Oh my GOSH! It’s taken me a while to put this story into a blog post, but oh man I promise it is worth the wait. What a serious plot twist to this couples session!

Last October Christina reached out to me about doing a couples session with her husband and their three dogs. While we were chatting on the phone about possible locations and dates, I heard her casually ask her husband to take out the dogs because they were getting a little rambunctious. As soon as he stepped outside, she said, “Okay, I only have a few minutes. I’m pregnant and I want to surprise Josh with the announcement during our couples shoot.”

WHAT.

We were able to figure out a few more details before her husband came back, including that her three dogs were definitely coming along (YES!), and that we would be doing this thing at the San Elijo Lagoon in Encinitas.

We waited, and then the day FINALLY came for their couple’s session, and it RAINED. UGH whyyy!!!! The trails at the lagoon were not even walkable with the mud, so we decided to postpone it by a week. Poor Christina! I legit cannot even imagine having to hold a secret like that for an extra week.

When the day of their session finally came we had a BLAST! We met up before the shoot at Lofty Coffee, and I got to meet their three AMAZING dogs! Let me tell you right now, if you have a dog and you don’t bring it to a shoot with me. You will have some MAJOR explaining to do. Also a really awesome bonus to this whole session was that my friend Hazel was actually best friends with Christina and Josh and came along to help wrangle the dogs during the shoot.

I took them around the lagoon and it was absolutely so much fun giving them different prompts and watching them share some really special time together (all the while knowing that some serious news was about to get dropped at the end of this session!).

When the time came for the announcement, Christina had this awesome idea for them to do a newlywed style game using chalkboards. I asked them a couple of funny questions, and then finally asked, What do you love most about each other? Hazel and I walked over and helped Christina with her hair (i.e. handed her the ultrasound photos), and then, it happened! Christina turned around and showed Josh her chalkboard that said:

That you’re going to be the father of our child.

It was simply amazing. Josh was thrilled and we all cried. What a privilege to get to be a part of this very special moment in their lives. Check out the full story in pictures below!