Falling in love with a bride

A couple of weeks ago I met with a bride as I usually do to get to know my clients (or better: for them to get to know me) before they book me.
I thought the meeting would take up to 1,5 hours or so and told my husband when I would be home.
But then I met her and we started chatting. I asked her my usual questions like "Where are you getting married?" "Whats the color scheme?" "What does your dress look like?".
(I always wanna be able to paint a picture of the wedding day in my head, as accurately as possible.)
And then the one thing happened, that I always hope will happen with every.single.one of my brides: We started laughing together, finding similarities, making jokes and it got so much more personal!
As she kept on sharing and I kept on asking our whole relationship changed and in the end I didn´t feel like some vendor she wanted to hire to make her day perfect but like a friend she wanted to be at the wedding!
We had talked for over two hours which none of us had noticed (my husband had, he called me shortly after to ask me when I would be home, shreaking kids in the background).

I love it when that happens!

Now brides, if you´re about to book a wedding photographer: Make sure you really LIKE them! Not just their pictures, or their prizes or anything else.
Make sure you click with them on a personal level! The more you will like your photographer, the more relaxed you´ll be on your wedding day.
If you feel comfortable in the presence of your photographer and you can joke around with/him her it will automatically result in beautiful, natural pictures!

Love, Chrissy

Crazy life

Yesterday I felt like I should definitely write a blogpost. After all, it had been a week since I posted something last and I once read somewhere that you should write at least one blogpost a week to keep your audience entertained.
So first: Sorry, for not entertaining you sooner! ;)
But I really couldn´t.
I found myself sitting infront of my computer yesterday and couldn´t form one word in my head.
I had tons of good ideas what to post about, but couldn´t get myself to start.
For some reason I didn´t want to.
And then I noticed that I had to give myself some time to just BE.
Those last two and a half weeks have been crazy and I haven´t shared one word about it on FACEBOOK, TWITTER or this blog because I needed time to get used to the new situation and to verbalize my feelings.
As some of you might know Photography is not what I studied, I actually studied Social Work (way back in the day, when I was waaaay younger... Hahaha).
The vision for my life when I was 19 included renting or buying a big house in South Africa so I could create a home for street children. The house would have had lots of bedrooms, a big kitchen and dining room and a big sort of hall, where there could be school in the morning and homework and playtime in the afternoon.
Although I am sure that God planted this in my heart he led us to stay in Germany and over the years I sort of forgot about the details of that dream I once had.
But one thing I didn´t forget: I wanted to create a home for children that were not my own. Talking to Danny about that didn´t exactly leave me with the result I had in mind as he is more of a thinker and doesn´t usually decide on things spontaneously (something we´re VERY different at!). But after a while he warmed up to the idea of opening our house for other kids and we started the process with the Jugendamt to become short term foster parents (meaning the kids usually stay only up to 4 months). This process took about three months but since the middle of February we have a cute little 18 month old girl staying with us!
Now, we have been prepared for a lot but when it came to putting things into practice it was still a whole lot different than the stories we have heard.
For once I figuered that I have to watch out for my own kids not to get jealous or to feel left out since there is another person just marching right through their territory claimed what isn´t hers.
Now it turned out that the little one is the jealous one throwing tantrums whenever my daughter crawls unto my lap and trying to bite and pinch my son when he wants to play with her.
I totally get where she is coming from and that there is a lot of frustration built up in her and that truly makes me feel sorry for her. But she still has to learn that biting, pushing and pinching doesn´t solve anything.
So for the last two and a half weeks (and probably going on for a while) I was busy protecting my children from the tantrums of an 18 month old that we´re still getting to know and at the same time trying to make them understand her and her understand that this isn´t the way we roll.
So the title of this post really sums it up quite well! :D

I am glad that she is here though, no doubt about that! She definitely opened our bubble of just being the four of us and is teaching us to practice patience and loving your neighbor!

Here´s a picture that Danny took last year of my daughter Noa and me and that I recently discovered!
Awww, she is so cute man! :D

EDIT:
For reasons of data protection I can´t post pictures of our foster child online, but just so you´re getting an idea I found one where she´s hiding behind the curtain. :p

10 things you probably didn´t know about me

1. I can´t sleep without a blanket. Not.ever.
Not even when it´s 30°C outside. I still need a sheet or something that I can roll myself up in like a burrito.

2. I love music. I played the trumpet for 10 years, then started singing in my church´s band. Music was my main subject in school and when it comes to classical music I absolutely adore Bach, he´s my favorite classical composer, hands down.

3. I wanna seem like I have it all together but I really sometimes don´t. Especially with my photography I have to constantly remind myself that it´s a learning curve and that I am getting there!

4. I don´t think I have ever said no to a piece of chocolate, a chocolate muffin or a chocolate cake. If so, I must have been sick. I love, love, LOVE chocolate in all it´s forms. And Nutella... Hmmm....

5. I hate beer. There, I said it. That probably makes me a very bad German. But to me it tastes like - I wanna say vomit but that may be too harsh. It´s true though.

6. My kids make me laugh. They say the funniest things. Like when Josiah told us that his friend had pushed him until he fell on his bum. My husband replied that that wasn´t nice and Josiah says: "Yes, maybe he was stressed!?"
Or when I said to Noa" Mama is a woman, Daddy is a man, Josiah is a boy and Noa is ..." and she goes "A PRINCESS!" My heart want´s to melt!

7. I have a very weird humor that only certain people understand (sometimes not even my husband).

8. They took my appendix out when I was 4 years old.

9. Until I was 13 I had straight hair. Then it kind of exploded and I looked like a white african with a big afro (no joke!). After two pregancies the afro is gone again and I´m left with some fuzzy-frizzy-not-curls-not-straight-hair-hairstyle. I should actually show you pictures. When I find them I will.

10. This post was originally called "20 things you probably didn´t know about me". I don´t know why I wrote such a high number. There might be a "Part two" some time. :p

Meet our niece!

In August, Dannys sister and her husband had a baby. But since they are living in England we only got to see our cute little niece SAVANNAH via skype.
With two siblings in South Africa and two in England, Danny doesn´t get to see them very often anyway.
So when Maggie and Raf, the two "english" siblings came to visit us with their loved ones shortly after Chritmas, we were thrilled.
We went on sunny walks, climbed up a watch tower, had gigantic steaks with them for lunch in the beautiful but unfortunately rainy town of Freiburg and as a highlight for everyone we went to Europa Park.
I loved looking at the lights and all the beautiful little houses and towns they created there and really enjoyed to hear the kids laughing and delighting in all the beautiful things to see. The ONE (!!!) roller coaster ride I went on with Josiah was enough for me as I am not a big fan of roller coasters.
I don´t know why, maybe the two pregnancies have made me slightly more sensitive towards that but I can hardly sit on a swing without getting nauseous. So roller coasters are not for me. :D
But everything else was lots of fun and we had an awesome time together.
But now I am getting a little carried away, as I actually wanted to show you pics of our gorgeous little nice.
So here you go!

 And then one night, she discovered her feet!

Happy NEW YEAR!

It is 2014, people. I can hardly believe that. It seems like the older I get, the faster the months and years just run by and I feel like I am supposed to keep running to keep up with time.

It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that it was march 2013 and I was looking forward to what summer and the rest of the year would have in store for me and then it came and went and now we already started a new year.
2014.
I have not made any new years resolutions as I really don´t like them. When I was younger I would have these big things I wanted to change in that year to come only to be disappointed by myself only a couple of weeks later.
It sort of felt like after messing up my New Years resolution the new year could only go downhill from there.
Believing that your New Years resolutions will change everything makes for incredible discouragement, because you have these big expectations and then you may find yourself failing.
At least that´s how it used to be for me.

Today I firmly believe that you get a fresh start not only on the 1st of January.
I believe that you get a fresh start every morning and can make resolutions for the day EVERY MORNING.
This means that you can choose to be better and do things differently every morning and you will be able to see things change that very same day. Not in the near or not so near future. You make the resolution for the day. And then maybe a different one for the next day or maybe the same. Doesn´t matter. But you can choose to live differently every day.
For me that works much better, to live life in little steps and not pay too much attention to that BIG step at the beginning of the year. Because truly, the 1st of January is just another day of the week, the only thing that´s different is that you write 2014 now instead of 2013.

Have you made and New Years resolutions for this year? How does it work for you and what are they?

Roadtrip and Christmas party

Recently we were invited to join the annual Christmas party of my husbands company close to their headquarters in Ulm.

Due to the fact that we had to drive there for a couple of hours I decided I would enjoy the Christmas market before the party started while my poor husband had to sit in a meeting. I went there with a friend, Micha (who´s husband also had to be in said meeting) and we were both blown away by those cute little market stalls, the pretty lights and the impressive Ulmer Münster in the background.
I really LOVE Christmas markets. I love that you can go to five different ones and none of them looks the same but they all have that same feel to it. I love that you almost HAVE to snuggle together because it´s just too cold to be walking by yourself (yep, missed my husband there).
I could cope with a little higher temperature though, but then I guess it just wouldn´t be the same.
Now I didn´t wanna carry too heavy that day and therefore left all of my lenses besides one at home, so I couldn´t get the complete Ulmer Münster on the pictures.
But I hope you can still grasp the spirit. :D

The Christmas party itself was a lot of fun as it involved ridiculous amounts of incredibly amazing food (let me just say 1,5m of chocolate fountain... *yum* I ate so much I was nauseous afterwards.), meeting and getting to know very nice people and sleeping in a hotel while the kids where taken care of at my parents.

Now besides the crazy Christmas decoration (and yes, I do have a thing for huge candle bearers, see also the pretty one in THIS post) there was a ladies bathroom that looked like no other than Barbie herself had been the interior decorator.

(The location, by the way, was pretty cool. It´s called Wiley Club and has a really nice atmosphere with its wooden floors and the high ceilings.
So if anyone is planning on having their wedding reception there, I´d gladly take your photos! :D )

The last few pictures I took on our way back home and played a little bit with my lightroom settings.

Have you been to any Christmas markets this year? What was it that you enjoyed about them?

Lots of love, Chrissy

And here is that said foyer of the woman´s bathroom. I don´t know whether I should love it or hate it. There´s just SO.MUCH.PINK.