Category: Engagement Sessions

So I must admit to having put my blog and website on the back burner over the past 10 months or so. The primary reason is this little guy.  We are also trying to plan to build a new house/studio as well as a host of other big projects that should make some big differences in the upcoming years.

I hope to fix the lack of blogness by coming back with a vengeance this year — I’ve been spending a good chunk of the past few weeks on redoing the website (HTML5) and I’ve got a plethora of images I want to share.  We also have had a few engagement sessions already this winter that has kept the ‘off season’ uncharacteristically busy. (that’s a good thing!)

Here is one we did with Chris and Katie at the Guthrie.  The original plan was to pop around St. Paul (they are getting married at the Science Museum — how cool, right??) — but with winter carnival happening and a blizzard pounding any outside locations we decided to hit up the Guthrie theater as backup plan.  I’m really glad everyone was flexible enough to make it happen because we got some killer photographs (and it actually stopped being horribly windy for a bit so we got a couple on the Stone Arch Bridge after sundown!).

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I first caught Becca on film (film? naw…) back in early 2009 at a charity event I was photographing.  She also happens to be the sister of my co-best man’s ladyfriend… so that’s pretty sweet.

Eric and Becca just got a new house in Bloomington, MN so we hit up a park near their new digs for a quick engagement session… they brought their dog, Jake, who is a Brittany just like my super-duper-wonderful little Kona man is.   I was quite happy with that choice;  he’s super curious and loves life just like my guy and it turned out tha….. SQUIRREL!!!….

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A little appetizer… with the main course in a few days 🙂

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Pat was actually the MoH of a wedding I did in ’09. You may remember Anna and Mark’s killer farm wedding photographs and photostation. Yeah, that’s when I first met Pat.  I remembered her from then so I was super pumped when she decided to contact me about their June wedding at the Varsity in on the U of MN’s campus next year.

Anyway, their session was pretty memorable for reasons other than the photographs (though the photos are pretty sweet too, if I do say so myself) — not only did I leave one of my cameras inside Butler square while we were at Target Plaza (yeah, I’m not very smart sometimes) but we also ran across the Weinermobile as it sped through downtown Minneapolis.  It is real, it actually exists… sadly, it’s exhaust did not make downtown smell of pork. 🙂

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Scott is the brother of Mark – of “Mark and Alyssa” fame from last year.  Scott and Kat are going a little further away and are getting married in Chicago next year; I got the call last spring and we met to finalize having me document the upcoming shindig roughly a month ago; I was super happy (though, of course, I tried to play it cool…)  — I remembered them from the previous wedding and they seemed cool; and more importantly, they seemed to know how to have a great time.  (though, apparently I don’t stand out enough at weddings because, other than the resulting photographs, they didn’t remember me being there… *tear*… hehe, actually, I take people not noticing me day-of as a sign of “job well done”.)

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to heading to the ‘Windy City’ for the big event… Appropriately, the day we scheduled their engagement session was one of the windiest days in the Twin Cities that I’ve seen in a long time – massive gusts and sustained winds of 22+mph and threatening rain. I inkled that it might be a good idea to postpone, but Scott and Kat were gung-ho, so we pulled up our bootstraps, grabbed their dog Gia, and fought the wind… and we won. (unlike when we fought the law, and the law won… 😉 )

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Erin, David and I met at Mickey’s diner in Downtown St. Paul – I’d never been before which is almost sacrilegious given I was born and raised in the Twin Cities and watched more than my share of the Mighty Ducks movies. Had a shake, chatted… it was a diner, just like you’d expect. Yep.
As we walked through downtown to Rice Park, The St. Paul Library, down along Kellogg and back to Mickey’s we ran into a lot of kids all dressed up for prom… but it clearly was not prom season. So we asked (and took a photo). Apparently another Minnesota thing I never knew about is “Finale” — basically it seems like prom, but later in the year and a bit ritzier. Huh.
Anyway, Erin and David were awesome — you can clearly tell he is her superman and he is totally head over heels for her. Good thing, given they are getting married soon… 🙂
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Nikki and Ben both live and work in downtown Minneapolis – so naturally it makes sense that they’d plan to get married downtown as well.  From that flows a downtown engagement session…  all very logical.  But then when they said we could go on the roof of a cool building in the middle of the city?  That’s a logical step I hadn’t expected…. an awesome logical step.  Nikki tells me we might get some post-wedding shots up there in her dress sometime — can’t wait!

In addition to the cool connection they had to the locations, they were also super fun to work with – I’ve gotten a lot of ‘blue steel’ faces in my day, but rarely do I truly feel the power of a full on double-Magnum.  Pow… that’ll stop more than a ninja star.

Here are a few teaser shots from their session…

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