Alan may win the prize for Groom of the Year.  While the guys sometimes are assigned a couple tasks to help with the wedding planning, Alan planned EVERYTHING himself, while his bride-to-be was out of state in medical school.  Talk about a lot of pressure!  Due to Suma’s schedule, we weren’t able to meet her and shoot their engagement session until just a few days before their wedding.  So I can therefore share with you that Alan did a terrific job with the wedding planning – and the reception was amazing, but I’ll save that for another post.

We photographed their session throughout Ann Arbor on the U of M campus.  The law quad is always popular for photography (every time we go we see at least 2-3 other photographers there), but what I  like about shooting in Ann Arbor is there’s never a shortage of cool places to shoot, and I like to try to seek out something a bit different each time. So after hitting the quad, we just kind of wandered – luckily the weather was perfect for strolling the campus.

When we met, Alan shared with us that he was starting a photography business and we got to talk gear and geek out a bit.  He just recently posted his first weddings on his blog and they are beautiful!  Alan is relocating to the Atlanta area this summer, and any Atlanta brides would be wise to look him up.  We felt like we really got to know Alan, and are sad to see him go, but we wish him and Suma the best of luck with their new life in Georgia.

Meet Alex & Alex, or Alex² as we like to call them.  They met while working at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, where Alex-the-groom is the Harbor Master and Alex-the-bride was a life guard.  A little too often Alex’s binoculars strayed over to the pool area, and the rest is history.    Naturally, we had to shoot their engagement session there.

We had so much fun with this entire series!  Couples – if you have a unique idea or theme you’d like to try out for your e-session, please let us know! 

Thanks Alex & Alex for a great session!  We had fun and we are looking forward to your wedding!

Oh! I just thought of another similarity – both had photo shoots at Comerica Park.  (Our other Kami went there on her wedding day!)  Does anyone else think these two girls need to get together and hang out? I know I’m getting off on a tangent, but it continues to amaze me how many of our current clients keep telling us that they recognized someone else on the blog – an acquaintance from high school or a former co-worker, etc.  It’s happened at least 5 times this year so far, isn’t that nuts?

After meeting at Comerica Park, we did a little exploring in the vicinity and found this:

I LOVE this photo.  :)

From the heart of downtown, we jumped back in the car and ended our session in Eastern Market.  Eastern Market is full of all kinds of gritty textures, industrial decay and well, terrible smells (gotta be honest!) but it makes a great photographic backdrop.  This particular alley that I dragged them in was especially gross – and I have to thank them for trusting us and going with it.  I mean when else are you going to be able to hang out in a grungy alley in a cute little red dress?  :)

Kami & Jeremy are getting married in September and we can’t wait! Thanks to both of you for a very fun session.  :)

I’ve been so remiss in my blogging again.  We are finding ourselves much busier than last year, which is a good thing, but it makes it hard to blog regularly.  I have so many fantastic weddings I am itching to post, but I still have a few e-sessions to get caught up on!  So without further ado, here are a couple of our favorites from Kathleen & Eric’s engagement session in Grosse Pointe.

Kathleen & Eric decided to do their session in Grosse Pointe, which was super convenient for us since live there.  We grabbed a quick coffee in The Village and then checked out a few GP landmarks.

Kathleen has been so fun to work with and is such a carefree, outgoing,  free spirit.  And while Eric shared that taking photos is not his favorite thing – which is true for a lot of people, myself included – he was a great sport about everything.

Kathleen & Eric were married this June and we are just finishing up their wedding images right now.  Their wedding was a lovely, laid back event, with gorgeous details and flowers, and ended with a very fun surprise!  Anna from Two Foot Creative was their event planner and she did a great job.  I’ll say it again brides – you owe it to yourselves to have a coordinator for your event.  It makes such a huge difference!

We were thrilled when Jee-Young and David asked if we could start their session at their house so we could photograph their dogs.  Nothing breaks the ice better than getting to play with pets.  Their pups were super cute too, and made me want a beagle even more.  (My neighbors have a beagle and I want to steal it!)

Take a look at this handsome couple:

They were a little wary of us at first, but a few milkbones later and they were putty in our hands.   Andy has perfected this kooky noise that commands the attention of the four-legged.  It tends to come in handy for stuff like this. 

From Jee-Young and David’s home, we went out to downtown Rochester for the rest of their session.  They looked pretty stylin’.

At first we were not seeing much that we liked in the way of backgrounds, but the more walked, the more interesting stuff we found.  I think Rochester just got put on our list of favorite places for e-sessions.

I was so excited when I spotted this old fashioned delivery truck.  It was the perfect vintage-y green color.  I had to get them to pose in front of it. 

Do we not get the best looking couples?  Jee-Young, you are so beautiful!  I’m so excited to see all our brides this year in their gowns.  They are all knock-outs! 

We spent the afternoon wandering around the U of M campus with them, where they both went to school.

Life imitates art. 

We wandered over to the UMMA which had this awesome wall that we became mildly obsessed with.  I think this is my favorite image from the day, though it’s hard to pick a favorite. 

U of M is so beautiful, I always kick myself for not going there.  I wanted to take a year off after high school and figure out what I wanted to do as a grown-up.  To get my parents and guidance counselor off my back, I applied to one school, and won a full academic scholarship w/o trying.  (I still don’t get that one, I didn’t even have to write an essay!)  So I ended up at WSU, which well….was pretty ugly back when I went there.  I never did figure out what I wanted to do as a grown-up….ended up with more college credit than a grad student and no degree.  That’s what happens when you change your major every year and attend school year round with no breaks.  You burn out and end up being 2 credits away from a minor in 5 different unrelated disciplines.  Let that be a warning to you! 

We ended up on the north side (I believe!) of campus where there is this cool landscape feature I’m going to call the Sine Wave Formation.  I have no idea if that is its real name or not.  Basically it’s a bunch of hills who’s bumps correspond to the sine wave.  Seeing as how one of my brief majors was mathematics and I did some algebra/trig student teaching at WSU, I thought this was rad.  (And I also pity the dude who has to mow that thing!)

Random West Park Trivia:  We book a disproportionate amount of math nerds and marathon/ultra long distance runners.   (And I mean math nerds in the absolute BEST sense of the word, because math nerds rule.)

Seeing as I somehow managed to get to the end of this post without stating the obvious, but isn’t Jessica SUPER CUTE?   We can’t wait until August! 

We shot three engagement sessions in one weekend, which all had the following things in common:

• Everyone had great outfits and accessories.
• Cooperative weather!  (If you live in MI you know how exciting this is!)
• The guys randomly picked up the girls w/o us asking.  (Love when that happens!)
• Our couples picked great locations that gave us lots of variety.
• Everyone mentioned they saw our pets on the blog. 

All these things made for a very fun weekend!  We started off meeting Valerie and K.C. who came in from Chicago.  We photographed their session all over downtown Royal Oak, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite places for engagement sessions.  There’s tons of cool places to explore within walking distance.

Valerie and KC did a fantastic job – they were super comfortable in front of the camera, Valerie’s got amazing eyes that melt the camera, and they are cute even when they think you aren’t looking.  They made our job super easy. 

I want to type “Love it!” under all of these…so I won’t, at risk of being redundant, but I am really  happy about these! 

We stumbled into this awesome sushi place where the staff was kind enough to let us take a few pictures.

I have a thing for random alleys with good pockets of available light. 

Valerie & K.C. are getting married this September at the Detroit Athletic Club.  I just know Valerie is going to be amazing in her dress – looking forward to it! 

John & Kami are the coolest!  We had so much fun at their e-session.  We love when our clients are up for anything and just want to have fun.  We hit up a bunch of locations, met their pups, and ended up shooting well into the evening.  It was great!

On the left is the first place we stopped, The Rock on 3rd in downtown Royal Oak.  John & Kami met here, so we had to check it out!  Plus, you always know you are in for a good session when your subjects want to grab a beer first.    On the right is the Main Art Theatre.

This couple is so fun and goofy so we knew they would be a good match for our iPad idea.

AWESOME!  (You must, must, MUST check out the animated gift preview we posted earlier if you  haven’t yet.)

Sometime between hitting the bar, some back alleys, the railroad tracks, and starbucks, we found time to take a quick detour to get some photos of them with their lovable dogs.

I love how you can only see the top of John’s head in this one. 

And then there is this:

OMG those ears!  So cute!

Random parking structure = win.

Naturally we ended up at the Fire Station….why  not? 

Kami & John have a rather epic wedding planned for the first week of June with some amazing photo opportunities in the works.  (Seriously, it will make you jealous!)  We cannot wait! 

Isn’t she gorgeous?  This is one of my favorites! 

I love this sequence too.

This is around the time where Fred confessed that he learned all his cool modeling moves from America’s Next Top Model.   We can respect that! 

Stacey & Fred – thanks again, we had a great time and we are looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!  Just a few more days to go!

Radness ensued last night, as Kami and John gave us their personalized tour of Royal Oak for their engagement session. Here is just a taste of what went down, in an epic journey of theater romance, iPad masquerading, Parking Garage love, and your friendly neighborhood fire station. MORE.TO.COME.

P.S.> Have you played with the iPad yet? Pretty RAD!