Happy 5th Anniversary to my sweet friend, Em, and her husband.  Em and I have been friends since little league, and we were in each other’s weddings.  Together, we have experienced high school drama, sleepovers, causing and getting in trouble, country music, and learned how to do this thing called life.  We have laughed over nothing, cried at the loss of life, and continued to love and support one another during our years together.  She is the kind of friend that you may not see for a while; but when you do, catching up is easy.  It is like no time has passed, and communication and laughter happens easily.  We tease that we get more accomplished by 8 a.m. than most people do all day.

Em knew that she wanted her anniversary session location to be at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, CA.  Being a local girl, she has a sense of pride for this local brewery, as she has witnessed Sierra Nevada become a household name.  Em had a vision for her session and brought along her puppy dog and a six-pack mixed with her favorite Sierra Nevada beers.  She also had sent me pictures prior to their session of possible shooting locations on the grounds.  (There were too many good shooting locations; we could not get to them all.)  The grounds of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company are beautiful.  The grounds are cared for like Disneyland.  Being such a popular location during the day and evening, we had to make this be a sunrise session to avoid the people.

We all arrived before sunrise and chatted while the sun was rising.  Em’s mom came along to walk her labrador through the parking lots while we were taking couple portraits.  We had a few locations we knew we had to get to first before the sun rose too high.  Em and her husband were great sports zig zagging around the front of the brewery and then back towards the parking lot.  We had some spur-of-the-moment portraits too with cement big foot feet and labrador puppy paws.  I know portraits were not her husband’s ideal thing to be doing at 6:45 a.m., but I think he ended up enjoying it more than he thought he would.  On the way to the session, Em told her husband thank you for doing this with her.  His response was out of pure love, he said he would do anything to make his bride happy.  Happy Anniversary to you two.  You have a wonderful and loving relationship that I hope will take you to your 50th anniversary.