Christmas Minis 2018

Yes, I realize its now January 2019, but today we're talking Christmas Minis! This was the first time I offered an indoor set for Christmas minis, and I had no idea what kind of response I would get. My Easter minis usually book pretty quickly, but I attribute that to always having a live rabbit for those sessions. I decided to start booking the Christmas minis well in advance so I would have plenty of time to get as many sessions as possible. In 2017, I offered outdoor Christmas minis and booked just a handful, so I didn't really have high expectations this year.

Boy, was I wrong! Within 12 hours of posting, almost every time slot was booked. I was amazed and shocked. And humbled! At that point, I didn't have the studio, so I was looking at just offering two Saturdays for these sessions. You see, before the studio, I had to do indoor sessions in my living room. Which meant I would have to rearrange (and clean, haha) my living room PLUS set up an elaborate Christmas set. And then at the end of a long day take everything down again. I decided two Saturdays would be the max that I would be willing to do all that.

Well, then my husband jumped on getting me a studio well before the Christmas minis (I'm sure there's a way to link to other posts, but I haven't figured that out yet, so you'll have to scroll down on the blog to read about that adventure!). Then I was able to offer a few more sessions on a couple of Fridays. If I had known about the studio beforehand, I could have planned better and offered even more session times, but as it was I was pretty booked up with regular sessions. At any rate, I booked WAY more of these minis than I ever dreamed possible. I'd have to look at my records to be sure, but I think I ended up with 36 - which is mind-blowing to me!

These were also the first minis that I limited to 20 minutes each (in the past my minis have gone for 30 minutes, but I've always felt that was too long), which meant I had 3 sessions each hour, back to back all day (except for an hour for a lunch break). I was pretty nervous about how it would go - if anyone came late it would throw the whole day off! Plus, was 20 minutes really enough time??

Thankfully, I have wonderful clients! Everyone came either early or right on time, and each day went very smoothly. They were long days and I was exhausted by the end of each, but so happy. I saw many of my "regular" clients, and met a bunch of new ones. And 20 minutes ended up being a perfect amount of time.

The set was gorgeous, if I do say so myself! ( ; I enlisted the help of Mollie, a family friend, with the design. Most of the items we used were hers. I knew I wanted a rustic, country feel and Mollie really brought it to life! The bench we used was an antique tobacco grading bench. The cream blanket was made from tobacco twine, also antique. The wagon was another antique, as were the baskets holding pine cones and the ladder.

I received so many compliments on the set, I told Mollie she has to be my official set designer from now on. ( ;

With so many sessions, and so many beautiful images captured, its hard to choose a few to show here. My slow internet helped narrow my selection down even more, haha. So here are a few images from the 2018 Christmas Minis! I can't wait to see what we come up with for 2019! ( :