We may be just a tad bit in the shadow of Halloween, but Starbucks released their iconic red cup today and holiday lattes are a go, so I’m giving myself the all clear to start talking about Christmas.

Mainly because it’s wedding eve for Nick and Leah, and if there is something you should know about the Lewis’s (Leah’s family) it’s this crew is Christmas OBSESSED.

One of the first conversations I had with Leah at her bridal consultation she told me, “my dad is Santa.” I was like “….” and she responded with “Like literally, he has a white beard and dresses as Santa for the Owensboro parade every year.We’re VERY into Christmas.”

Leah’s family also owns and operates a very popular local catering company that easily 70% of our Owensboro couples use for their wedding. So shortly after this first meeting when Leah mentioned she is the daughter of Kris Kringle, during my break at a wedding reception I was bee bopping through a Parish Hall kitchen to get to the side room where my vendor meal was waiting. I was on a mission with food and the chance to finally sit down on my mind when I saw something out of the corner of my mind.

I stopped dead in my tracks, backed up and turned to stare. “SANTA?!?!” I thought.

There he stood — my childhood image of Santa, minus the red suit and hat — in the Blessed Mother Parish Hall kitchen, hustling to refill pitchers of sweet tea and moving hot pans from the warmer to the serving line.

So yeah… Leah was not exaggerating.

Now that you’ve read all this, you won’t be surprised to learn, more than anything Leah wanted a Christmas themed engagement session. We shot this session right before Christmas last year and while that is ALREADY the most magical time of the year, it started lightly SNOWING during their session.

Yes, the tiny little white specks you see in these images were not added by me later in Photoshop, nope this is the real deal!

Also, as you might imagine with a mid-December session in Kentucky where it’s real life snowing, it was incredibly cold. My mouth was so numb by the end of this session I couldn’t formulate understandable words and was left to directing with excited mumbles and hand motions.

What I love about this is they were absolutely as frozen as I was, probably more, and you can not tell looking at these photos. Nick and Leah were a blast and up for whatever, and so incredibly sweet and loving with each other they made this Arctic weather session easy-peasy!

Make sure you hang on in this post to get to the last image, because THAT light. Holy wow.

I am straight up giddy to celebrate Nick and Leah’s tomorrow and love that we were chosen to document their day!