Avery Smith celebrated her first birthday yesterday and Mandy and Tory threw her a party to be remembered! Most of the family made it (Mel and Kaleigh had a function at the Great Wolf Lodge, and Mike had an all-day class to get recertified for his concealed weapon license). But you know I took plenty of pictures so they could still feel a part of the celebration! Mandy’s whole family is very artsy-fartsy, so the decorations were extraordinary. I think she and her sister Lori spent about a week decorating birthday hats, making photo banners and party favors, and even piecing a quilt top in the party colors.

I’m so blessed to have a family who loves to honor each and every achievement — large and small. You know, most days are pretty routine, so times that we get together are truly special. This is the best part of my life. I love this about my family, so maybe that was why I started taking so many photos when we were together. And now with Facebook and my new website, there are more and more places to post them to share with the world.

I had a chance to meet some friends of Mandy and Lori, a family from Columbia, who are living here now. He’s an engineer for the company where Lori works. I can only describe them as genteel. Edwin and Janeth are such great parents and have raised two delightful daughters, Eriana and Karina. Mandy asked me to take some family photos of them, so we went outside (you know how I love natural light) and found some shade on the front porch and took some photos. Then the girls wanted in on the action, so they took some of Lori and me with their point-and-shoot.

Here are some of the images from Avery’s special day.

The bride really was radiant all day.  I suppose that after worrying for weeks over the rain, everything else seemed insignificant!  It rained on our engagement session and forced our bridal session indoors too!  If the old adage is true that if it rains on your wedding day, you’ll have a happy marriage, Amy and Thomas will see their 50th wedding anniversary. 

What beautiful families they have.  Amy’s grandmother baked the groom’s unbelievable choclate cake shaped like a star and covered with cherries and pecans.  Friends and family smoked barbecue and served homemade honestly the best potato salad  I’ve ever had.  Amy’s grandparents couldn’t have been more gracious, and she and Thomas were surrounded by life-long friends who truly cared about them. 

I feel like I’ve known these people all my lives.  They treated Mike and me more like family than wedding photographers there to do a job.  I’m still on a high from the wedding and have been reliving it in my mind all day.  Now I have to tackle the 1000+ photos we took.  I’ve posted a few that I’ve already sent to Amy and Thomas.  I promised her I’d send a few before they leave for Puerto Rico on their honeymoon. 

I am so blessed to be able to share people’s happiest moments! 

With the upcoming launch of my website, www.debbyhanry.com, it felt like the perfect time to begin a blog about not just my photography, but my family and my life and how they’re intertwined. I decided to go pro with my photography a year ago when people began asking to pay me to shoot them. At first, I couldn’t imagine taking money for something I enjoyed so much — as if that would somehow taint it ! But I was doing all the things a professional would do, studying my craft, buying the best equipment I could buy, taking pictures of every part of my life, and carrying my Nikon D2x with me everywhere, and I slowly realized I was a professional. So Debby Hanry Photography was born.

My family was my photography training ground. I’m blessed with the most amazing and interesting family, which is why I mainly shoot people and relationships. We’re all in the Dallas, Texas area. I’ve been married to my husband Mike for almost 38 years, an engineer at AT&T, and we have a beautiful 27-year-old daughter, Ashley, who is engaged to a wonderful guy, Hee-Rak Kang, and living in Syracuse, New York. Her wedding will take place at Hendricks Chapel in the middle of the Quad on the campus of Syracuse University on June 26, 2010. Hee-Rak will finish his master’s degree in May of 2010, and Ashley is starting hers in August 2009. We thought this wedding would never happen, as they’ve been dating only 8 years, engaged for 3! But good things come to those who wait and I’m sure this will be a familiar topic as the wedding approaches.

In addition to my immediate family, my brother Glen has three grown children and six grandchildren. As Barney on How I Met Your Mother would say, our get-togethers are legendary! And during birthday season (April 2 until the end of August), someone has a party every other weekend. We have pool parties (at Sandy’s house and our house), Chuck E. Cheese parties, Nickelrama parties, and parties where Glen lives at Thorntree Country Club. So you can only imagine how fertile the ground is for photos. And it doesn’t hurt that everyone is very good looking (and I’m being totally objective here, too) and outgoing — which is why I found my place behind the camera very early on.

This introductory blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our beautiful Bernese Mountain dog Teddy Bear. This gentle giant is a walking miracle, as we discovered he had lymphoma (always a fatal disease) 2-1/2 years ago. But we did 6 months of chemo with Dr. Cheryl Harris in Dallas (the most fabulous oncology vet) and he’s been in remission since his second treatment. He may be a tiny bit spoiled — we treat him as if every day is his last. We take him everywhere we can (although not as much when this Dallas heat pushes 100) — just yesterday we took him to one of my great nephew’s softball games and he had a blast as all the little kids flocked around to pet him.

I look forward to meeting fellow photography enthusiasts through my blog, continuing to grow as a photographer, and share my latest work. I’d love to hear from you!