Last year Tony and I took a pretty epic 3 week vacation to Italy and Croatia. It was our first time to Europe and our first vacation alone since Atlas was born. And just in case you’re taking notes 3 weeks is a bit long in the eyes of an almost 3 year old. We’ve been back for about 8 months and I still can’t seem to go pee without him checking in to make sure I’m not sneaking out a window.

As much as we knew it would be amazing we had decided not to work on this trip… not to take a camera… just me, Tony and 2 backpacks. Shortly after that discussion Alex and Wade, whom you may remember from this gorgeous family session, wrote us to say they’d be in Venice during our first couple days in Rome. Well that changed a few things! We were now definitely going to be working and definitely bringing a camera… which I stuffed in my already small backpack.

On the morning of our first full day in Rome we found our way to the train station and headed on a quick whirl wind 20 hour trip to Venice. By the way… high speed Italian trains are amazing!!! We arrived with plenty of time to wander around and scout some barren cobblestone alley ways… and almost die of heat exhaustion! It was Venice’s hottest day on record and although we are from the desert it’s different when you want to explore and have no where to hide out.

Once we met up with this awesome family and caught up a bit, we headed out to the streets and braved the heat. I’ll be honest… they were miserable… we were miserable… but by looking at these images you would never know! They were such troopers and so much fun as always.

All I know is that we were told by so many people that had been in the past how horribly dirty Venice was and that we’d hate it but we just didn’t find it to be so. Venice was amazing and clean and I would really love to go back and create some gorgeous Venice wedding photography! I know we only had the chance to scratch the surface and i’m seriously itching for more!

Enjoy!!