World Tour: Amsterdam

The next stop on our world tour was Amsterdam!  While we were planning for our trip we went back and forth trying to decide between Amsterdam and Italy.  We knew we had  to nix one location because we were already feeling like we’d gone a little too overboard with our tour, lol!  We ultimately decided on Italy because of the opportunity to shoot in my dream location Burano, Italy – a color lover’s dream!  After we announced our launch we received so many inquiries from our Amsterdam crew that we knew we needed to make a stop there.  We decided to cut our London trip short and make a short detour to Amsterdam.  We are SO glad we decided to visit.  Who knew there were so many adorable natural haired kids in Amsterdam?!

As I mentioned, we love color so while location scouting we found a really cool town about 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam called Zandaam.  We knew that this would be the colorful backdrop we needed for our shoot.  To top it off, the main building was our hotel surrounded by several shops and restaurants.  Win!  It kinda reminds me of a mini Dutch style lego land.

Since we were only going to be there for a few days we decided not to rent a car and just use trains/Uber along the way.  Unfortunately we apparently chose the wrong day to use the train system. We ended up spending about 2 hours at the train station after about 4 train delays due to maintenance issues.  We finally gave up and decided to Uber to our hotel. To our surprise, once our driver finds out we’re from the US he starts blasting 2Chainz in the car, lol!  We asked if he usually listens to American music and he says “of course – have you heard Dutch music before?)  Who knew a little trap music was all we needed to get us out of our funk, LOL.

We then decided to explore the main areas of Amsterdam.  If there’s one thing you should know about Amsterdam – people love bikes!  There were bicycles everywhereeeee there! Streets were narrow and parking spaces were almost non-existent so I guess biking around the downtown area is much less headache for the locals.  We loved the cobblestone streets and vintage feel of the city.

We didn’t have a lot of time in Amsterdam to really explore a lot of restaurants but we did get to experience a few local treats that I will never forget.  I will say that the people we met in Amsterdam were SO kind and welcoming to us.  They surprised us with local gifts which really made our day.  Reg received a gift of some authentic handmade cheese on one of our shoots, and I received a treat that i fell in LOVE with – Stroop Wafels!  OMG, best gift ever.. We tried to spread them out as long as possible during our trip, lol!  We found some here in the US but unfortunately it just didn’t compare.  🙁

Breakfast in the hotel was pretty cool, nothing drastically different than the usual continental breakfast – just a wee bit fancier. 😉

While we didn’t get to do a lot of shopping in Amsterdam we did get a chance to make a quick run into a few stores while there.  For some reason we ended up in H&M in just about every major city during our trip to pick up items here and there.  To our surprise, we looked up on the wall and saw two of our previous clients in the NY area on a large poster in the children’s section.  So, so cool to see our kiddos halfway around the world!  (Shout out to Jaylin & Misty!) We were also excited to see a Scotch R’Belle store up close and personal.  We absolutely love their eclectic styles, so it was cool to be able to walk into an actual store.

For our first day of shooting, we wanted to incorporate the feel of Amsterdam with it’s trendy/hipster style.  We had a blast exploring the city with our gorgeous model Faye.

The next day was our largest shoot yet back in the Zaandam area.  I’m not sure Zaandam has seen that many curly kids in one area but we had a blast taking over the city.

Check out some of the photos we captured of these adorable kiddos below.  We now know that Amsterdam will always have to be on our checklist when traveling through Europe. 🙂

Photography: CreativeSoul Photography
H/M: Dionne Smith
Clothing: Busy and the Boy, Someday Soon, Cierra Lynn Collection
Models: Tiger, Ilana, Jalaeyah, Ilyza, Zora, Oshea, Grace, Ashley, Romeo, Faye