Have you ever met a couple that you just felt like you instantly knew? That’s how it was with Ashleigh and Ryan. Walking towards the Opera House, I heard my name called across the road and I was met with a warm hug from Ashleigh… we had never met before this moment! A few months back, Ashleigh had emailed me saying “Not to be creepy but I saw that you’re going to be in Sydney, we are too! We’d love some engagement photos!” I was so thrilled!

Never have I photographed two people with such an authentic love. Alex and Arielle just are so natural together that it felt more like a morning with good friends than an engagement session.  I just loved getting to spend the morning with them and hanging out with cans of spray paint in hand.

I met Jessie in college. We actually both swam for rival teams. I swam for Duke and she swam for NC State. Although we competed against each other, our teams shared a mutual hate for UNC. Over the course of our 4 years in college, it turned out that we were pretty similar with the exception of which strokes we swam! We had the same friends and would consistently find each other at He’s Not Here by the karaoke machine.

Sometimes when you meet certain people, you just click. I met Brianne though INSTAGRAM. Yes, that’s right people. I made a real human friend through social media. It can be done! We had so much in common that we weirdly just started talking on IG. We come from divorced families, like to dye our hair, love Star Wars & cats and are avid photographers of tattooed beauties. We both even did photo projects that involved the darker side of Disney in our younger years. The list goes on and on. When I was flying to Houston for an engagement session, I knew we had to meet up. We ended up snapping some portraits and going for beers after…. for 5 hours. Happy I found my twin in halfway across the country! 

When your fiancé is the cousin of your childhood best friend, you know it was meant to be. Alyssa and I grew up together in South Florida. We both went to the same middle school, were in the same Girl Scout troop and shared an (un)healthy obsession of cats at a very young age. Throughout our childhood, Alyssa was always best friends with Audrey. The two were inseparable. High school and college came and went and, soon enough, Audrey was engaged to be married. With Alyssa by her side, she said “I do” to the love of her life. Little did they know, Alyssa would meet the love of her life that very night.

This is one of my favorite sessions ever, not only because I loved the location, but I love the couple as well! I met Cale and Lori in college and actually eventually ended up working with Cale. He was in my husbands fraternity and Lori was in the “tacos”- a friend group of very close friend/roommate Steph Robinson. I always feel honored when friends ask me to capture their love story! It is an awesome thing to be asked. When they texted, “would you be opposed to shooting on a boat?” my response was “well, duh.”