It really is the spur of the moment shoots that are the best! I traveled with Jessie to England and Iceland in November (travel photos coming soon) and although I took plenty of photos of her throughout the trip, we had no plans of doing a styled shoot… Until the day before we left Iceland! Haha.

We were driving for the 100th hour of the week and we had pretty much conquered all we wanted in Iceland. We were a bit tired after traveling for two weeks. So I mentioned to Jessie about doing a mini-shoot with her on our last day, originally thinking we’d just find something in her suitcase and make it work. But we got a little ambitious and decided to drive into downtown Reykjavik to try to find a fun outfit.

Downtown Reykjavik has the most beautiful clothing stores I’ve ever seen. I absolutely love the style there. We went into a couple higher end stores (give me all things Geysir) and obviously saw a lot that we’d love to shoot but it was out of the budget. But then we ended up walking into a vintage shop and immediately found a dress that fit Jessie like a glove. And as she was trying it on, I spotted a really fun necklace. We got them both and continued our search because we were determined to find a fur. Well, Iceland doesn’t joke around with their fur. It’s ALL real and it’s ALL $500 or more. Haha!! The stores closed that evening before we found something so the next morning we woke up early to head to the mall when it opened to possibly find a fake fur or coverup. I knew Jessie would be FREEZING and she had already almost gotten frostbite a previous day (more on that later) so I was not about to risk her life for these photos.

We didn’t find any fur but we did find a beaded top that worked PERFECTLY with the long, black dress. It certainly wasn’t warm but she promised she’d be okay in the cold so we left with the beaded top and immediately got on the road to our location at Budir Black Church, knowing we only had a few hours of sunlight. The drive was two hours from Reykjavik and as soon as we got off the main highway, the road was completely covered in snow. It was crazy!! I purposefully rented a 4×4 for that reason but we didn’t really need it until this point in the trip. I almost turned around because in Iceland, you really don’t know what lies ahead and you could go hours before seeing a store or gas station. It can be scary. But we had already planned for this and I had a feeling it would be good so we kept driving for two hours on a snow-covered road to this church and hoped our car wouldn’t slide off the road.

We ended up making it and it was absolutely breathtaking. The entire drive was probably my favorite of the whole trip so I am beyond glad we didn’t turn back. The craziest situations are the most exhilarating and always make for great stories. So with that being said, here are some of my all-time favorite photos. Jessie, thanks for being up for this and almost freezing to death! Haha!