Jiggy Wrigglers Christmas Portraits at Southampton West and The New Forest!
Happy New Year Everyone!
If you think that it seems a bit strange for my first blog post of the year to be Christmas themed, then you would be absolutely right!
It was a bit of an abrupt end to 2024 to be honest.
I had two wonderful weeks of Jiggy Wrigglers Christmas photo shoots, which I will chat about in a minute, and then I got the flu immediately after they finished. I'm calling it the flu; could have been a cold, but when people say a cold, they tend to add 'just a' to the beginning of it, and this was not 'just a' anything! It knocked me out flat for 4 days straight, and then I was still unwell for about 2 weeks after. To be honest, I have only really started feeling back to normal in the last few days.
I did survive Christmas! Which is good, because we were hosting 12 people for 3 days! We had my parents in the spare room, the kids sharing, and my brother and sister-in-law camped in the camper van on the drive way. Hubby's family were in the hotel down the road. Yes, it was as chaotic as it sounds, but in a good way. The children absolutely loved having all our family around them for Christmas. They were so excited, and so sugared-up and so out of routine, that we are still recovering. It was worth it though. Christmas really is magical when you have small children.
So, I didn't really have time to process just how much I enjoyed the Jiggys Christmas sessions this (last!) year.
To kick things off, I actually had a one off session at the local toddler group I attend at my local church in Whiteparish. If anyone is interested, it is a wonderful, supportive group that meet for a tea and a chat on Mondays at 10 inside the church. We are vey welcoming, and there is a constant flow of new parents in. We sing a few songs at the end, and you don't have to be religious or live in Whiteparish to attend. Our first group back is on the 13th January, so do feel free to pop along!
Anyway, I ran a photo session to raise money for the church at the start of December, and I am thrilled to say that we raised £285 for the church, which is absolutely amazing! Thank you to everyone who made a donation!
Back to Jiggys! I then had a week taking photos with the wonderful Tafflyn, of Jiggy Wrigglers New Forest. This was my 4th year taking Christmas photos with Tafflyn! I can't believe how time has flown! I started out as a Jiggy Mum at one of Tafflyn's groups, but changed over to Kat, of Jiggy Wrigglers Southampton West, when I moved to Romsey. So, now I only see Tafflyn once a year, at Christmas, when we have a lovely catch up and always have lots of fun making lovely Christmas memories for her wonderful customers, new and old. It's amazing (considering how bad my memory is), that I can walk into one of Tafflyn's groups and instantly know exactly who some of the children are. Sometimes I recognise the parents, and sometimes the children just look exactly the same, even though I haven't seen them for a whole year! I even remembered some of the children's names! I'm pretty impressed with myself, considering I take hundreds of children's photos over the course of a year!
I will admit that I was completely thrown when one of Kat's regulars turned up at one of Tafflyn's sessions. My brain couldn't quite work out why I knew who the child was, and why I had definitely seen them more recently than Christmas 2023... I had... at Halloween! Haha!
Other than making a bit of a plonker of myself in that situation, the sessions went really well! They weren't the Christmas parties, just normal Jiggys sessions, where everyone had been told that I would be there, and were dressed in their Christmas outfits. It worked really well, because most of the parents who attended were expecting me, and so had come knowing what to expect.
The following week, I was really getting into the flow of the photo sessions. It always happens where I get faster and more efficient with my photography flow, the more sessions I do, so by the time I got to Kat's sessions, I was pretty speedy, and that always helps.
Kat, of Jiggy Wrigglers Southampton West is so great at creating a fun and festive atmosphere. We had our photo sessions during the Jiggys Christmas parties, so the vibes were extra Christmassy, and we even had a snow machine, and Mrs Claus there to give out some presents to the children. I always love Kat's sessions, and they are the ones that I attend with my two mini-me's, who had a great time on our final day of photos.
This year's backdrop was the one I used from 3 years ago! I have 3 Christmas backdrops, which is plenty to rotate over 3 years. But it was really lovely to see how different my photos are from 4 years ago. 4 years ago was my first forage into baby and toddler photography, and I can say now that I have learned a HUGE amount over the past 4 years of how to get the best out of the children. How to get a smile, and just as important, how to know when to stop pushing when a child really doesn't want their photo taken. Sure, it's disappointing for the parents when that happens, but honestly, every child goes through their 'I don't want my photo taken' phase. Even my own children went through it, and they must be some of the most photographed children on the planet!
This year, I also updated my props to make the backdrop pop a bit more. I went quite neutral 4 years ago, but this year I added some lovely pops of red to the props, such as the berries in the vase of leaves, and the fold up star (which was very popular with the children indeed!). My red pop idea worked very well, as there were lots of children who were wearing red and it looked like the backdrop had been set up just for them! So colour co-ordinated!
So, here are a few statistics that you'll be interested to know from 2024's Jiggy Wrigglers Christmas specials:
126 children photographed!
121 galleries sent out (so not many siblings photos this year!)
12 sessions in total
8 days of photography (and many more behind the scenes spent editing and sending out galleries)
Before you take a look at some of the lovely photos from 2024's parties, just a note to say that you can book onto any Jiggy Wrigglers session online, simply by visiting https://jiggywrigglers.com/. If you're in the New Forest, then come and find Jiggy Tafflyn, or if you're in Southampton West, come and find Jiggy Kat. You'll have a fantastic time!
