I don’t know why I wanted to do it, but I did.  And the more I researched it, and figured out WHAT I wanted to do with it, I was really just angry that I hadn’t done it years ago.

Amy wrote about it better than I could hope to; it is impossible to take a sexy boudoir pic with a self-timer.  OHGOD, HAVE I TRIED.  You look rushed, you look hurried, you look exhausted, and you sure as hell don’t look sexy.  Most of my attempts ended up with half of me in frame while the other half was hauling ass to get there before the time was up.  And then there’s the fact that you’re purely having to guess with what looks sexy on you; at the time I was hellbent on taking my own sexy pic, we had no Tyra Banks or Miss J to show us how to pose ourselves in a flattering position.  It was a sad, dark time.

Regardless, I finally got my ladies together and Monday night was THE NIGHT.

Turns out that a friend of mine from our younger school years was starting to dabble in boudoir photography.  I knew she was a photographer as she had shot my engagement pictures as well.  I was excited that she was moving into this world and thought, “Hey, what better clientele than five drunk theatre women?”  Yeah, God love her.  I’m sure she’s taken the rest of the week off to recover.  We can be .. a bit much.

And in all honesty, I was nervous as hell.  Dude, have you HAD a baby?  Nothing in/on your body is in the same place anymore.  It’s virtually impossible to feel sexy.  Virtually.  Not entirely.

I called Bryan on my lunch break and invited him to visit the local lingerie shop with me to go shopping.  THE BASTARD TURNED ME DOWN, but whatever.  I found some stuff.  Including the most AMAZING shoes, which somehow we never got a pic of, but trust me, HOTTEST SHOES EVER.

Amy and I were the first ones to show up, but Ronda was right behind us.  The other girls followed shortly thereafter and the wine was opened, the chocolate strawberries were devoured, and it turned into a big ole slumber party.  We all pitched in on eachother’s hair and make-up and any time ANYONE struck a pose in the camera, the other four would swoop in and begin rearranging lumps, moving boobies, and repositioning panty lines.  It was pretty awesome.

.. aaaaand we might have gotten a little drunk.

(We didn’t get tattoos.  I just thought that we would’ve, if we had been able to drive.  So I added those.)

We had ENTIRELY too much fun, laughed until we cried, and basically just spent the evening really, really cherishing our bodies.. all that our bodies have done for us, the parts that we loved already, the parts that we hated until we learned that another woman desperately coveted it.. and then we all went home.

Almost all of these ladies were at my wedding, my baby shower, and any other major milestone.  They are my support, often my sanity, and they make me so proud to know them.

The one who wasn’t at my wedding?  Turns out we were separated at birth.  We don’t even like our food to touch.  KISMET, I TELL YOU.

All in all?  I realized that this item on my life list wasn’t about looking sexy on film; it was about spending a couple of hours with women I really and truly adore and us all feeling really good about ourselves.

And that?  Was just what turning 30 should be about.j

(Of course, we are TOTALLY going to be sexy on film.  LOOK AT ALL THE WINE WE DRANK!)

(Okay, so that was only half of it.)

All really pretty pics, courtesy of Amy Mayfield.  Lousy pics, courtesy of my iPhone.