Bridals in Lyon, France | Kelly Ford

Kelly, just a babe in Lyon, dressed in her wedding dress, gallivanting through the city with a photographer. So thankful for Kelly's giggles, and her excitement for this shoot. Props to Kelly for getting back in her beautiful dress from her wedding I also shot back in 2015. She was as radiant this day as she was that day.

I wanted to share from Kelly's perspective and she was so gracious to write up just that:

"So your friend and wedding photographer is coming for a visit and she asks you if while she's there you'd be up for getting back into your wedding dress to take some pictures. Obvious answer: "um...HECK YES!"

I knew that it was tucked away in the guest room, having made the trek across the ocean still carefully wrapped up in the box from the dry cleaners that I hadn't touched since getting it back after the wedding. Thankfully I could still wriggle into it, despite now living in the land of delicious baguettes!

"Honestly, I'd anticipated feeling a little funny being all alone in front of the camera - not being a part of a pair, having someone to interact with - but rather just me, alone and exposed. But that was not the case at all! I've loved watching through social media as Emily has been learning, growing, honing, stretching her craft, and I'd already been able to experience it on her visit as I played being her "assistant" while she did shoots with some friends of ours. And her skills were equally evident as she guided me and put me at ease for this solo night --

Our wandering shoot itinerary was taking the funiculaire up the hill to the Roman amphitheatre, playing there for a while, walking up to the Notre Dame de Fourvière basilica, playing there for a while, walking down the hill through the gardens and stairways, playing along the way, and strolling home through Vieux Lyon's cobblestone streets. And "playing" is the best word I have to describe the night - just climbing onto and off of and into and around all sorts of old stone pieces at the amphitheatre; twirling and running around the courtyard of the basilica; smacking myself in the face after trying to look artsy with some branches...it was all just such fun, playing and laughing with my friend - who, by the way, was giving me great guidelines/instructions/suggestions so that I could know what to do instead of getting lost in that "alone and exposed" funny feeling that I'd anticipated but that never materialized."

"I didn't have bridal portraits done before our wedding - just wasn't really my thing or something I cared to do - but I will say that, whether or not you did portraits beforehand, I highly recommend something like this after the fact! Now we have all of these beautiful photos of me that involved doing all sorts of things that would certainly not have been as fun and playful if I'd been thinking about keeping my dress clean or unmussed, etc. Heck, my dress still has a tear in the floofy-under-dress part from the grand ol' time I had at our reception ;) What a joy it was to get to wriggle back into this dress full of great memories and then play in it to make some more, worry-free.

And, certainly, it's something that is to-each-their-own, but I kind of love looking through these images and seeing the differences from the wedding day itself... We didn't do everything exactly the same - my hair is cut so it is different, we decided not to worry about my turquoise heels and some of the jewelry, it was chilly so we added my leather jacket...

You can see the passage of time and, for me, even more so the passage of life: that night was in a different piece of the world than our wedding, I spoke a different language to the people we bumped into, I had different things on my mind...

"So I am grateful to have had this fun silly night with Emily, and now grateful to have these images. Time is passing, life is changing, I now own a leather jacket(!)...but I am still Dave's bride, covenanted to him in joy, dancing and twirling that night before an audience of only the One who witnesses each of the moments of our marriage when Emily isn't around to document them...

Just precious to have these images to remind me that, while I don't wear my wedding dress every day (alas!), I am daily a bride - to my Dave and to the Lord."