Today is a very special day indeed. We are not only celebrating Tara & Jason’s seventh wedding anniversary, but also celebrating seven years of Vivie as the nacho cheese topping that keeps Lynn Michelle Photography yummy.

If you ask my grandmother, she will tell you she was solely responsible for getting Vivie involved. Honestly, I can remember asking Vivie to lend a helping hand to speed up formals at Tara & Jason’s wedding – as it was threatening to be a … um … very warm day. And warm it was! The guests were seated minutes before the ceremony started, 11am full sun in the Dallas Arboretum gardens, with were rumors that the cake was melting. And somewhere in that crazy overheated and sweaty moment, I handed Vivie a backup camera and gave her some sage words of advice “stay out of my way”.

So she cautiously took one picture.

and then another and another.

She must have made a decent impression because I invited her to Adriane and Matt’s wedding the following weekend. And from there, she has photographed every single wedding with me except for two – one because she had to go to homecoming at school (yes, she was in high school when all of this began!) and then another more recently to be in her best friend’s wedding.

I taught her everything that I knew, which looking back at that time was hardly anything at all. As my skills developed, I gave her a cliffs notes version of things and she always caught on quickly, asked questions and time & time again outdid me. She would turn the camera around with a smirk to share her next most awesome image and that only pushed me to try harder to have something to show her back. And to obviously smirk right back.

She quietly dealt with me introducing all sorts of funky things to our repertoire and tried to make friends with off camera lighting even when it wasn’t her friend in return. She helped me coin phrases such as “awful waffle” and “angry crackers” and interact with overzealous guests and feisty groomsmen and she always did it with that little smirk on her face. She was right there next to me when we photographed weddings in California, New York, Oklahoma, Mexico, Canada, Virginia, and all up and down this crazy state of ours.

So I’d like to play a little game I will call “remember when?”

Remember when this was hilarious?

Remember when I thought wearing teal would be a good idea?

Remember when wearing a read accent made us look like servers at TGI Fridays?

Remember when this was so funny that we stayed an extra hour after a wedding playing with trafficcones in the parking garage?

Remember the sombrero?

Remember when people couldn’t tell us apart?

Remember the most amazing salmon, eva?

Remember when you used to edit in a wedding veil?

And so I can say that Vivie is hands down the best thing that has ever happened to my business and I cannot imagine what the business would have been without her. Thank you my awful little waffle, I just love you.