Family | Harlinsdale Farm, Franklin, TN

Y’all. BRING YOUR DOGS TO YOUR SESSIONS. There’s just so many pros to it, so keep reading to find out exactly why (yes, there are more reasons than just ‘It’s fun!!”).

This was the sweetest and funniest session ever — I forget how wonderfully chaotic family sessions can be sometimes, and this one was just perfect! I’ve known the Rigsbys for a while now — Kathryn and I went to the same high school (we have a random selfie of us stuffed in the backseat of a car from around 7 years ago) but we never really became friends until college. I even took some senior photos for her (in her Vanderbilt gear ) at Harlinsdale Farms (this same place!!) three years ago, but we were still not really good friends at the time. Thankful to Vandy and Navs for changing that 🙂

Anywho, these four hooligans and I had an absolute blast tearing up the area. There were about 5 other sessions going on at the farm at the same time, but since this place is HUGE, we didn’t have a problem. NOT ONLY THAT, there was this twenty person, socially distanced yoga class going on, and we had fun people-watching and staring at this over the top, beautifully decorated, yoga class (I mean, they had flowers and fancy waterbottles and everythinggg). Oh, and we watched these girls drive in with cowboy hats on and really hoped they were tourists (they were not rip). Basically, we did a bunch of people watching and just had a BLAST.

But GUYZ. The Rigsbys thought they would be awkward during the shoot. I asked them at the beginning if they’ve ever had family photos done, and they said it must have been YEARSSS ago, and that they knew this might go absolutely terribly. Buttttt of course it didn’t. I told Kathryn after the session that my job is to literally prove other people that they are wrong whenever they tell me that they’re awkward. And she fullyyyyy agrees that I proved her wrong because I mean — look at these photos!!

But anyway, we had a wonderful time at Harlinsdale Farm! They brought along their sweet pup, Percy, and he was THE BEST NUGGET EVER, although he was terribly terrified of my camera shutter sound (his reactions were priceless though). Bring your dogs to sessions guys!! There’s just so many reasons to:

1. YES IT’S FUN!!!

2. It gives you something to do! Having activities at the session makes it feel SO much less awkward and you just feel like you’re in your front yard, playing with your dog. 

3. Dogs give you a genuine smile! If you love your dog, you smile BIG and NATURALLY in his presence. It just happens. And that’s exactlyyyy what you want during a session

4. Dogs help you represent everyday life, so you don’t have these super posed family photos just hanging around your house. You play with your dog everyday, so why not show THAT relationship in your house?

Basically, dogs are the best, and please bring allll the dogs to your sessions!! They’re CUTE! ANDDDD check out these photos of this amazing family. We truly had so much fun, and you can see it on their faces!!! What a TIME!