Matt & Emily ::: Nashville Meets Downtown Elgin Engagement Session

Well hello fellow blog readers:)It has been quite awhile since I lasted posted a session and I have tons to share! June was a crazy yet wonderful month for me. Last year I had 5 weddings total and this year I had 5 weddings in the span of a month and a half! Not that I am complaining in the least bit! It is just taking a bit more work to figure out the work and life balance. I am getting there though!
Meet Matt and Emily! They live in Nashville, love music and artsy things, have a deep love for Jesus and enjoy talking theology:)I have known Emily for years and she is a fellow photographer. So when she asked me to do her wedding, I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to meet Matt! They drove up here this past weekend and we wandered around downtown Elgin for the evening. It turned into the longest engagement session ever but in such a good way! We were just having so much fun! Check out their amazing style too! I loved both of their outfit choices and love how it shows who they are. I took a few more risks with this session becuase I wanted to try some new creative poses different from my normal style. I loved the result! We wanted a cool piano for some photos and at first I couldn’t find one. But then one day, I was at work and walked right by the dining room piano and I thought this is it! So it was fun to go in the assisted living home for part of the session. That is a first! But it was so sweet to see how these two interacted with a few residents that were still awake. They even sang Jesus Loves Me to a woman who loves the song. My heart melted right then and there and I knew that this was a special couple. Those residents are such a deep part of my heart, so to see how they handled that meant so much!
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My Gardening Adventures ::: June

If any of you have followed me on Instagram, you have seen all of my excited posts the last few weeks about gardening.
It all started when I started my healthy lifestyle and learned to really love vegetables. My mom has always been a big gardener but I have never had any interest until this year. So I told her I wanted to learn how to garden and I wanted to go all out. And we did just that. It has been so fun to learn from my mom and have something we can do together. And now I can call myself a gardener! It is a good feeling:)
The whole process of gardening has also been a spiritual thing which I was surprised about. I can blog about that another time but all over the bible there are refrences to seeds, weeds, soil, growth, etc! So as I spend time taking care of it, I am constantly thinking about it in relation to God and it is a beautiful thing. I am a deep thinking like that.
So I wanted to share a few pictures this month of our progress! There is greenery everywhere! We have been eating lots of spinach, lettuce, and kale:)It is exciting to see what will be in season next! I am excited for the cucumbers the most I think!
I wanted to plant a lot of vegetables so we could give some to our friends and family! So if you live near me, hit me up for some fresh produce grown with love:)
Here is what we planted for the year:
3 types of lettuce
Spinach
Carrots
Zucchini
Summer Squash
Spaghetti Squash
Tons of Onions
Rainbow Swiss Chard
Brussel Sprouts
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Kale
Mustard Greens
Purple Kale
Cucumbers
Rhubarb
Tomatoes
Peppers
Melons
And probably more that I forgot. Just typing all of that gets me excited!

So here are a few pictures of our June garden!

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Mike & Abby ::: Ellwood House Engagement

It is officially busy season and I love it! I love all of the sessions, weddings, and couples I get to meet. Seriously, it is so much fun! I also have a lot of sessions to blog too so get ready:)

Mike & Abby heard about me through one of my bride Linzey who Abby will be a bridesmaid for! Love that! We had their session at the Ellwood House in Sycamore where their wedding will be. So it was fun to do pictures in the spot they will be getting married at soon! These two had me laughing the whole time. I love seeing different dynamics of couples and their relationship with each other. Mike is the type of guy who is crazy in love with Abby and he teases her and says things that make her blush. I had to stop shooting a few times because I was laughing so hard. They have such a good chemistry too which you will see:)Beyond jokes, I have a deep respect for these two. They have a daughter and take care of his mother in their home. I know from experience at my job how difficult it can be to be a caretaker and this just shows their hearts. They met in high school and you can see that while they have been through a lot, it has created a deeper love between them. That is a love that stands the test of time and real life trials. Take a look at our time in the beautiful light and their adorable photos!
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My Beauty Insecurities and What God Has To Say About It

I am dealing with a problem that I call plain Jane syndrome.

It is the feelings of looking ordinary, nothing special, not eye catching to anyone.

When I look in the mirror I see so much negative. I thought after losing 80 pounds this would go away and it certainly hasn’t. I only know how to wear makeup one way, I don’t know how to style my frizzy hair, I am lost when it comes to fashion, and I see curves where they aren’t supposed to be. I walk into a room and can find the prettiest girl and tell myself I will never measure up to that.  I am sometime late for church and bible study because I can’t find an outfit that will look as cute as my stylish friends. I worry that I will never have a husband because how could a man find plain jane me beautiful.

These are my honest heart friends and in talking to other woman, I know I am not alone.

And I am ready to be done with all of these things and it is time.

One thing I have learned on my health journey is that Jesus has to power to break every chain and sin pattern in our life. I have tasted freedom through the cross that is unlike anything else. I know that this freedom applies to all areas of my life and that God can redeem my outside insecurities as well.

I picked up this really good book called True Beauty and it has been such an encouragement and conviction to me. I am not going to lie and say I felt kind of cheesy reading this but it surprised me a lot. It wasn’t all a feel good book that tells you that you are pretty. It brings the gospel in and talks about how that even effects our standard and life of beauty pursuit. It pretty much called me out and said that those who struggle with low self esteem are often pitied when in reality it is just a negative preoccupation with self. And that is sinful.  That was hard for me to swallow.

“Sagging self-confidence is often a preoccupation with self; struggles with comparison, measuring up, and fitting in reveal our self-absorption. ”

I guess I have never thought of that before. I always think of those people who think they are just so beautiful and constantly obsessing and fixing their good looks. But I am in the same boat constantly thinking negative thoughts about my outside.

“But the inescapable truth is this: when we try to get attention for our own beauty, we cease to give God glory for his beauty.”

Here are some more quotes that really resonated with me:

“The gospel frees us to think less frequently about ourselves. We don’t have to wait until our Revelation 4 moment in heaven. We can, and we must, like David, seek to behold God’s beauty all the days of our lives. It is this deliberate, daily decision to gaze upon his beauty where change takes place. This is how we start to shed our preoccupation with ourselves and with our own beauty”

“His hands did not slip; he did not make any mistakes. Right down to the thinness of our hair and the knobbiness of our knees, he created us, by hand, to be exactly who he wanted us to be”

“I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking. We were born in God’s thought, made by his hand. Let us resolve to accept our bodies with gratefulness to our Creator.”

“But the gospel-centered woman remembers that the God who created her body also sent his Son, in the flesh, to save her from her sins (John 1:14). Because of his forgiveness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can change. Life does not have to be a continuous adversity because of who we are. Instead, it can be a life of grateful worship to our Creator.”

“A gentle and quiet spirit is not a personality trait. It is the quality of a woman who meets adversity—slander, sickness, rejection, and loss—with a calm confidence in God. A gentle woman is a woman of remarkable strength and tenacity, because she does not attack back when someone sins against her. Rather, she waits on God. Knowing that God is just, she can suffer without bitterness. To be quiet doesn’t mean not to speak—although sometimes that might be a good idea—but it is “the sense of being calm, peaceful, and tranquil as opposed to restless, rebellious, disturbed, or insubordinate.”

“The truly beautiful woman is the one who contemplates the beauty of God. As she worships him for his loveliness, power, holiness, and goodness, she is changed. By the power of the Holy Spirit, her life radiates the beauty of the gospel.”

So I want to make intentional daily efforts to stop all of this. And that isn’t through sitting in the mirror telling myself good thoughts. It is taking the thoughts off of myself completely and looking to God.  It is seeking God’s truth in the Word over the lies from the enemy. It is to accept and acknowledge that God made me this way and to move on and not dwell on things. It is seeing other women in this world as sisters and not as competition. It is daily waking up and not spending so much dang time in front of my closet or my mirror. But instead asking God what does He want from me that day and aligning my heart to His. It is praying for a heart that is free, a soul that is quiet and gentle, and seeing that is where beauty comes from.

Now this doesn’t mean I am just not going to wash my hair, wear makeup, or dress nice. None of those things are wrong at all! But it does mean that I am ready to surrender this to the Lord and allow Him to change my heart in radical ways and for Him to change my perception of beauty. And this will be a journey and I am ready.

Some of you may be feeling the same way as me. So let’s stop thinking and obsessing over ourselves. Let’s look to God who is “the ultimate, unchanging, eternal standard of beauty. He is the Author, Creator, and Bestower of beauty. His beauty transcends time and culture. It never changes and never fades. In order to know what true beauty is, we must see God.”

 

 

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May 29, 2014 - 2:40 pm

Shannon Fitzgerald - Thank you you SO. MUCH. for sharing your beautiful heart. How I needed to be reminded of these truths…. how I was encouraged to know that I am *not* alone in this struggle, and how blessed the thought is that I was thought up, design, and crafted by the omnipotent, all sufficient, sovereign Creator to be exactly who I am. It’s easy to feel isolated and alone when I struggle with accepting who He made me to be, but your words reminded me how selfish and self centered my thoughts can be… and that Jesus can set me free. “The truly beautiful woman is the one who contemplates the beauty of God. As she worships him for his loveliness, power, holiness, and goodness, she is changed. By the power of the Holy Spirit, her life radiates the beauty of the gospel.” Love this. <3
Blessings,
Shannon

Anthony & Jess ::: Blumen Gardens Wedding

I remember the first time I saw Anthony. It is funny because it is the same way a lot of people first see him. I was walking into church and I saw him worshiping with all of his heart. I couldn’t help but smile and say this guy has a story and this guy loves Jesus so much. I later learned of his story and it is an incredible story of God’s redemption and the life changing effect the gospel can have on a person. If you want to see a bit more of their stories check out the video Pat Alcantara did! So amazing! So when he and Jess started dating I knew this was a relationship different from most. I went to high school with Jess and have watch God also work in crazy ways in her life too. So I was so honored to be chosen as the photographer who would capture the glorious day of their wedding. Jesus was proclaimed and they made it very clear who they lived for. The whole day wasn’t about them but about God and the incredible workings of His ways. Seriously, so amazing. From the prayer, testimonies, worship and overall joy, it was so beautiful. These two are a Kingdom centered couple and together they are going to do so much in God’s name. I am excited for their marriage and encouraged by their faith! so here are some memories of their big day:)

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Another shout out to my great friend Pat Alcantara and his video work! It is so much fun to work with friends and he does an amazing job!

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