This past week, I had the opportunity to photograph the Weekly Family Reunion at Coram Ranch. The Weekly family was just amazing and getting to serve them meant being a part of their celebration! The family lives spread apart in the US, but once every three years they all get together for an entire week-long celebration. And, the cool part is that they have been doing this for over 40 years now! Some of those who started the tradition have passed on, but their work and love of family continues to this day as they all gathered at the ranch!

The Coram Ranch

This location was unbelievable! Even though I’ve heard of it, I’ve never been out to Coram Ranch before. It’s a private ranch that can be rented out with a few different houses and buildings along the Sacramento River. It has horses, hiking trails and an OHV area for quad riding!

The Weekly Family is spread out all across the US. Some were from here in California, but others were from as far as Florida, Texas and Washington!That's a long way for family, but this group is so “together” the distance doesn’t even seem to matter! Their whole vibe as a family was awesome. Interacting with them, I could see just how sweet and fun they were to be around!

All in all, there were almost 40 of them in total. And each and every one of them had their custom made family reunion shirts on!

The Family Reunion Photos

We started the photos with the big family group shot. Then, we broke into the individual family units. Once we were done with those, we had some extra time, so we were able to do “all the kids” and “all the cousins.” There was even one couple whose anniversary was on the same day as the Coram Ranch reunion photoshoot, so I made sure to get some of them as well!

Oh and kind of a funny story . . . When we were doing the big group photo at the beginning, I accidentally scared one of the kids and I felt so bad! I usually speak in a louder voice with a larger group and the poor guy wasn’t expecting that from me LOL. So, right as we were trying to get the photos, he burst into tears! Thankfully, I did get him to smile later on however . . . and we were definitely on speaking terms for what happened next!

More Than Just Clients…

Then, the most wonderful thing happened! As we were finishing up they all invited us to have dinner with them that night! It’s always a joy when clients get to know us and want to do things with us after a photoshoot. So, Matt and I were super excited!

And y’all, this food… We were blown away! It was soooo good! The one that we can’t stop thinking about was this pot roast dish with cheese and grits. Matt and I hadn't had grits that way before and it was delicious! We rarely get food like that around here, so it was a special treat.

We discovered that since they were out at Coram Ranch for an entire week, all the family rotated cooking duties, so no one family unit got stuck cooking breakfast all week. They had plans to go out to Turtle Bay Exploration Park and we reassured them that it’s amazing and they picked a great spot to explore!

Thank you Shawn and the entire Weekly Family! We were truly honored to have been there celebrating with you!! And Thank you so much for the dinner invite, you guys were amazing! :)

- Love, Jen & Matt