment for Millie and their extended family! The family was still in the midst of planning the details of coming together to celebrate this momentous occasion with Millie and they wanted the big day photographed so that they could have some formal family group photos and beautiful photos of Millie. We were happily put them in the calendar and were excited to capture yet another amazing 100th Birthday!
A few weeks ago Millie turned 100 (just a couple days before the start of June) on Thursday May 30th! Four days earlier that week we captured the family’s Millie Birthday luncheon at the Knollwood Country Club in Granger, Indiana (near us in South Bend)! They had all just had fun with the extended family over the weekend just over the border at the lake house in Southwest Michigan and everyone was in great spirits! Due to sprinkling rain outside that day we couldn’t set up for the portraits outside at Knollwood on the deck, so we instead set up for their family portraits with studio lighting inside in another room and got to photographing the formal family group photos!
Before and after capturing the more formal portraits with the studio set up we also photographed Millie’s family enjoying the birthday luncheon (put on by her 4 sons & their wives) in the other room as well!
Folks enjoyed a wonderful lunch and desserts in celebration of Millie and many family members caught up with one another!
A whopping 14 years ago Jenny & her mom did a medical mission trip to Honduras with the Sealls (Sue, Rick, & daughter Molly), so it’s been amazing to see how much their family has grown over more than a decade. We also had the pleasure of maybe 8 or so years ago photographing their relative Marty’s retirement party at Juday Creek Golf Course for them in a more candid style, so we were happy to photograph for them again a few weeks ago and see everyone! Two boys whose Senior photos we captured years ago (before their St. Joseph High School graduation) were even in attendance with their parents, so it was great seeing them all again as well!
As we were leaving from capturing portraits, we noticed that Millie’s sons were giving speeches, so we stuck around to capture their words to their mom and the family which were heartfelt, funny, and wise.
As we again turned to leave, we saw Millie make her way to her birthday cake to blow out the candles, so we couldn’t resist running over to photograph that after we finished loading the lighting and gear into the CRV. The kids gathered around as everyone sang “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” to Millie, Millie made a wish, and her candles were blown out as everyone cheered her on!
Congratulations Millie on the momentous 100th birthday just weeks ago! We hope that your first few weeks of 100 has continued to be as wonderful as that first week with the extended family & thank you for putting up with us having you smile for photographs for an hour! Thank you also Sue, Rick, & family for hiring us to capture another momentous family event for all of you! We were thrilled to see so many of your family members again and hope that you all have loved going through the photos (and we cannot wait to print the physical photographs that come with your package for you)! It was beautiful to see that huge place filled with family all there to celebrate Millie! (P.S. We were so happy to see the newspaper announcement of Millie’s 100th Birthday with the photograph of her that we were able to quickly edit for ya when we were back in the office a day & a half later! That was so sweet and we’re sure she’s appreciated all of the wonderful ways you all have celebrated her birthday!)
_________ Unrelated: We have a few more Engagement Sessions coming up in the coming couple weeks as well as Kaitlyn & Colin’s full Notre Dame wedding in the Basilica & Morris Inn next week! We cannot wait to close out June beautifully with our last few couples as we continue to edit wedding photos and print/ package/ send out our couples’ beautiful photos to them! We finished up writing material for and then teaching a couple entrepreneurship/ business owner/ professional photography courses last Thursday & Friday, so this week it’s been back to full-on photo editing on all weekdays and photographing on weekends.
We may have a day off at the end of this week, but had to reschedule Cassie & Jimmy’s Engagement Session from this past Saturday to the coming Sunday because their day got rained out on Saturday with downpouring non-stop rain starting a bit before noon (our first couple who has gotten rained out this crazy monsoon season)! We got very lucky with our past 4 couples whose wedding days and Engagement Sessions called for full weekends of non-stop rainy thunderstorms (all of theirs ending with almost all sunshine shockingly), so it’s no huge surprise that in this the rainiest Spring/ Summer we’ve literally ever seen (in 10+ years of business for sure) that we finally had something get rained out. Luckily Cassie & Jimmy’s wedding is a good ways away in a little under 5 months, so if this coming weekend follows through with the pouring rain 7 day forecast, we can at least re-schedule to a hopefully less rainy July!
That said, keep your fingers crossed for a changed forecast for us and a LOT less monsoon rain coming up! We luckily have a much less insane July than June, so we do have some wiggle room for rescheduling, but would love to capture Engagement Sessions for our couples ASAP! Depending on how things go, next week we may be sharing Cassie & Jimmy’s Engagement Session next Weekly Wednesday OR we may be sharing photos from our two classes that we taught last week. Stay tuned next week to see!