The Youngrens

Even after living in a tiny studio apartment in Chicago for months and months of quarantine, Kelsey and Kyle are still madly in love (and best friends!). These two have a lightness and joy within them that make them the *perfect* match. Jeff and I fell in LOVE with them the minute we met!! Their engagement session was one of those evenings where everything just felt RIGHT. Perfect gorgeous weather, incredible golden light, lovely sweet couple, and a whole lotta love in the air! Check out the highlights on the blog today! -E

You can get the exact contracts, email templates, workflows, and MORE that we use in our multiple-brand business and it’s all 25% off TODAY ONLY! That’s right! WE ARE THROWING A FLASH SALE! All the items in our photographer shop (excluding courses) are 25% off so go grab that deal while it's live in the shop!... You'll thank yourself later when your systems are squeaky-clean and serving the business and the LIFE you desire!! -E https://theyoungrens.com/photographers/shop/

I haven’t been on an airplane in what feels like a century... even though it’s only been eight months. My last flight was coming home from Kauai the first week of March, sliding back through LAX just daaaays before the first quarantine shutdown. A few weeks ago, one of my closest friends turned 40 and while the trip was supposed to be a lakeside retreat in Guatemala (my favorite country EVER), we drove out to Palm Springs instead and spent the weekend by the pool to celebrat...e her glorious life well-lived and the many adventures yet to come (we’re determined to make Guatemala happen! And Oaxaca, and Mexico City, and Peru...) Jeff and I did a LOT of traveling before our little boys arrived, and even though traveling looks very different post-kiddos, we’ve still got the adventure bug in us. Top of my travel bucket list? A trek through Patagonia. Of course, these things will need to wait and since I’ve got a few other things I need to focus on right now (like Baby Boy’s arrival in less than two months...) I’ll just keep refining our travel list while doing some serious nesting here at home. - E #32weekspregnant

A dance party and a 100-person guest list may not have been in the cards for their wedding in 2020, but Max & Susan DID truly savor every moment with their 8-person guest list. And THAT was a beautiful thing. Highlights from Max and Susan's gorgeous Montage Laguna Beach wedding are on the blog! Max and Susan have such a calm way around each other & I adore their love!! -E

SWIPE >> for a true Instagram VS. REALITY. As a wedding photographer in 2020, how often do you get asked, So how has COVID affected your business this year? So often, there’s the surface answer to that question (ie everything’s fine, we’ll get through it) and then there’s the REAL answer (ie my business has been devastated).... Since the COVID pandemic hit the US in March of 2020, Jeff and I have lost serious amounts of revenue across our three photography brands, and we've hit some of our most difficult moments as business owners. EVER. And we’re not alone. If you’re a wedding photographer, this year has probably decimated your business. So in true Creative Rising style, we pull back the curtain on what’s really been going on with our studios over the past six months no BS, just the honest truth about the struggles, challenges, and lessons we’ve learned as we’ve navigated this pandemic. Spoiler Alert: there’s been a LOT more going on behind the scenes than we’ve let on here on Instagram. Go check out this new episode! (You can grab the link in our bio!) -E

Only a few more months left with just this little guy before baby boy Youngren #2 is born and I’m feeling the clock ticking. We’ve got a lot left to do still to get ready (haven’t started on the new baby room) but between the third trimester and James growing so fast, I’m more motivated to just sit and watch my son play than work on projects. Going from the two of us to three was a tectonic shift in our lives and everything I hear about going from a family of three to four is just as fundamentally groundbreaking. All of you parents out there with multiple kids, what’s your best advice for preparing for baby #2?? -E #31weekspregnant

This pregnancy has been much more challenging than it was with James. I got pregnant just a few weeks into this pandemic, and (as far as anyone can tell) Baby Boy Youngren will be born before it’s over. (I have friends that will probably never see this bump in person, and may not meet our little guy for months after he’s born. Crazy-sauce.) So not only has our world been turned upside down, but my whole COVID experience has been a journey of nausea, exhaustion, and hormonal r...oller coasters. I had a really difficult first trimester with James, and this one was very much the same... only with quarantine, a two-year-old, and a business to fight for layered on top of it all. And then many of the first-trimester-symptoms (*ahem* nausea...) just never fully let up. I was a third child and any multiple child scenario is a lot for any parent to handle, but the circumstances of my coming into the world were pretty overwhelming for my mom. In these past few months of preparing for this sweet little boy’s arrival, there’s been a LOT going on in the world and in our lives. Between caring for our livelihoods, launching the Thrive Business Intensive, and navigating social distancing/childcare/weddings, it’s been a lot more to carry than we ever anticipated. But in recent days as I’ve crossed into the third trimester, I have felt the inner-mom-nudge not to miss out on this most important thing - my son. Not my second child. Not Baby Boy #2. But my unique and individual son that is preparing to meet the world. Seeing through the fog of circumstances and focusing on him has been tough, but I’m thankful for the whisper that has been gently reminding me not to miss the somersaults he does in the evenings (and all night long) or how he likes to kick when he hears James’ voice. I don’t want the fact that he is our second to mean that I miss all of this. So, taking a note from everything we tell our #tycouples, I’m reminding myself to slow down and savor. It doesn’t all have to be done. It doesn’t all have to be perfect. It just has to be remembered. - E #bumpdate #28weeks #babyboyyoungren

Jeff and I met in college here in San Diego 17 years ago this month. I was a freshman literature major straight off the farms of Idaho working at the front desk of the library and Jeff was a junior biology major studying all the time. WhenI slid onto the scene with my librarian glasses and quiet, introvert ways, he and all his biology friends referred to me as the Hot Librarian. When Jeff finally got up the nerve to ask out the Hot Librarian, he became king of the nerds. Fa...st forward 17 years, and while so much has changed about us, those basic facts are still there. I’m still an introverted bookworm that would rather stay up late and read a book and Jeff is still the charmer that calls me the Hot Librarian. And while so much will continue to change over the coming decades, I know that in another 17 years, that will still be true about us. That’s the best thing about love stories. They will shift and grow and blossom as the two humans involved change into better humans, but there will always be the same two humans with the same two hearts at their core. And I just so happen to love the core of who this human is. - E #lovestories #collegesweethearts

Well, that escalated quickly... I was looking to post just ONE of my favorite black & white images from Patrick & Miranda's wedding day....aaand then things got out of hand, and now I'm posting 10. Can you blame me? It's feels impossible to choose a favorite!! Everything about their wedding day at @fairmontgranddelmar hit the nail on the #TYdreamie head - it was classic and emotional and romantic and ohhhh so pretty! It's so fun reliving their day from last summer!... (PS - We just got Miranda and Patricks GORGEOUS wedding album back to our studio (!!!) and it's just so amazing seeing all the moments in print! Can't wait for them to see it!) Which black and white is YOUR favorite from their day?? Tell me! I can't choose! -E #tycouple #tyweddings

So fun to see this video posted on Kiss Books' page today! These styling mats are a GAME-CHANGER on wedding days, and now Jeff and I never photograph wedding details without them! Friends, you can get 15% off your purchase on styling mats (or ANYTHING in the Kiss Shop!), too! Just use the code "theyoungrens" here https://www.kiss.us/theyoungrens... Since Jeff and I first tried these, we were SOLD - and I know you will be, too! -E

I was sitting in biology class when I watched the second tower fall. I was 16, a junior in high school, not quite an adult, not quite a kid. I watched my classmates join the military and go to war. I flew to college through newly installed metal detectors. I became an adult in an entirely different world. The first time I visited New York, ground zero was still under construction and my girlfriend and I managed to snake our way into the third or fifth floor of an office buil...ding to see over the construction fences and look down at the depths that were once towers. A few years later, Jeff and Icried our way through the Newseum in DC where we saw the recovered camera of the only journalist that died that day - a photographer that ran towards the buildings as they collapsed. His camera was a Canon that looked just like ours. Last year, James got to see the NYC skyline and we pointed out the Freedom tower. He won’t have his own memory of 9/11, but he will have ours. So many of us have stories from this day 19 years ago, no matter how old we were. That’s my story, and I’ll never forget it. So friend, where were you? I’d love to hear. - E #neverforget

Here's how I'm greeting this Tuesday-that-feels-like-a-Monday... Quick stop at Starbucks for my iced chai tea latté Early morning Focus Time to quietly start my day (Thrive students, I see you! ) A beautiful stack of wedding albums to review before sending off! ... How was your Labor Day weekend, friend? The three of us slowed down and soaked in all the air-conditioned snuggles we could... this San Diego #heatwave is no joke! When it's too hot to even go for a walk... Daniel Tiger on the couch it is! Tell me - what's the first thing you plan into a long weekend? Extra sleep? Extra reading time? Extra adventures? I wanna hear how YOU did your long weekend! -E

I went on a really early walk this morning out of desperation. Desperate to avoid the midday heat, desperate to clear my head, desperate to get my aching baby-and-toddler-carrying-hips moving. Normally, I get up early every morning and do focused work before James wakes up, but when I reached for my laptop, I felt a longing for my neglected shoes and the cool, clear air for my hot, foggy brain. As I walked around our neighborhood park with dog-walkers and early-joggers, all a...round me I felt again the familiar 2020 feeling - the deepening, the reckoning, the weight of this time. My personal mantra from the beginning of this pandemic has been, It’s not about ‘how are we going to get through this’. It’s about, ‘who am I going to become because of this?’ What I didn’t really expect though is that this year has been less about becoming and more about unbecoming. About burning down and laying to ash those things that have long needed to be unbuilt. Race, culture, justice, entrepreneurship, social responsibility, activism - all of it is out in the open and on the table. This burning down is good. But it is tough. And necessary. I thought of my students in our Thrive Business Intensive. We’re in week four, and my students have spent the last month discovering long lost dreams, digging up hidden numbers, and rethinking pricing - and in the process, uncovering possibilities. It is good. It is tough. It is necessary. I thought of how our couples are reckoning with cancelled plans and in the process discovering beauty in the simplicity or gifts in the delay. It is good. It is tough. It is necessary. I thought of my fellow wedding colleagues and how we’re all in this fight together to keep our livelihoods alive. We’re rethinking business. We’re letting go of old ways of being. Or we’re embracing change. It is good. It is tough. It is necessary. This year of unbecoming is powerful. With the burning down, the good is revealed. It is all tough. It is all necessary. And even in the middle of the fire, I don’t want to miss any of it. - E #lifeofaphotographer #creativepreneur

Here's something Jeff and I are no-nonsense about... We believe that EVERY married couple should invest in a wedding album. And if you haven't already created one (or a parent album for your family!), now's the perfect time, my friend! We are excited to announce drumroll please ... OUR BIGGEST SALE ON ALBUMS EVER! For one week only, you can get 20% OFF all wedding albums + upgrade options! (And get your album made in time for the holidays!) We've NEVER offered our albums at this price before, so if you've been thinking about an album but waiting for a sale, THIS IS IT! If you're one of our lovely #TYcouples, click here to fill out an order form: http://tywed.co/albumorder

We started potty training James this week, and there’s two things I wasn’t prepared for... 1. Teaching another human how to poop. (How do you even describe that??? You feel like you need to poop, so you just do it.) 2. When his diapers went away, so did the last of his ‘baby-ness.’... That second one has come as a shock to me. James has been ready to potty train for months - he’s basically been begging me in his two-year-old ways to finally just do it mama! But I’ve been super reluctant because in the middle of this crazy year, I’m not loving the idea of MORE uncertainty and I’ve definitely been clinging to what I can control, even if it’s changing diapers. And this potty training thing has gone... really well. I’m shocked, because I was dreading. it. (That whole thing about only potty train when the kid is ready is TOTALLY TRUE.) In fact, as soon as James gleefully ditched his diaper and adopted the toilet, he’s been loving brushing his teeth, washing his hands, cleaning up his plate and doing all-the-grown-up-things that I’ve been pushing for so long (I mean, we’ll see how long it lasts but I’ll take it for now!). For me, watching him go from baby to little boy has been surprisingly wonderful. This feels bigger than any of the other stages he’s been ushered into. It feels like he’s ushering himself into boyhood and I just get to watch and be his coach (although I could use some help in the whole coaching-how-to-poop realm). And when I watch his focused face on the potty like he’s a researcher studying the concept of gravity, I start to think about all of the stages I get to coach him through in his lifetime. How to read, how to take a shower, how to be a generous listener, how to play a sport or get on a stage or write a poem, how to treat women as equals, how to express his emotions in world that tells a man not to, how to own up to his mistakes, how to be hurt and how to forgive... That’s what’s been so wonderful about teaching my little boy to pee in a toilet (again, poop is another story). It’s shown me how willing, strong, and courageous he’s going to be. Scratch that - that he already is. - E #sweetbabyyoungren #notsobabyanymore @ Mount Laguna, California