The Best Present I Ever Bought Myself

For the life of me, I cannot understand how other women convince their husbands to take professional family photos. Every time someone posts a gallery from their beautiful family photoshoot on social media, I am dumbfounded. There are husbands that actually want to do this? Or at least suck it up enough to appease their wife? Or actually see the value in spending the money on it?

Hiring a photographer to take family photos of us has kind of been a hard “no” for my husband. We had one family photoshoot when my first son was about six months old and they were…ehh…not great. That pretty much sealed the deal for my husband. “Why do we need to hire a photographer when we take better photos of our family with our phones?” has kind of turned into his mantra, which I guess was fine with me (aka: pick your battles). Plus, family photoshoots from a professional photographer are expensive! I totally get where my husband is coming from.  

But something clicked with me the other day and I realized that having professional photos of me with my boys is actually super important to me. My boys are four and two years old I just know that they’ll never love me as much as they do right now. I want to capture the way they look at me with little hearts in their little blue eyes! I want to have some special photos of this sweet time that we are in. Sure I have lots of selfies of me and the kids where no one is looking and my face is half cropped out. But mama deserves to look nice in a photo too, doesn’t she? And it’s okay if my husband doesn’t want to be in the pictures! This one is just about me and my little boys.

So you know what? I did it. I hired a photographer to capture some photos of me and my boys. And it was the best present I ever bought myself. She was super affordable (so I wouldn’t hear any complaints about the price from you-know-who), I picked the location (the beach) and it was quick! Just a 30-minute mini-session was all I needed. All I was hoping for was one good picture of me and my boys. And I got it. In fact, I got even more than one photo that made me want to cry tears of happiness. Now I have these beautiful pictures of me and my boys that I’ll treasure forever.

The moral of this story? If there is something that is really important to you, figure out a way to do it. I know I would have regretted it if I never captured this moment in our lives in a beautiful way.

But seriously. I do want to know how people get their husbands to take family photos. Comment below with all.the.tips. 

Photos by Emily Muffley