Maternity Photo Shoot!

This couple did their maternity photo shoot at Build-a-Bear, and the results will amaze you! ;)

The photos are here! The photos are here!

Yes, the photos from our April 7, 2019 maternity shoot arrived on April 16, so it's now the perfect time to not only share our favorites, but post about the entire photo shoot experience:

We arrived at the mall on Sunday morning about 20 minutes before the scheduled time for the shoot in order to make it on time. In fact, the mall technically wasn't open yet. We had to go in the Food Court entrance that opens before the stores do for seniors and others who want to walk around the empty mall for exercise. After taking a few pre-shoot selfies in our themed superhero outfits, the amazing Build-a-Bear manager Stephanie let us in through the closed gate and took our picture on my phone as well while we waited for the photographer to arrive. She showed us the display she'd set up with superhero outfits and emphasized that if anything needed to be moved or adjusted, she would be happy to do so.

We've now worked with Deidra of Deidra Wilson Photography three times now: once for our engagement photos, once for our wedding photos, and now for our maternity photos. We initially picked Deidra for her photo style and quick turnaround time (only 10 days to receive professional pictures from a one-hour photo shoot!) but we continue to return to her because of her incredibly positive, enthusiastic, and friendly personality that really puts you at ease. Plus, she is always open to my ideas and shoots quickly enough to get in all the poses I mention to her.

Deidra was especially thrilled to do our photo shoot too because a lot of her clients are out-of-towners coming to Vegas for an elopement, so she doesn't often get to follow up with their post-wedding maternity and family portraits.

We started with photos simply documenting the creation of Baby's first Build-a-Bear. Since we'd previously picked out our bear and outfits to same time, we simply recreated the initial decision process (Which bear should we choose? Which outfit?) and actually made some new decisions too (adding a lullaby sound in the bear's paw and a plastic device that makes a heartbeat vibration when you squeeze it). We then took our purchased bear to go get stuffed with Stephanie talking us through the process we've come to know. Though neither of us had kids before, both Hubby and I have made many a Build-a-Bear in the past for gifts, so we stepped on the stuffing pedal, chose our little stuffed bear hearts, and followed the "heart ceremony" to instill the bear's heart with love before Stephanie sewed up the back and left us to dress our newest creation.

While the Captain America superhero outfit had been a tough contender to beat, Hubby ultimately decided that a blue outfit on a blue-furred bear might be a bit too much. So we decided on Captain Marvel's costume, since the movie just came out last month and Hubby delighted in seeing me purchase merchandise and shirts representing the female Marvel superhero. We had to admit, the star-studded spacesuit and aviator jacket looked pretty good on Baby's new bear. Plus, he matched what I was wearing! (No doubt a precursor for things to come when I start some matching mother-son outfits with Baby).

Finally, we took some finished photos with the completed bear, and then Deidra went through the rest of my shot list--more "traditional" maternity poses where we showed off the bump, the ultrasound photo, baby shoes, and more. Deidra stressed that she was going to get to all my pose ideas in the time we had, even the most complicated one at the end: a silhouette shot. For this photo, Deidra pulled out some extra photography equipment and enlisted the help of Stephanie and her staff-member Roxy who came into work during the shoot. They both held up edges of a screen so Deidra could get a shot of my body shape in the dark, which will be turned black and white to make an awesome shadowed portrait.

We finished the photo shoot with cheers and laughter, having made it in the one-hour time limit (before Build-a-Bear opened) with about a minute to spare! Hubby then proceeded to make a donation to Build-a-Bear's charity since the staff couldn't accept tips, and Dedira told me that I could contact her any time if I had baby questions since she has two babies of her own too!

As we packed up and Roxy began to open the store to incoming children, Stephanie emphasized how much she and the whole staff loved the creativity of our photo shoot idea. No one they knew had done such anything like it before, and it made them wish they had done maternity photo shoots when they were pregnant.

Before we left, we also paid for the new lullaby and heartbeat we'd added to our bear, and sat down to draft a "birth" certificate as you can do for any stuffed animal you create at Build-a-Bear. The hardest part was coming up with a name--we still don't even have a name for Baby! But given the Captain Marvel outfit and the Captain America outfit, we decided on the name "Cap" and noted on the certificate that he was a gift for "Baby V." What made me even happier was that there was a line to put who created the bear gift. It was wonderful and a little surreal to type that he was "Stuffed with love by Mommy & Daddy." Though I'd occasionally used the words separately, this was the first time I really remembered using them, or seeing them, together. We are a combined entity. We are parents. We are going to have a little one who calls us Mommy and Daddy in the very near future.

It's getting more and more real. And the maternity photos are not just something I wanted to do out of tradition or because I love photos (which of course I do). They are a way of showing our love for the newest member of our family. This bear, this documentation, this memory is all for him.

I'm so happy to finally be able to share it here and share that love.