Spring Photo Shoot/Tech Week

Uncategorized by Penny Darling

So this week has been….long? In a word….longggggggg.

Anyone who follows along, or is a good friend, or loves theatre, or from Harrisburg, or is actually in the cast – knows that this week is Tommy tech week.

Anyone who is not in theatre knows that tech week is long. It’s when we have rehearsal for several intensive hours every night. And the theatre has like no temperature control. So, finally, it gets beautiful out and then between very hot stage lights, dancing, costumes, and the humidity – I’m 95% sure that I lost like five pounds of water weight in sweat. But the show looks AMAZING. Like, honestly. Preston sings Pinball Wizard and dayyyyyum. And our Captain & Mrs. Walker are literal heart melters and all three Tommys are so sweet & talented. I can’t wait for opening night. I am PUMPED. Here’s some pics of my costumes for the show. These were on my insta this week – so check it out!

 

tommy6
The black & white number is for Act 1 as the Barrister at Captain Walker’s trial. The Little Orphan Annie dress is for Sensation & Pinball Wizard.

 

tommy7
The floral number is for Sensation Reprise, Sally Simpson, & the Finale in Act 2. The checkered outfit is for Act 2 for Tommy, Can You Hear Me?

=

tommy2
This is my FAVORITE costume. I play a drugged out whore in Eyesight to the Blind in Act 1. The choreography is PHENOMENAL. And i love acting like a junkie zombie and this outfit is so sexy. It’s my favorite part of the show.

 

So, those are my costumes…but this week has been crazy. I have rehearsal again tonight and then the show opens tomorrow night! Yikes! We’re ready!

AND on top of that – some of you know, I work for the March of Dimes and my territory’s March for Babies is the same day as the show. Tommy’s runs April 22 & 23 and my walk is April 23 AND IN ANOTHER FREAKIN’ STATE. So I’ve been in and out of rental cars, driving in and out of the state every day, going to rehearsal, and in serious time crunch mode for the event too. Like I spent an hour decorating rubber ducks and putting pom poms on my photo booth and organizing bins, and car rentals, and food donations, and volunteers, and teams, and auditors. Event planning is serious business.

So it’s been like hell week at work and at home. So, very little time for relaxing. Like I went in to work on Wednesday and knocked out an X-Large dunkin iced coffee in about 45 minutes while I answered the 45 e-mails that had acquired in there. Like I barely had time to even work on this blog. I’ve been writing it in small chunks over the course of several days. Like, during our fifteen minute break during Tommy rehearsal, I am frantically typing another paragraph on my phone. I spend fifteen minutes before bed writing a paragraph or two. I’m writing this paragraph while I’m on hold with a vendor. Blargh.

However, on Tuesday afternoon – Preston & I had a few hours to spare (our only free time this week), so we decided to meet with our dear friend, Lauren, to do some spring photos in a local park. Lauren is so amazing. She’s, like, literally the most positive and cheerful person I know. She is just the absolute sweetest and always making us laugh. And on top of her ADORABLE personality and fashion sense – she is a really talented photographer and has some super amazing shots. Here’s a link to Lauren’s insta and a link to her photography website if you want to check out her other work. She is a gem and a half, for real. This is Lauren in her awesome overalls.

Our amazing friend & photographer Lauren rocking some overalls and looking GORGEOUS af.
We named her camera Violet.

 

So here’s some shots from our photo shoot! There are TONS of them – so I picked my faves. And these are ‘raw’. No filters, edits, photo shop. These are like straight out of the DropBox Lauren sent us. Preston has his own faves (grumble) and Lauren has her faves – but this is MY blog so…I’m posting my favorites! Now, be warned. There’s seriously like 40 pictures posted below and I really like and adore them and they are cool. But there are like 300 not posted, so count your lucky stars that these are the narrowed down ones.

If you want to read the adorable romantic-comedy esque story of how Preston and I met and our love story – check out my modern day fairytale that I posted a few weeks ago!

Fashion:

All Modcloth.

You’re in Luck in Pie Dress
Guest of Honor in Balloons Dress
High Socie-tea Dress in Macaroons
Light Pink sweater is an old staple in my wardrobe that I thrifted before I was even into fashion.

Preston is rocking all Jos. A Bank wear. Don’t quote me on that, but that’s where like 98 % of his clothes are from, so I am hedging my bets. Maybe I’ll ask him when I see him later.

Stay tuned to the end to see some bloopers. I’d love to pretend that these all came out perfect…but it was me & Preston – so there’s some tripping, a baby turtle, a cat skull, some weird faces, some falling over. You know…like regular people.

 

 

35
The man I adore. The dress I adore. What’s not to love?
36
These blossoms were the most beautiful shade of pink and purple and when the wind blew – it looked like snow with all of the petals. Gorgeous!
41
We were channeling Sixteen Going on Seventeen when we were in the gazebo. Well, at least, I was.
1
It was surprisingly windy this day.
2
Preston decided that he was going to squat on a picnic table “like an owl” for some reason. Boys…
40
I love this shot because this is with the same amount of adoration that I look at him every day.
37
Another loving shot. A small smile just before he kissed me.
33
“I may as well call you the Bridge to Terebithia because you make children cry.”                – New Girl

34

39
What he doesn’t know is that I’m laughing at the booger in his nose. Just kidding!
32
You can see my music tattoo peeking out the back here. So cute.
30
Sometimes I forget how much taller than me Preston is until I see a snap of us just standing next to each other.
26
This is not a joke. Sometimes at the beginning of rehearsals or if I’m bored – I’ll give Preston a piggy back ride and do lunges or squats like that to get a workout. Whatever. That is TRUE LOVE, man. Romance at its finest. Oh, you squat 100lbs? I squat A FULLY GROWN ADULT MAN.
27
Like, honestly, I love a good twirl.
25
This is one of Lauren’s faves! That grove framed us perfectly!
24
I’m a fan of this. His & Hers fashion. Honestly, this dress is my most favorite dress. I’ve even become kind of selective about wearing it out in fear that I will damage it somehow.
21
We seriously pride ourselves on the uncanny knack we have for coordinating color palettes. Sometimes we plan it, more often we don’t.
20
I borrowed this dress from a friend for this shoot. I was worried that I wasn’t going to like it. And now I’m HEARTBROKEN that I have to send it back. It is SO beautiful.
18
Pastel game on fleek.
16
Don’t anyone ever be like, “Preston is such a good sport for doing this.” He is an ACTOR. We’re all vain, beautiful people that love to be photographed.
8
This was a real reaction. I pressed the dandelion on his face and it left a huge buttercup kiss on his nose!
13
Can we also talk about Preston’s purple Stacy Adams shoes? Like hot damn, those are so cool. Preston is notorious for having an unbeatable dress shoe collection. He literally owns more pairs of shoes than I do.
11
It’s hard to tell from this picture – but we were re-enacting the Lion King.
3
Oh man. This part is where we started giving our characters ‘motivation’. “Okay, so Preston is a really well dressed ranch hand and I’m the plantation owner’s daughter and my father is a strict and wealthy man and we can’t be together but we’re in love.”

4

6
Every time I would pull on Preston’s tie – he would come near me and there would be no tension in the tie. And I kept saying he had to pull against me. He was not getting it. Again, boys.
9
This was an unplanned and beautiful moment of Preston putting a dandelion in my hair. That smile is genuine and this moment is genuine. And I think that is just lovely.
14
He gave me the dandelion first. THEN put it in my hair.

 

 

22
There were HUGE koi in this pond. And we were like WTF did these HUGE monster koi fish come from in this man made lake?

 

BLOOPERS

 

5
We found a baby turtle in the grass near the stream and got distracted by it and poked it and debated putting it back in the river. Posted below this is the picture of the baby turtle and this like weird cat/fox skull that we found near the baby turtle. This was the weird part of this photo shoot. Cat skull. Like, what?

 

12
Despite the romantic moment of Preston putting the flower in my hair – he first pulled an Andy Samberg and ‘threw it on the ground’.
42
Preston was not balancing very well and almost fell over and took me down with him.
unspecifiedCAAXE1K0
Preston explaining the price of chicken wing stock to me.
unspecifiedCABHTSWD
Lauren told us to ‘look like disinterested hipsters.’ This is what happened.
unspecifiedCAGMPEFN
There was like this old weird abandoned basketball court and we were very confused by it.
unspecifiedCAT4IEJ6
This is what I was talking about in my above comment about the tie. When I pulled on it – he would just get close to me. I don’t know if he knew what I was going for.

 

unspecified
It was very windy. So I tried to be loving and fix his hair. It was a VERY temporary band aid before the next gust of wind blew.

Another very special thank you to Lauren!

So here’s the “end of blog” spiel!

Follow me on Instagram: @Abby_Hoy

Like my Facebook page here 

I will do another (and bigger!) giveaway when I reach 1,000 followers! Help me reach that goal! I’m very close! So share this story, recommend it to your friends, post it on your page! When I hit 1,000 insta followers we will have another giveaway – maybe for a gift box? Or maybe a bigger gift card? We’ll see.

I think next week will be a small giveaway on my Insta for a $20 giftcard to go with my haul blog! So start following my insta or facebook page for more updates on that! The giveaway will be to share my like & share my facebook page for NEXT WEEK’S haul. Every share is an automatic entry and will be selected randomly the following week.

Subscribe for updates! Check out my last post about your summer reading list, my top 10 plus size stores, or my thoughts about loving your body! Comment for topics you would like to see me cover! Like to help my self esteem! What do you think so far? More fashion? More lifestyle? Do you like the mix?

Question of the Day: How do you deal with stressful weeks? I’m all about coffee, RedBull, photo shoots in pretty dresses, and Caesar salad. Do you drink tea? Meditate? Take extra long showers? Tell me how you de-stress!

Next week is going to be a haul blog and I AM PUMPED. Mainly because I love seeing other people do haul blogs. So this is the first time I get to do one…and I am like counting down to next Thursday to be able to post it. It is not very often that I can afford to do this. But I saved and bargain hunted and swapped. And sold stuff to be able to do a haul. It’s gonna be SWEEEEEET.

Author’s Note: I read ALL of your comments and messages! They mean the whole world to me. I had someone privately tell me that it hurt their feelings that I didn’t engage with their comment. Your comments are changing my life. They effect how my mood goes! I cherish hearing from you all. Your thoughts, ideas, personal stories are invaluable to me and I always, always, always read them! Please continue to comment on the blog or on my insta! I adore hearing your thoughts.

Love all you wonderful ladies (and gents!) out there!

How Very,

Abby ❤

9 Comments

  1. Jamie The Human
    Reply

    De-stressing… It’s something I have to really work on. It doesn’t come naturally to me. Usually it’s just taking me time…watching a TV show I like all by myself. Or sitting outside and enjoying a drink and listening to music (frequently a musical…).

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s