marriage

Minh and An, 2018 | San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, CA | Portraits

 

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

- Lao Tzu

Minh and An are this really awesome and fun couple I had the honor of photographing not too long ago. Even after only a few minutes with them, I could see immediately that they were two people who thoroughly enjoyed laughter, love, and each other. I am so very excited to share with you all some of their images as well as a video of their session and time with Heartbox Photography. :)

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Minh and An, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to get to know you both and to document your love. May these images serve as a treasured reminder to continue celebrating your journey together for years to come.

And of course, many thanks to Kat Tinney for styling Minh’s beautiful look for this photo session!

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First impressions of one another?

I thought “tall, dark and handsome. An says he thought I was really bubbly (not sure if that’s true, I’m convinced I have RBF…) and smart (I think he meant I was a wise-ass.)

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Who is more organized? I would argue that I am! I organize my things religiously. Everything has its place.

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Who is the messy one?

An would say that it’s me, but I think we both think of the other person as super messy because we like our space a certain way. Haha, woes of living together.

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Who is more forgetful?

An - he can’t leave the house without asking me where his phone and keys are. I have to invite him to events via calendar because he forgets what I say a second later when it comes to planning social events. Men can’t plan but they sure can draft their fantasy football team with great finesse, lol!

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Who is most likely to be late? We both like to show up to things on time, if not fashionably late by 5 or 10 minutes.

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Who is the night owl? I am - I stay up until 1 AM while An tucks in at 10PM.

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Who is the better dancer? An can totally twerk. Watch out, he’s climbing on your tables!

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Who is more likely to get sick? I am. :(

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Who laughs louder?

We both seem really reserved in new settings, but we end up being the loud and rambunctious couple when we’re in a warm and welcoming space.

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Who is the better cook? No comment. We both can’t cook and like getting takeout, but I’ve been trying to be a good dutiful wife and finding recipes for the Dutch oven. An is really brave for even trying to eat my cooking.

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Who is more affectionate? We both are very affectionate people if we get to have our own time alone to recharge. Even after 8 years, I think we will have a lot of chemistry (read: really bad habit of PDA.)

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What you do you appreciate and love most about each other? I really appreciate that he takes care of the little details of day to day life for me, like washing my car or bringing me my favorite food, especially whenI have my head in the clouds. An appreciates that I provide him with support, even when days are dark.

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What are you both most excited for with regards to your new future together? We’re both excited to strengthen our long term relationship into a marriage full of friendship and laughter for the years to come.

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Gangnam-Style Coolness

I have this odd fantasy of being able to dance as well as Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta did in Grease. All smooth and suave complete with a killer poodle skirt and perfect hair.

Even just be part of a flash mob sensation on YouTube. You've seen those, right? How cool would that be to be the one who starts off the iconic dance moves in the middle of a mall and then have a crowd bust a move with you. Chills up my spine, I tell you, chills up my spine. Like, I could be the girl in the front of the crowd in the video and the minute the video goes viral, everyone's talking about that short Asian chic in the flash mob video who can Moonwalk with genuine Gangnam-style and coolness. I can't tell you how many times I've watched the music-video moves of everyone from MC Hammer to Jennifer Lopez and secretly wish that I was cast as an extra dancer in the background, gettin' down with my bad self for all of MTV to see.

I consider my big claim to dancing fame as the the time I was six and with fighting determination, squeezed my baby fat (yes, all of it) into a ballerina leotard and tutu and aspired to pirouette my way straight to Broadway's stages. That dream lasted about 5 minutes when I experienced the trauma of a 6 year old horrifically trapped in ballerina leotard needing to go to the bathroom, like, NOW.

Either way, I am re-living these dancing dreams. My husband and I are going to be signing up for ballroom dancing classes this spring. Whooooo-hoooo!! We're signing up for the regular waltz/salsa type of class because Justin absolutely refused to sign up for the country western dance class. (My personal preference.)

It's too bad, too, because he has no idea that his wife has amazing doe-c-doe-ing/spin your partner 'round and 'round/square dancing skills. Like, complete with Gangnam-style grace and coolness. Minus the tutu.

Happy Thursday!












Photography Update & Other Things

I love how the week flies by after a 3 day weekend! Each day this week I have been working on preparing for another glamour/makeover photo shoot. Drafting ideas for poses, make up/hairstyle ideas, you name it. It's a very exciting time for Heartbox Photography and each day that I get to prepare for another shoot, I can't help but feel an abundance of blessing and joy to be able to pursue a genre of photography that helps boost the self-esteem of women everywhere and is just so much fun. My model this past weekend was Rosemary and I can't wait to not only share her photos from the shoot but also her story. Stay tuned, folks!

In addition to all that, my husband and I are also getting more involved with folks from our church in learning how to be helpful to other married or soon-to-be married couples. As part of an upcoming marriage seminar we are attending that helps us learn to do that, we were required to separately fill out an online seminar of questions about our marriage, our upbringing, our views, etc. It was well over 100 questions long for each of us, but I have to admit, it was a pretty great reminder to us of how fortunate and blessed we are to have each other, especially in a world full of never ending challenges. 

These photos I found say it far better than I ever could. Enjoy and happy Thursday!














Marriage and Being Mini

I'm a short person. Fun-sized. Mini. Petite. A tall 5 year old.

Whenever something vast is in front of me like the beautiful Pacific ocean or a mountain range or even huge New York skyscrapers, I love to look up or out at it and marvel at how bigger than life it looks. Like...whoa. And at the same time, I sometimes feel like it's so huge that it will just overpower me in the blink of an eye because I'm so, um, mini.



Tonight, Justin and I are going to be attending a meeting focused on marriage ministry. Let me re-phrase that: Justin and I are venturing out and hope to learn how to use our marriage, imperfections and all, as a way to be a help to other married couples.  From this meeting, I hope that we gain a chance to learn from other couples, a chance to speak about our own challenges and joys of married life, and also be plugged into a group that will help us be effectively equipped to help other married couples down the road.

Having only been married now a little over 3 years, I'm slowly realizing that marriage, just like the ocean, the mountain range, and even the New York skyscrapers I mentioned earlier, can be vast and overwhelming and at the same time, sheer awesomeness. And instead of being overpowered or feeling like we're going to be toppled by the huge challenges that sometimes come with marital bliss, we have a chance to learn how to be better equipped on how to handle them God's way and not our way. I think it's really tough to be transparent with people in general (talking about the weather gets REALLY old after a while) especially when it comes to something as personal as your own marriage. And even so, I'm really excited to challenge myself on getting better at not wearing a mask around people whenever it comes to the topic of my own life and marriage and can't wait to see what is in store tonight at this meeting we're attending.

Happy Wednesday!