I always love destination engagements. It’s a chance for me to explore a new place while taking pictures of darling couples. I got the chance to fly up to Albany, New York to spend time with Meghan and Ryan. These two came into my life through our fabulous mutual friends: Spence and Ali. After a short Skype session, I knew that we were a match made in heaven as we were drawing up plans for their wedding on Lake George! We explored Olana (where Ryan popped the question) and ran around with their darling pup Molly. 

I asked Meghan to share a few words about her and Ryan’s love story:

“In a tale as old as time, Ryan and I met at work. He was the president of our employee Good Will Fund so when I started volunteering for that he was the first person I met. We worked in different units so we didn’t interact on a daily basis, but would see each other at the meetings and I was always eager to volunteer and have the chance to spend more time with him. Through our work on the Good Will Fund we had developed a flirty friendship but Ryan is incredibly outgoing, so even though I thought he was cute, I didn’t think he thought of me as more than a coworker. Which is why I was totally caught off guard when he tricked me into going on our first date. 

He invited me to happy hour with some of his coworkers and at the last minute everyone else backed out. He asked if I wanted to still go with just him and I said, sure, can’t let a guy drink by himself, right?! So we went to a local bar and had the best first-non-date of my life, talking and laughing all night. When it came time to leave, he said he had a confession to make – he never actually invited any other coworkers, it was all a rouse to get me to agree to go out! I was extremely flattered and excited that I wasn’t the only one who had a crush! We took things slow at first, because relationships at work can be tricky, but pretty soon there was no denying that this was the real thing. 

Fast forward one new job, one new apartment and countless hours talking about our future, I had a feeling Ryan was up to something. He’d been running lots of mysterious errands and being secretive about his phone. He asked if I wanted to go for a hike one weekend and when I agreed, he asked where we should go. I had a feeling he was going to propose and was a little annoyed that he didn’t have a place picked out and was asking me where to go! Little did I know, he had the whole thing planned and was trying to throw me off. We hiked to the top of our favorite spot and he got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. I of course agreed and after crying and laughing we asked someone to take our picture. It’s the same spot we came back to 8 months later to capture some engagement pictures!”