Emily + Ryan // Marin Engagement

"Redwoods are our favorite backdrop" was the direction Emily and Ryan had given me for their engagement session, and the best part of planning this one was learning that I live only thirty minutes from a Redwood preserve. I was completely unfamiliar with this location and really hoped it would be everything I had imagined, and the moment I stepped foot into the forest, I knew we had found 'The Location'.

While this was the first time I was meeting Emily and Ryan, we jumped into this session with a mutual ease and playfulness and really just had a blast exploring the nature around us, together. They naturally held hands and laughed and flirted, while I continued to be my awkward, third wheel self by documenting their cuteness from afar (and also really up close).

I was so smiley after this session, and ultimately thankful that somewhere in the abyss of wedding photographers, these guys found-then-chose me (and my awful jokes).

Stephanie + TJ // Sausalito Engagement

Without even doing it intentionally, I am kind of always location scouting for future photography sessions. I'm sure it's a common, unspoken habit among wedding photographers, and I've come to think of it as sort of an art when pairing new clients with locations that I think will best speak to them, and who they are as a couple.

With all of that being said, I have been HOARDING this location in my mind for a long time now, and I have been waiting for the perfect couple to use it. As soon as Stephanie and TJ said they preferred that I take the creative reigns with this engagement session, I knew I had their full trust, and this really gave me the permission to shoot exactly how I wanted to, and at the location I had been daydreaming about for months and months. Beyond their total trust-fall into my vision for this, I also really loved and appreciated how they wanted to look and feel like themselves in these photos, and opted to wear what they normally would on any given day. This added a layer of casualness to this session that worked so incredibly well for our urban setting (and made it that much easier to scale a few walls/rocks when the situation called for it). :)

This was one of my favorite engagement sessions to date, and I have these two brave humans to thank for it. Both showed up with a total willingness to support my ideas, and it made for such a flawless working relationship-turned-instant-friendship by the time we wrapped this session. Cheers to these two on their engagement, let the BIG DAY countdown begin!

Liz & Schuyler // Marin Engagement Session

It's not every day you get clients who willing to brave their fear of heights and climb a borrowed ladder (from the fishermen down below) for your "vision"...that's why you make your friends do it instead. Meet Liz and Schuyler- dear friends of mine who volunteered to be my gorgeous bridge trolls for the first half of this engagement session, and made my "under a random bridge" vision come true. Being a new-ish Marin county resident, I am constantly on the lookout for potential engagement session locations, and I often times drive aimlessly to scout for these perfect, coveted spots. The bridge location was perfect for engagement session victims Liz and Schuyler, but also totally precarious, not 100%  foolproof, and required a ladder resource, and me climbing on top of my car, and posting up there for a solid 25 minutes while we both nervously+confidently completed the first segment of this session. There may or may not have been bird-poop galore up there, but these two were total champs and braved the less than ideal conditions (and subsequent vertigo), and my "under a bridge" engagement session dreams were completely realized. We ended our session at another location I have never used before, and I had hoped it would yield the highly sought-after "golden hour" we were racing to achieve. When you have friends for clients, you can really just say, "Go frolic in that field!" or sing, Puddle Of Mudd's "With Arms Wide Open" during their session, and they know exactly how to be themselves, in front of you. Completely and wholeheartedly honored to capture these two being blissfully in love, and beyond excited to do it all again on the Big Day, 2019!