The Dress of All Dresses | Northern Virginia Child Photographer

Being a Northern Virginia Newborn and Family Photographer allows me to document firsts, lasts, and everything in between for other families who invite me into their world for short amount of time.  I get to know these people on a fun and sometimes very personal level.  I love it and  I wouldn’t trade it for the world. These experiences have showed me just how important it is for me to document my own family on the same level.

Twelve years ago I put on the dress, walked down the aisle, and said, “I do”.  I was twenty-three years old then and I had no idea what was in store for my life and this new marriage.  I didn’t always know that I wanted to get married right after college just like I didn’t know that I wanted to have a little girl someday.  I had a plan.  I was going to graduate, live on my own and get “life experience”, and get married somewhere around 30.  But God had other plans.  Three years after I got married I had a little boy. I was so excited because I wanted to have four boys.  Boys were cool.  Eighteen months after that I had another little boy.  Yes, this was just what I hoped for.  Then right as he was turning one, I decide four boys was CRAZY and I was not only good with two boys,  I was good with just two kids. Two boys were PLENTY!  However, just as we said that, we found out we were having another. I was terrified.  I even joked with my husband that if this one was a boy, I might jump off a bridge.  However, he was convinced this one was a girl.  So much so that he would not entertain anything that had to do with boys.  He was right,  this time we got a sweet girl. She came 20 months after her brother and fully completed our family.

I decided when she was 5 that it would be super fun to photograph her in my wedding dress and make it an every year thing.  I didn’t realize it would be a super emotional experience for me.  Putting her in the dress and clamping it behind her gave me a flash of all the hopes and dreams I have for her coming full circle.  Don’t get me wrong, my dreams are likely not her dreams or even what the Lord has in store but for a few minutes, I saw my vision for her.  This beautiful girl is a firecracker.  She is sweet and caring and hates to see anyone left out.  She loves music, dancing, coloring, and her family.  Man does she LOVE her family.  She is a mama’s girl but a Daddy’s girl just the same.  She sleeps with my bear from when I was little and like 10 Min Min’s as she calls them (Minnie Mouses).  She loves gymnastics with her soul.  I even have pictures of her flipping inside my house (you can read about that here).  She flips EVERYWHERE and that is not an exaggeration; grocery store aisles, Target check-out, and Doctors office are few of the more recent places.  She is sassy in a good way and sometimes in a way that makes me crazy.  She wears her heart on her sleeve like her Mama.   She is left-handed and has the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen.  She is built like an athlete, a trait she gets from me but I got from my Dad. Most of all she loves the Lord and wants to know all about Him.  She is my most favorite girl in the whole world and having her wear this dress is an honor for me.

Maybe this is a glimpse of her future but maybe it isn’t.  For now, I want to soak her all in as a little person with no cares or worries, just as a girl who dreams as a princess, my Princess.

Sweet Pea Studios is run by Krystal Culpepper, a Virginia Family Photographer who specializes in Northern Virginia Newborn Photography also offering children and maternity portraits in Chantilly, Fairfax, Aldie, Leesburg, Alexandria, Reston, Middleburg, Manassas, Gainesville, Vienna and McLean.