I always like a good story. That's another reason I love my job. Not only do I get to photograph beautiful human beings, I get to meet new people and hear their stories. The other day I went to a couple's home in East Sac to photograph their new baby girl. It was my first time meeting all three of them. At two weeks old, Lily was a doll and already getting a lot of personality. She liked to make all sorts of funny faces for the camera and made me smile a lot. This story is not necessarily about Lily, but how she came to be and it's a good one. :)
The couple lives across from a park so we started there, in hopes of tiring Lily out. Melisa and Erik were natural parents and seemed so at ease despite all the newness of a first baby. I just assumed they were a couple that had been together for a long time. Lily did great. Awake and asleep she was a natural in front of the camera. Her bear themed room was adorable and looked like it was straight out of Pinterest. About a third of the way into the session I simply asked, "What made you guys decide you wanted to have a baby?" The answer I got surprised me. "We didn't," they said grinning. That's when I knew it was about to get good.
I soon found out they had only been dating for six months when...surprise! Ready or not, Lily was on the way! I can't remember what I asked next, but it made them decide to back up even more and explain the *whole story. I found out Erik had been living in the Bay Area when Melisa was living in Midtown. They don't have common friends, so there was almost no chance of them running into each other except for one thing. Have you heard of Tinder? Apparently it's a trendy new dating app that connects your with singles in your geographical area. Erik was on the app to help a friend who wants to create a dating site. Melisa was on it because she was bored. They explained the simple concept to me. You basically see a picture of someone and read a few details. If you like what you see, you swipe right. If you don't, you swipe left.
So how did these two people who live in different cities end up on each other's apps? Erik was going on a trip in Tahoe and happened to stop in Sacramento for gas. In the few free minutes he had while waiting at the pump, he looked at his app. Melisa popped up and he swiped right. Simple as that! After he was already home from the trip, Melisa swiped right too and they were connected. They said they talked on the phone all night, met at a coffee shop in Sacramento the next day and the rest is history!
There's just one more juicy detail to this story. They left the Tinder details out of the story when they told their family members how they met. So it's quite possible they may be getting the *whole story right now as they read this blog post. It's not a lie though. Fate may have brought them together on Tinder, but they did meet at a coffee shop. Thank goodness Fate is keeping up with the times because these two were meant to be together!
I cannot wait to hear what's next for this couple and the beautiful new human they created. I'm glad they let me share their awesome story!
Lots of love,
Courtney
