Lift Your Love [#1] - Sketch it up a bit!

In our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, masturbation is inappropriate unless for fertility treatments. Growing up with this belief made "collecting a sample" really guilt-ridden for my sweet Mr.

I went with him for our first IUI, because the guidelines of the church say that the wife is encouraged to help, as we believe intimacy to be something to be shared only between husband and wife. Turns out, me being in the room with him just stressed him out, embarrassed him, and put extra pressure on him. It was a terrible situation. I pulled out all the stops, but eventually just went out into the waiting room until the sample was collected. I felt helpless. I hated that he had to do that alone. He hated having to do it alone. Not the best experience.

We went about 6 months without going back to that clinic, and I had some time to brainstorm how I could make this easier on my Mr. I knew 3 things:

1. Me being in the room with him wasn't going to work out. 
2. The church recommends the wife helping
3. I wanted him to know how much I supported him. I also wanted to take some of the pressure off of him. 

My solution? 

Take boudoir photos! 

For those of you who don't know, there is an entire branch of photography geared toward taking tasteful (yet somewhat scandalous) images of wives for their husbands. From checking out pricing, though, it was like $350 for what I wanted. (20 images and a book) Fertility treatments take up all of our money, now, and I knew blowing $350 on something I wanted to surprise my husband with would not be a possibility. 

So, I researched a few professional photographers and combed through their portfolios. I took note of poses, lingerie, backgrounds, etc. I told one of my good girl friends what I was thinking about doing and she mentioned how she'd always wanted to do something like that for her husband, so we got to work! One Friday, we snapped pictures for about 4 hours, picked through the images to find our favorites and edited them over the next week. It was a lot of work, but I surprised Mr. with a few of the images (the book is still in the mail somewhere...) before our IUI yesterday and he loved them! Men are extremely visually stimulated, which means my photos made everything easier on him. I felt supportive. I felt like I could help him somehow, and I didn't have to be in the room with him. Every man is different, so this might not be right for everyone. All I know is that it sure made a difference for us! 

I did learn a few things to make this go well: 

1. Get a nicer camera so you can shoot in RAW mode. Borrow one if you have to. Shooting in RAW mode allows you to change the lighting and white balance of the photos in photoshop. It makes a HUGE difference in making the photos look professional if you aren't a pro photographer. 
2. You will need Photoshop. You can download a 30-day free trial here. 
3. High heels make a huge difference. Get necklaces, hair clips, accessories, etc. to glam things up a little bit. 
4. Use portraiture to make your skin look incredible! There is a 14-day free trial here. 
5. Ask a friend to take the pictures. If you try to use a timer on the camera your images won't be in focus and you won't be able to get the angles that you want. 
6. Don't be afraid to crop pictures! Mix it up by cropping close up shots and full shots. 
7. Use a plain white sheet behind you. Then, you can open up any image you would like to use as a background, open it in photoshop, change the blend mode to overlay, and erase it off of you so it is only on the sheet. It will blend perfectly! I shot all of my photos in 2 rooms in our tiny apartment and the photos look like I was in 6 or 7 different places. 
8. Remember that your husband thinks you are beautiful. He loves you. This is for him. 
9. In Photoshop, if you go to filter > liquify, you will be able to clean up love handles, thighs, etc. Just don't over do it! You don't want to look fake! 
10. Even if you get one that is great, it will be worth it! You'll blow him away! :) 

Just a note: Be careful when googling boudoir photography. There are some pretty sketchy things out there. The idea is to make it tasteful and classy. You are not an object. He should not want to treat you like an object. If you do not feel uplifted and beautiful by the images you are seeing, it is not what you want.