Once upon a time there was a babe who believed she could be and become anything she wanted to be, including the hero of her own story. 

And that badass babe lived happily ever after.  

Self Love Saturday has always been my favorite event for our Philadelphia Boudoir studio because its free and brings together so many babes in the spirit of self love.  The room is always buzzing with nerves and joy and excitement.  Babes from all walks of life and at all different places in their self love journey show up for a few hours of mini sessions and its honestly just magical.  The pandemic has meant that I have had to put this annual event on hold though so when I decided to bring it back, I knew after waiting 2.5 years, this one had to be EXTRA special.  But plan after plan kept getting ruined by COVID.  One night I was scrolling instagram and came across this meme.  I reshared it, kept scrolling and eventually went to sleep.  When I woke up the next morning though, with that photo on my mind and realized that there were so many of us who loved the characters of Disney but never saw ourselves in the characters.  They were all too thin, too the same body, too white, too straight, to be representative of the immeasurable differences that are humanity.  And yet we loved their stories.  So what if we could change that?

One of my favorite books has the subtitle “The Rise and Reign of Unruly Women” (written by the amazing Anne Helen Petersen) and I have thought a lot about that phrase in doing this.  Yes this was about giving modern makeovers to Disney characters, about reimagining a grown, sexy version of a character we all know and love.  But it was also about the idea that if more babes see themselves and their stories as worthy and to stop listening to the idea that they are “too” something (too loud, too bossy, too fat, too queer, too bold, too much, etc), the world would see the reign of those unruly babes.  And it would be beautiful.  I want to live in a world not of audacious characters, but of audacious babes.  I want to see powerful and provocative babes rise to places we haven’t seen them before.  I want to see folks flipping the script like Merida, being kindhearted and generous like Belle, never giving up like Captain Hook and a fierce protector like Maleficent.  I want to see us cultivate babes with Alice’s curiosity, Jasmine’s rebellion and courage, Ariels fiesty spirit, and Tiana’s resourceful intelligence.  I want little girls to grow up knowing that they don’t have to look like the characters from the movies and that their bodies and skin tones are just as magical.  I want little queer kids to know that they can see themselves in these stories.  I want babes everywhere to see themselves as the hero to their story and to know that they can be sexy for themselves.  

This why I believe in boudoir.  Yes, its about sexy photos but its even more about carving out space for you to see yourself without all of the noise and hatred our world throws at us.  It’s about going “oh I look like THAT?!!!” or realizing that this thing you’ve spent your life hiding is actually part of what makes you beautiful.  Our bodies are how we get to experience this world and we can spend every day picking them apart and hating them OR we can realize that we are enough, right here and now.  That doesn’t mean you stop wanting or trying to change what it looks like either!  It just means you look at yourself with more love than anything else.   Seeing so many of these babes show up nervous but after just a few minutes of shooting they were geeking out on how amazing they looked and felt.  And it immediately shifted the energy in the room.  They would hype up the babe after them, held their heads a little taller and thats what it’s all about to me.  

So allow me to present to you one of the most favorite things I have ever done.  REIGN had over 380 applications, which I painfully chose 46 babes, allowing them to help decide who they wanted to be and how they wanted their character to look!   We weren’t looking for folks that looked like the character or trying to use makeup or wigs to turn these babes into them.  My goal was to create modern, new, sexy versions that felt like the babe who was embodying them.  39 showed up over two days to be photographed, all of them borrowing pieces from our massive client wardrobe (a few brought things from their own closet but most wore outfits entirely from our closet!) and all of them got their own 5 minute photoshoot for FREE.  It was magical.  And I am truly so proud of how this turned out!  

Before I let ya scroll on to see all these amazing babes, a HUGE thank you to Ashley for helping me clean, set up and organize the studio, to Brittany and Amber for assisting me on Saturday, Tiffany for the incredible videos and to my sweet wife who always supports my crazy ideas.  Doing this without ya’ll would have been so much harder and wayyyyy less fun.  And also a thank you to all of the babes who participated, who drove long distances to be apart, who trusted me and my vision.  I love ya’ll to pieces.