Sometimes you meet someone, and you feel “Where have they been my whole life?” That’s how I felt about this new mom Rana from our first chats.  I saw her adoption story circulating around Facebook, and thought it was fun that our daughter’s were born within months apart and shared almost the same name, and were both the greatest answer to our prayers.

On National Adoption Day, I had the honor of taking family photos of this beautiful new family. What a joy it was to meet this little miracle, Sarah Faith, and celebrate God’s faithfulness by capturing their smiles and joy for this holiday season!

Here are some of the favorites below!

Sarah & Parker are the perfect example that love at first sight does exist, even as a kid! This gorgeous couple has been dating since they were 12 years old, which started one day on a trampoline. Blushing and giggling in a way only little girls do, Sarah’s friend, Bailey, paused and said to her “Sarah, you need to meet my brother…” Sarah just smiled, “Really?…okay.” Then back to goofing around they went, truly thinking nothing of it. The day finally came that Sarah met Parker. “I was as giddy as a girl could get,” Sarah said. “Butterflies filled my stomach as my outgoing self quickly became shy. A short time later, Parker asked if I would be his girlfriend. After running to the side of the trampoline where I was jumping, he got his answer as I flipped and blew a bubble in his face, YES!”

Over the years as they have grown up, distance couldn’t even keep them apart the times they lived in different states and tried to date other people. “Going in and out of different relationships, Parker was all I could ever think about,” Sarah said. “Despite my efforts, no matter how hard I tried, I became aware that my heart has always & will always belong to Parker.”

Now they are grown up and are getting married, which started with Parker dropping to his knee on a Charleston beach. When they arrived at the beach spot, shells were laid out in the shape of a heart as he asked the big question. “In my favorite city, at my favorite place, my favorite man asked me to be his wife,” Sarah said.

And when asked what Parker loves most about Sarah, he replied, “I love how kind and how fierce she can be. She’s a giver and a lover. She’s the most beautiful girl in this world. She makes me laugh and she can make me cry. I love everything about her.” And Sarah loves about Parker that “he teaches me so much and makes me want to be the best me that I can be, and I love him for that.”

For their engagement session, we traveled to Savannah and Beaufort to document their session at some pretty incredible and unique locations, Wormsloe Plantation and the Sheldon Church Ruins. I truly felt like I was documenting a fairy tale love story, and I just know these two are absolutely going to live happily ever after!

Here’s some of the favorites from their engagement session!

I can’t get over those curls. And that smile. What a cutie patootie Landon is who just turned one year old. And his momma. My heart swells with so much gratefulness for her because for the past 6 months she has been one of my super heroes who has helped feed my sweet girl with donated breast milk. Now as we celebrate her sweet boy turning a year, I loved photographing their family and all the love they share! Happy birthday Landon!

Here’s some favorites from their family session!

Glenda, a Jacksonville Beach resident, and Rob, a then London resident, both met during a work trip to New York City where they soon fell in love with each other and with picking leaves in Bryant Park together.  The Atlantic Ocean couldn’t keep their love apart, and Rob has now relocated to Jacksonville Beach to continue their love story, where he also dropped to his knee one early morning. “Rob took me to Starbucks and persuaded me against my will as it wasn’t warm and I am not a morning person,” Glenda said, “to go down to the beach to take some landscape photos. He then proceeded to find a washed up message in a bottle that I opened to find a proposal message to me, and he got down on one knee then and there! He’d sneakily hidden the bottle in his camera bag.”

On the same beach they got engaged, they recently held their intimate wedding, exchanging vows very quickly before the tide rolled in too close for comfort after the ravages left behind by Hurricane Matthew a few days prior. Though right after the ceremony, their altar fell down in the tide, and the boardwalk got washed away, they laughed through the whole thing as they now will have great stories to tell from their wedding day.

“He always puts my wellbeing first,” Glenda gushed about Rob. “He is loyal and trustworthy. He understands my mind. He encourages me to be my best and keep striving. He is sometimes funny even though he thinks he is always funny.”  But she keeps laughing with him anyway.

“Glenda is a people person,” Rob said of Glenda. “I like how we meet new people and how she cares about people. She always goes out of her way to do something to help my stress, or something to make me laugh or just to show she cares. I like her brain – except with Words with Friends game where she beats me most of the the time – grrrrrrr.”

Hopefully now that they are married, Glenda will let Rob win a time or two.

Here are some of the favorites from their beautiful wedding day.

VENDORS:

CEREMONY & RECEPTION & CAKE: One Ocean Resort & Spa // MAKE UP & HAIR: Paulina Perez // VIOLIN & GUITAR: Wehner Weddings  // FLOWERS: Anything With Plants & Flowers // DJ: McGee Entertainment