October isn’t very cold.
Except on October 26th, 2016. That was the day my son, Patrick, and I got our Mother/Son pictures taken. And. It. Was. Freezing.
Admittedly, the cold weather might have felt all the colder to me, as the week before the photo shoot we were in sunny Fort Lauderdale, for our first ever family vacation; making a second home out of a beach cabana every day that we were there.
We squeezed our photoshoot in the day after our return - the day following our photo shoot, Patrick was scheduled to have a surgery at Boston Children’s and was going to be out of commission for a while. I wanted to use these pictures for Christmas cards and get a couple framed for Christmas gifts; so scheduling wise, October 26th was the only day that worked…
We decided to take the pictures at George Hill Orchards and some surrounding areas that featured a stone wall and a breathtaking hilltop (breathtaking mainly because I pretty much had an asthma attack walking up it. Really need to get back to the gym).
I called Nina the morning of the photoshoot, pretty concerned about the predicted weather but totally trying to play it off like I was more of a “go-with-the-flow-kinda-client”.
She wasn't nearly as distressed about the forecast as I was, but then again, I'm not sure anyone would have felt like I did.
As much as I trusted N+A to do a great job, my concern about P's surgery was hounding me and I started to feel like these pictures weren't going to come out as legendary as I envisioned. How were P and I ever going to become the next hottest mother/son modeling duo if his nose was running and my hot mom bod was covered by an unflattering winter jacket?!
We got to the orchard and things started out O.K., but it was cold. Thankfully, Nina remembered to bring a blanket for P since I, his own mother, did not.
The blanket was this amazing colorful quilt that I almost died over. I had to know where it was from and you might need to know too; FawnOverMe, local to Worcester, creates the cutest baby stuff ever.
Still, as cute as it was, the colors sort of clashed with P’s top, so I wasn’t trying to have it in any of our pictures.
I don’t remember Baby P smiling even once the entire time we were there. I remember his teeth chattering. I remember his lips turning a little purple. I do not remember him smiling though, and believe me, I was pulling out all the stops. I was doing this amazing dance I choreographed that he LOVES where I raise the roof and chant “who da mom” over and over again but even THAT wasn’t making him smile.
I thanked my lucky stars his nose wasn’t running and realized it could be worse. He would probably end up looking like the strong silent type in these pictures.
Not the end of the world.
When I went to the viewing appointment a few weeks later, I wasn’t expecting to love very many pictures. I was now just hoping to get at least one good one to use for a Christmas card and I thought even that might be tough.
What I’m about to say is hard for me but here goes;
I WAS WRONG!!! I was wrong about everything!
The colors were everything. The texture of the sky and the lighting was justperfect. Patrick DID smile A LOT. The FawnOverMe blanket looked ADORABLE and didn’t clash.
I ended up ordering two 8 x 10 prints (one for my dad’s office and one for my grandparent’s house), three framed 11 x 14 pictures (one for my mother, one for my mother in law, and one for me) and 25 Christmas cards. Pretty much got all my Christmas shopping done in one sitting.
All this from a photoshoot I had absolutely zero faith in.
Lesson learned; never, ever doubt the power N+A and a gorgeous orchard on a hill at sunset on a cold October evening.
