this is the story of how my grandparents met and fell in love and how it inspired my favorite giveaway ever! the winners will receive a free portrait session with a styled & personalized theme, a dvd of all the finished negatives and a 16″x20″ wall portrait - a $2000 value! AND(!!!)… the couple’s love story and images will also be featured on one of my very favorite blogs, Green Wedding Shoes (a wonderfully inspirational blog featuring gorgeous photography, pretty dresses, vintage details, graphic finds, and other ideas to inspire couples planning their weddings)!
i wish i more than anything that my grandparents were still here… kissing and laughing together and holding each other tight. i wish that i could take them out to a wildflower field, my grandma in her pink silk dress and my grandpa in his pressed coat and tie, and bring their recliners and their crossword puzzles for a full photo shoot. i wish i could put a pink rose behind my grandma’s ear and tuck a hanky into my grandpa’s suit pocket. i wish that i could watch them love each other now and that for one moment i could see him grab her and kiss her over the kitchen sink again. i really miss them. and i would love to give the gift of a portrait session to a special couple before they lose the chance.
SO… this brings us to the VERY SPECIAL GIVEAWAY!!! if you know a couple that has a great story with some history and character or if you yourself have a great one… tell me your LOVE story! i will select the winner based upon how inspirational and unique the love story is… i will just let my heart lead the way. 
please send me a photo of the couple, the love story, contact information and why they most deserve the gift of the photo shoot to wildflowersphotography@yahoo.com. i will make my decision by june 10th. the winning couple will be photographed in the los angeles area but i am happy to travel if expenses are paid. also, there are no losers so don’t be shy to write… every submission will receive a $50 gift certificate towards a portrait shoot in celebration of L-O-V-E. because there’s no better reason, is there? :)
.jpg "g&n2")
and now, for the story of how my grandparents met and fell in love…
“The world was at war in 1944: Washington D.C. was a city of action, its streets and halls crowded with the old and young, military men and women, civil service employees, elected officials and citizens waiting, watching, weary and wondering. But love happens to anyone, anytime, anywhere. The cherry blossoms continued to spread their petals and romance that spring. An Oklahoma girl, Nina, 25 years old, assistant to a senator, was smart, efficient and pin-up beautiful. When George Olen, a rough, handsome, cigarette-smoking boy who was the oldest of 12 Missouri children, in town on leave from duty with the Merchant Marines in the Atlantic theatre, was introduced to Nina, she walked down the stairs of her rooming house on Dupont Circle and Olen immediately claimed her as his “sweater girl”. Over less than a year, letters flew from ports to 1367 Kay Street. Nina wrote, “When I opened the mail box and saw I had letters from you, I threw everything down right there and just looked and looked at them, hoping they were going to contain news that you would be here soon…I put them in order saying to myself over and over, “Be patient, Nina, be patient”. They were married on Olen’s brief shore leave on March 24, 1945, and as he wrote from sea, “Collins said he didn’t think 2 married people could be very happy until he saw you and me. I was really surprised to hear him say that but I do know that I am the luckiest and the happiest man than ever was. I love you Mrs. Harmon.” They were married 59 years, and they “carried on” as Nina’s mother would say, with Olen grabbing her anytime, anywhere, hugging and kissing and writing on her cards, engraving on jewelry and imprinting them on her and our hearts, “All my love, all my life”.
.jpg "g&g")
my grandpa and his “sweater girl.” xoxo
8 comments
Catherine Abegg - I don’t live in LA! waaaa. But a quick question, when a couple wins, how long do they have to redeem their winnings? Just wondering, because we try to go to LA about once or twice a year!
By the way, BEAUTIFUL story… thank you.
joy harmon prouty - awww thank you, catherine.
no expiration date on the shoot for the winner. a good story and couple would be worth the wait no matter what! xoxo
Rochelle - i love this. made me cry. thank you for sharing
Pam Williams - Thanks you so much for sharing such a sweet story. Uncle Olen is my mom’s (Myra) big brother. I could actually picture your Grandpa in his crisp coat & tie and your Grandma all dressed up as I read this.
Gwen - I’m so glad to have known them and so grateful that they raised the right loving girl to lavish affection on my brother. Thank you, Olen and Nina! And thank You, Lord, for their lives.
melissa - Ah how totally precious! My grandparents have a very similar story, but my Zaid was in the Air Force.. I too wish they were still around so that their fifty + years of love could be captured on film one last time!
While we’re young, our story has a little bit of history (and fate, I think)!
It was April 2001, at my best friend’s Sweet 16. Zoe was an aspiring Jazz singer and brought a family friend and his band to the party to back her up as she sang some standards (it’s her party and she can perform if she wants to, right?). I noticed the kid on the drums – black-rimmed glasses and the widest smile – but it wasn’t until a couple hours into the party that I’d gather the cojones to say hi. He was outside on the patio, talking to another girl in my grade, but she was bad news (a heartbreaker) and I was determined to save him. A few minutes later, we had stolen off to the parking lot to kick at gravel and have one of the most fun, authentic, significant (and slightly insulting – he kept making fun of my big feet!) conversation I may have ever had. We ended our parking lot romance with a kiss, and each went our separate ways. He was staying over at the party hostess’s house and then heading home to Massachusettes the next morning.
That night, we talked on the phone for hours. I was hooked. This kid was funny, sweet, completely inappropriate. I hid under my covers laughing my ass off until we both fell asleep.
We saw each other a few more times that summer – talked on the phone every night – but as most things do at 16 (with 3 hours between us), the calls and visits tapered off. We both went back to our regular lives, new boyfriends, new girlfriends. But for some reason, every six or eight months, one of us would call to check in. We’d catch up, have long talks, I still remember where I was and what I was wearing during most of those calls. I remember sitting in my sorority house five years later, in the dark in our chapter room, giggling like I was still at the party.
I had gone on to college, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue music. I was studying film, so the promise of being in the same city kind of sat in the back of both of our minds.
When I graduated, I made a one day stop in LA on my way to San Diego (I landed a job on Semester at Sea and was heading around the world for four months). We had breakfast. It was really nice, but not romantic. Just. Comfortable.
When I moved finally to LA in February of 2008, I shot him a text. “We should get breakfast again.” He was out of town – would be for a month. But he was coming home for a weekend in between.
I saw his band on stage at the Wiltern before we even got the chance to speak. He was sweet, funny, engaging, and as talented as I remembered. Now a guitarist and a front man, I missed his wiley drummer ways, but it was nice to see him proudly entertaining a crowd. We talked in the lobby while the headlining band played. I giggled, a lot. We went to an awkward after party together. He kissed me. Our first kiss in 7 years.
The next night he took me to dinner. He left again for the open road, returning two weeks later. And we’ve spent the last two years thanking our 15 year old selves for having such badass taste in the opposite sex.
This week, we moved into our first house together! It’s a little, green bebe bungalow in Santa Monica, and it will be a struggle to get all of our crap in there, but I’d love to have a photo session that celebrates this momentous step.
Joy – your photos are beautiful, your grandparents story is fantastic, and I would love to meet you and welcome you into our tiny little home of love.
Anna-Maria - I don’t know if our story is romantic but it shows the power that loves conquers all! I am a committed and maybe a little bit fanatical vegetarian but nearly 8 years ago I saw the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life striding towards me eating a big mac, normally that is enough to turn my stomach but this man was too good to look away from. Our groups of friends got talking and it turned out we only lived a few roads away from each other our entire lives BUT I was 18 he was 28 and had barely noticed I was there. From them on my heart would stop as I’d hope to bump into him at the station I’d linger as trains went by in the hope that he would get off and we could walk home together. Our friends began to socialise together and we often spent time together but purely placontic. Then after seven months of feeling my heart was in my throat all the time at a party my best friend got a little drunk and decided to take action.
She stormed over to him and said ‘I know you love her so do something about her’ he replied ‘what should I do?’. ‘Go and kiss her’ she demanded and so he stormed over and took my face in his hands and kissed me: a kiss that would feature in a film my knees went to jelly and the world stopped for me. Within a week we had said our ‘I love yous’ and within a month we had decided to get married. July 2011 we will finally get married and he is still the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my live and every now and then I get another kiss that stops the world.
Lauren - I wanted to share the story of my parents with you. I believe it to be simple and sweet.
My parents began dating in High School, wonderfully enough she was a beautiful cheerleader and he was the studdly Quarterback and Point Guard- both kind and intelligent despite the stereotypes. Casually they dated through high school enjoying the laughs and dances. Getting to their senior year, my dad had to move because of his father’s job. He was now in Iowa and she in Minnesota, with no car and no cell phone (they hadn’t been invented). My dad would hitchhike to see my mom, even in the snow! I know you’re thinking up hill too right? No no, but it was kind of funny to hear how once it was so cold he went inside a convenient store to put on a pair of their gloves and decided to not take them off. Probably not the safest move to hitchhike in those conditions… No cell phone with free minutes and a convenient long distance plan with endless texts and no online chat or even email. Letters kept them connected despite the distance. To save the phone bill they would call, let it ring once, and hang up to say “I love you, good night!” They graduated still together and now my mom’s father got a job in Texas. She was moving to Lubbock with them and would go to Texas Tech while my dad would go to the University of Minnesota. Then my dad decided to take on the US with his brother in a van and drove all the way across the country to see my mom. When he got there, he thought he couldn’t go back… he transferred schools. Not able to afford out of state tuition, he waited for six months to start school again and worked construction. Moving to Texas from Minnesota… crazy… but worth it. Their junior year they were married, and the rest is history.