Over the previous years, Hannah René Shaw has actually ended up being a popular teacher on and supporter for kittens nationally and worldwide. She’s referred to as the “Kitten Lady,” and her 1.2 million Instagram fans want to her for recommendations on things like what to do if you discover a roaming cat, or how to get an infant kitten to consume.
But they likewise follow her for the barrage of top quality kitten pictures included on her account, a few of them shot by Andrew Jared Marttila, who is referred to as the “Cat Photographer.” The love in the photos is palpable — after all, this is a story of how the kitten lady and the cat professional photographer fell in love.
Back in 2016, Ms. Shaw, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from George Mason University, wasn’t searching for a partner. “I was 28, and I was very much not interested in getting into a committed relationship at that moment in life,” she said.
She was getting her not-for-profit organization Orphan Kitten Club off the ground and working expertly with cat rescue companies, assisting them produce programs devoted to the most susceptible cats: orphaned neonatal kittens, referred to as “bottle babies,” because without a mom, they should count on being fed by a bottle to endure.
Someone she fulfilled through her work recommended that she follow a professional photographer on Instagram called @iamthecatphotographer, who, yes, focused on photographing cats. Ms. Shaw was captivated. “I was like, that sounds weird — how can someone be a professional cat photographer?” She ignored the tip till, thanks to their overlapping worlds, the cat professional photographer appeared on her Instagram feed anyhow.
“There was a photo on his page of him in an ugly Christmas sweater with his cat in a Santa hat, posed like a cheesy 1980s Sears family portrait,” she remembered. “It made me laugh so hard, and also I was like, wait, this guy is really cute.”
Mr. Marttila, 37, was residing in Philadelphia; Ms. Shaw, 35, remained in Washington. She sent him a message, asking if he would want to come to Washington to take pictures of a few of her foster kittens. She used him lodging in her visitor room.
“At the time I would have said it was just professional,” Ms. Shaw said.
“… But I knew what it was,” included Mr. Marttila.
On April 2, 2016, they fulfilled in Washington for supper at Busboys and Poets. Ms. Shaw figured at finest there may be a fling: She didn’t have time for much else, and had a date with another person prepared for the following weekend. “I thought, OK, this is a cool guy to know,” she said. “We’ll take some photos, maybe we’ll make out, then he’ll go home and I’ll go on my date next weekend.”
Instead, they linked over their apparent love of animals, however likewise on concerns that had absolutely nothing to do with kittens. Ms. Shaw was impressed by what she refers to as Mr. Marttila’s “serious depth.”
“It was something I understood right away and now I have seven years of evidence,” she said. “He is a self-reflective person who has done a lot of work to grow and become this stable, introspective person who is a really good partner.”
They couldn’t stop talking, so Mr. Marttila remained the weekend. He said he wanted she didn’t have actually a date prepared for the following weekend, due to the fact that he wished to welcome her to an occasion he believed she would be the best plus-one for: a red-carpet film best for Jordan Peele’s funny movie “Keanu,” about a kitten abducted by gangsters. Some live, adoptable cats would be walking the red carpet with gold chains on, and Mr. Marttila had actually been employed to shoot the scene.
Ms. Shaw questioned aloud if she ought to cancel her date so that she might go to, and decided on turning a coin in order to choose. The coin said to cancel, therefore for their 2nd date, they fulfilled Mr. Peele.
Mr. Marttila had actually discovered his method to feline photography almost unintentionally. In 2011, while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience at Temple University, he began taking pictures of his brand-new cat and publishing them on Instagram. As the variety of individuals liking his pictures increased, he broadened to photographing other family pets to supplement his earnings.
“When I graduated I said, ‘OK, I am going to try to do this for a year, and if I am broke then I will go to grad school,’” Mr. Marttila said. Instead, in 2015, he landed his very first book deal, for “Shop Cats of New York.” He fulfilled Ms. Shaw a couple of months prior to the book released by Harper Design.
The 2 rapidly discovered synergy in their love for cats and started motivating each other’s work. “When I met Andrew I was thinking I wish I could just focus on writing a book about kitten welfare, and then Andrew had a book coming out and it was so cool to see another young person really doing these things,” Ms. Shaw said. “I was looking at getting another job, but Andrew was the one who said to me, ‘Just try for three months.’”
She said having somebody think in her adequate to state “just try” moved her viewpoint. “I already had this passion for something that there was no job for, and so that made me go and create it myself.” Mr. Marttila said that Ms. Shaw renewed his enthusiasm for animals too, which her hustle influenced him to amp up his own work principles. They state they are each other’s “hype person.”
After 10 months of dating long-distance, Ms. Shaw informed Mr. Marttila that if he desired their relationship to continue, he would need to relocate to Washington. “So I rented a U-Haul on Valentine’s Day 2017 and moved in,” Mr. Marttila said.
“Andrew told me when we met that his dream was to be a stay-at-home cat dad,” Ms. Shaw said. “And I was like, I have a lot of dreams in life, so I think I can make that happen.”
After about a year and a half of cohabiting, they recognized that with both of them working from home, 3 animal cats in between them, and a room devoted to foster kittens, they had actually outgrown their space. “We were like, where do you live when you can live anywhere?” And in August 2018, they began over in San Diego.
On a journey to Thailand in February 2019, after kayaking out to an unoccupied island, Mr. Marttila proposed to Ms. Shaw. “Even from that first date, I knew that I had met someone that shared the same paradigm that I did,” Mr. Marttila said.
Both live an alcohol-free, vegan, animal-friendly way of life, so when it came time to prepare a wedding event, those worths ended up being assisting approaches for the occasion. They picked a friend’s animal sanctuary as the setting, due to the fact that it’s a location where animals get to live their finest lives. “I think it’s a significant space,” Ms. Shaw said, “because it’s about how amazing it is when you give someone the promise of sanctuary — and shouldn’t a relationship be like that?’
Ms. Shaw and Mr. Marttila were wed April 2 at Farm Animal Refuge in Campo, Calif. Their friend and veterinarian, Dr. Rachel Wallach, who was ordained for the occasion by the American Marriage Ministries, officiated, and the internationally renowned harpist Mary Lattimore played a version of the Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” throughout the processional.
Afterward, 100 visitors took pleasure in a mocktail bar and an all-vegan meal of crispy squash blooms, braised tempeh, beet chicharron and saffron cavatelli. Guests were then welcomed to take their edible veggie basket focal points of zucchini, tomatoes and kale and feed them to the farm’s animals.
As an unique surprise, Ms. Shaw provided Mr. Marttila with a basket of calico kittens — their brand-new foster family pets. As he nestled the small infants, Ms. Shaw leaned in to hug him. Mr. Marttila’s eyes welled up as he said, “This is a dream come true.”
On This Day
When April 2, 2023
Where Farm Animal Refuge, Campo, Calif.
An Unusual Ring Bearer The ring was brought down the aisle by Hugo, a pig that Mr. Marttila and Ms. Shaw rescued as an emaciated newborn from behind a taco stand in Los Angeles. Hugo looked dapper in a clerical with a black bow tie. To inspire him down the aisle, popcorn, his preferred treat, was stopped by the flower lady.
A Watermelon Toss In lieu of an arrangement toss, the couple picked to toss a watermelon together over the fence and into the pig confine. The melon landed with a crash on the ground — the trigger noise that sends out happy pigs racing for a bite of the juicy snack. There was ample snacks to walk around, as the couple had actually established a replica farm stand of veggies and fruit that visitors might provide the animals too.
Woolly Wedding Crasher In organizing the layout of the wedding, the couple arranged for one part of the space — where the human food and drinks were served — to be left inaccessible to animals. A large sheep named Joey didn’t get that memo. He managed to crash the wedding, skirting by barriers and breaking into a frolic through the off-limits zone. As the bride, groom and visitors attempted to confine the sheep, they were outmaneuvered: he took a flower plan from among the tables and happily removed.
