Family love: The Garner Family

College. Some kids do the whole nine yards.

Others don't.

For myself and the beautiful & talented Jessica Shae, we opted for the road less traveled. {My one year studying graphic design while living at home hardly qualifies as 'the whole nine yards'}. We both haven't experience the 'big move' onto a college campus, nor the bliss of having a stranger for a roommate. But honestly, my friendship with Jessica is like the friendship between old college roomies. We keep in touch as much as we can, we try to see each other even though we're thousands of miles apart, and pray each other through the hardships of the careers we've chosen {which happen to be the same}. I love her to pieces and I'm sure if we really were college roomates we would have had a blast.

Anyways, before I keep going off on this tangent this entry is not about me and Jessica, it's about her family and the guy they've just sent to college.

Meet Ben. One of Jessica's many brothers and official college kid.

Ben, though the second to the oldest in his family, will be the first to leave 'the nest' and leave Texas to pursue a degree in law here in my wonderful state of Virginia. It was my task to capture the Garner family all together before Ben's college journey began, and though we didn't have much time we made sure we made it count.

Mr. Garner definitely made it count. And definitely brought the laughter.

I'm not going to lie, I felt like I was staring at a J.Crew cataloge while shooting because Jessica's family is simply lovely.

I'm so grateful to have met the entire Garner bunch and I can see where Jessica gets her warm and welcoming nature from ...

from Mrs. & Mr. Garner.

These guys make me wish I came from a big family, and though seven seems like a big number, they all make it look sooo easy and made me forget about numbers all together and just see one unit, A family. I'm sure Ben will be missing them all, if he's not already.

Last thing, Jessica Shae you are awesome!! I don't know if you get enough credit for it but I gotta give it to you because being the eldest of seven is definitely not easy and you are wonderful at it.

Thanks so much for sharing your family with me for one day and hopefully I'll see you soon. Maybe in another town, or another state, or at another shoot. I love ya chica and go knock everyone's socks off on your little tour.

{If you're reading this and haven't already .... Go check out her awesome work: Jessica Shae }

Ps. Jessica's family = Amazing.