grad party time! | Alexandria, MN Senior Photographer

What time is it? Graduation party time! Ooooohhh-yeah! Bring on the taco-in-a-bag, pasta bars, pulled pork sandwiches, desert bars! Things have changed since I graduated. We had ham and butter sandwiches on little buns, potato salad, those little pillow mints and a big ol’ sheet cake. Now they are like little mini weddings with themes and all. Which I LOVE every bit. Especially when planning them. It is a lot of work, but I love planning and decorating.  However….now comes the embarrassing part, I have not shared my youngest daughter’s senior photos or her grad party. SHAME!!!!

Here is a reminder of my oldest daughter’s party HERE. And a little reminder of her friend photo session (one of my favorite sessions ever) as well HERE.

So onto Danika. What a lame photo mom I am. A whole year later I am finally blogging her senior photos and grad party. I am so sorry D!

Here is my pretty girl before the party was under way. A little tip…take photos of everything before everyone gets there. Photos of the details that you worked so hard for. And have someone to take photos of the day, we had Danika’s boyfriend Nate run around snapping photos of the party and of Danika with each guest that came. The afternoon goes fast you will love to have those memories even when your brain doesn’t remember them. 🙂

For both of my girls, I had quilts made for them. The floral fabric in their quilts was from their fashion toga from Senior Homecoming week. They love them and took them to college. I hope they have them for many, many years to come. This is coming from a photographer….go easy on the photos on displays. People will look at them but won’t pour over 18 scrapbooks or sit and watch the 20 minute slideshow. They want to look at a few of the kids and their friends when they were little, grab food and sit and relax.We served lemonade, Arnold Palmers, bottle water and coffee (this was taken before I got those in the dispensers).We rented the stands from Creations, Event Studio. I highly recommend them…such cute decor and reasonably priced.We served BBQ pulled pork and cole slaw wraps, homemade mac and cheese (the BEST ever…here is the recipe HERE), Miss Vickie chips (in individual bags which I highly recommend so that you don’t have people digging their hands in a chip bowl, and the left overs stay good in their own bags), and a brownie bar with toppings (which my mom made all those brownies! We loved the mini pies we did at Kalee’s, but they were so much work Danika said ‘no way!’).Her sign in book and gift station. She wanted a soft, vintage look with greenery. I found the mailbox, lace curtains at a thrift stores and a lot of the other decor you will see, believe or not I had already. We saved food cans and spray painted them gold and filled them with succulents. The eucalyptus is from Trader Joe’s and my dad cut those birch branches down for us. We went to many thrift stores for month to find lace tablecloths and curtains to make the banners and the backdrops throughout the party. I had left over burlap and we made those banners as well. We rented the paper lanterns from Creations, Event Studio The lit lanterns in the center are ours from when the girls were little, they hung in their bedrooms.

We tried our hand at making twine decorative spheres to hang…big flop….HUGE flop.

The tent, tables and chairs are from HPS.I saw something like this idea at another grad party a few years ago and thought it was so cool that we decided to do this at her party. We created postcards that people could color and write a note to Danika, throughout her first year in college I will mail them to her. She LOVED getting mail it was so fun to read everyone’s well wishes to her!

She also wanted playing cards for people to be encouraged to stay, play, visit and have fun. We incorporated my photo props to create a quaint conversation area.
Let the party begin!!!

It was a beautiful day and had a wonderful time with our family and friends to celebrate Danika! About 10 minutes to the end of the party….it poured. And there was lighting. And lots of thunder. It foiled our plans for the bonfire…but it still was an amazing day.Ok now onto her senior sessions…yes, sessions. The bad thing about having a mom as a photographer is WAITING for them to be printed and shared…obviously proven by this post. To clarify…prints were printed and given to family members and friends last year…at the last minute, to be honest. But one of the best part of having a mom as a photographer is having multiple sessions for every season!

Spring; in the most amazing wild flower field EVER. Seriously about 2 acres of solid wildflowers and I will never tell you where. 🙂Autumn; amazing light and wonderful cozy flannel blankets.Summer; which crazy we didn’t do any beach shots. Winter; two things about shooting in the winter…everyone’s skin looks amazing with natures light reflector and my hands are frozen. We were so luck to have the best hoarfrost that morning.And there you have it, Danika. Finally!

She has one year of college under her belt. She loves it there and I am sure she misses it and her new friends. I am LOVING having her home again for the summer. So I soak it up as much as I can!