Becca + Andy - Adventure Engagement Dayton Ohio

These two are getting married this weekend, and we could not be happier for them!

A few weeks ago we spent a little time exploring a waterfall in the rural areas north of Dayton. It's hard to explain, but there's something magical that happens when we have a couple who trusts us 100% and is willing to get their feet dirty. None of us really knew what to expect (we'd never been to this area before), and the resulting images are some of our favorites. Not only because of the gorgeous landscape, but because Becca + Andy were outside of their comfort zone, experiencing something new together, and somehow it brought them closer to each one another. They had to rely on each other to navigate the rocky path, holding hands for balance. It was exciting and romantic and exactly the kind of thing more of us should do on a regular basis.

Emily + Dan - Downtown Engagement

Walking away from an engagement session with two new friends is one of the best feelings. Emily + Dan are the perfect example of a couple who's absolutely in love, and trusts us completely. Before we all ended up sitting down together for the most amazing Thai food, we took them downtown, and explored an area that we've shot in many times, but looking for spots that we've never photographed before. We often have couples ask us for location suggestions, and our response is usually not what they were expecting. "Let's just meet somewhere and find what we find. It's not so much about WHERE we shoot, but WHO we're shooting. We'll make you look amazing anywhere we go." Case in point:

Best of 2013 // Engagements

2013 was a huge year for us. It may sound cliché, but you could probably define our year with one word: Travel. Geographically it was our biggest year yet. We had trips to Colorado to see our friends and do some snowboarding, a trip to Las Vegas for our annual photographer convention, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and Mexico to shoot some gorgeous weddings, and an epic trip to Alaska for an engagement session. This job has literally taken us all over North America, and we've seen places that we never imagined we'd see. We're so thankful, and humbled that people would choose to send us to such beautiful places to take photos. With a new year upon us, it's always fun to look back at some of our favorite photos from the previous year. We've spent a few days going back through all of our work, hunting out our favorite images, but also remembering the love and celebration that we've witnessed, and seeing another year of incredible growth as artists. We had such a hard time narrowing down our favorites, so we've decided to do three posts to recap the year.

This is post one of three, our favorite images from engagement sessions last year. Stay tuned over the next few days for more to come.

Megan + Paul // Just For Fun.

We're pretty excited about the session (so much so that we blogged it out of order). This isn't an engagement session, per se. Let's go back probably six months… Mindy and I were sitting in Dorothy Lane Market (a fancy local grocery store with an awesome dining area and great food), minding our own business. Sort of… we noticed this couple down at the other end of the cafe. They were über stylish, they looked like they were in love, and they looked like they were saying goodbye. We watched as they embraced, and watched him leave, hop in his car, and take off. She sat there, silent, pretending to read. Maybe even crying a little bit. We joked about how we figured they were from out of town. People don't dress that well to go to the grocery here in Ohio. As we cleaned up our lunch and headed out to our car, we had a mini conversation about something our friend Andria Lindquist talked about earlier that week. She talked about her own boldness and how she will approach random people and ask them to take their photos. We said, "man, we should totally just ask them if they'll model for us…" as we started the car and began to drive away. At that point Mindy stopped me, and said, "Wait. Screw it, I'm going in there and asking. Do we have a business card?" To which I responded they way I usually do when I get that question. "Umm… not on us. But we have this napkin and a pen."

I waited in the car while Mindy gathered up the courage to walk in and talk to Megan. She told her about how we noticed them for their fashion sense, and then saw a little bit of their story unfold in front of us as they said goodbye. She asked Megan a little bit about their relationship, and if they would be interested in spending some time in front of our cameras, because we felt like they might be a good fit. Turns out they were engaged, but also graduate students working through a long distance relationship. And we were right, although Megan grew up here in Dayton, she is originally from England, and Paul is from Nashville. "That explains a lot," we thought.

Megan was actually surprisingly warm to the idea of doing photos with us, but with all of their traveling and studying, it was a crapshoot at best. Mindy thanked her, handed her the napkin (apologized for how unprofessional we are when it comes to business cards), and we went on our way. It felt good to step up and ask, even if we'd never hear from them again. We had done something new, something we had never done before.

Fast forward a number of months. At this point we had nearly forgotten about the whole thing. Obviously we would never hear from them, so we moved on. Then we got a surprise Facebook message from Megan, asking if we were still up for it. They were going to be in town visiting family, and her and Paul were interested in having their photos taken. Wow! It worked? We were able to coordinate a day that worked, we got the absolute perfect evening, and this is what happened.

Andrea + Jimmy // Dayton Engagement Photography

This will definitely go down as one of our favorite sessions ever. Everything worked out perfectly, despite some hiccups along the way (like me forgetting to charge one of my batteries and never finding the right plaid blanket). Andrea + Jimmy are obviously really really ridiculously good looking, and they brought the heat for sure.

At this point it was finally starting to get dark, and what's the best way to make hanging out in the woods even more romantic? Add some lights of course! I gotta give props to these guys for this idea, it turned out brilliant.

One of my favorite frames of all time:

Meghan + Steve // Dayton Engagement Photography

I love sessions like this. We met up at Smith Gardens in Oakwood, which is like 5 minutes from our house. We got started fairly late, so we only had just over an hour of shooting time. Sometimes we tend to lolly-gag and shoot for way too long. When we're running out of light we're forced to think quickly and we're usually more creative. It was a beautiful fall evening and Meghan + Steve were a pleasure to work with. Can't wait for their wedding next summer!