The Engagement Photo Saga

Word of warning: Photo bomb ahead!!!

Because we booked with our photographers so early they threw in a free engagement session. W00t! I was super stoked about this. Mostly because about 90% of our photos look a little something like this:

[Personal Pic: Miami 2006]

[Personal Pic: Apple Picking... Every year]

[Personal Pic: New Year's 2011]

Don't get me wrong, I love that I can look back on photos of us and laugh, but I wanted at least a few photos where I could look back and say, "Awww" instead of "ROFLCOPTERS". <-- Yes, it's a real word. I don't care what spellcheck says.

YouTube

Now the major problem with scheduling our engagement sesh was location. The dude and I live three hours away from our photographers. Mr. C has lived in Westchester his entire life and I made the move here seven years ago. It's where we met, where we fell in love and where we've made a little life for ourselves. As sappy as that sounds it's the truth. And even though my upstate hometown will always be special to me, we don't really have anything tying us there. Our memories are here in Westchester.  

That being said, I realllllly wanted to have our engagement photos taken on our college campus. It's where we first met and where we pretty much spent the first three years of our relationship. It's a small, but beautiful campus and I thought it would be the perfect location for us. Plus, since the engagement session was already free I was totally willing to shell out a little extra in travel expenses for our photographers to make the trip down.  

But for some unknown reason Mr. Coyote thought this was the worst idea in the world. 

Seriously. He hated it. He thought it was dumb and stupid and he was all, "I hated college. I hated that school. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah." (Honestly, I just stopped listening to him at that point. I have no idea what he said, but it really sounded like, "Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.")  

I was crushed. He hated the college? But if it wasn't for that college we never would have met!! I tried bringing it up a few more times, but every time the answer was a very firm "NO".

Eventually I decided that it just wasn't worth arguing over anymore and I dropped the subject. We started discussing locations upstate, but because we’re so unfamiliar with the area we ultimately decided to have the photos taken at my parents' house. At first I was completely bummed out and really not excited about getting our photos taken. I mean, after viewing tons of engagement photos where couples chose these meaningful locations for photos (like the place they first met, or where they got engaged, etc.), it was hard to NOT be disappointed. And while I still think it's a really sweet and sentimental idea to have photos taken at a meaningful location, I began to realize that I was seriously overanalyzing and looking way too much into this. I mean, they're just portraits for cryin' out loud!

I  knew I had to let this one go. And I'm happy to report that I finally warmed up to the idea and got excited all over again. After all, my parents have a freakin' gorgeous property (as you'll soon see!) and I began to take in all of the potential it had.

We scheduled a date with our photographers of Upstate Photographers and headed upstate to my parents' house on a lovely weekend in June.

Well maybe not so lovely. Because it rained the whole weekend. And we had to cancel. DAMMIT!

No worries though… We rescheduled a few weeks later (which meant ANOTHER trip upstate), but thankfully this time the weather was beautiful.

And after all that worrying... So are the photos.

*All photos below credited to Upstate Photographers.

I love that we have a mix of gorgeous photos that we can actually show off in the future as well as some goofy ones that express our personality.


Where did you get your engagement photos taken? Was location as important to you as it was it me?