Engagement sessions tell me more about a couple than almost anything else. Not just how they look at each other. How they move. Whether they actually care about winning at skee-ball.
Tom and Steph are easy people to be around, the kind of people who show up as themselves and make everything feel easy. By the time we’d been in the Meadowlark greenhouse for five minutes, I already knew the day was going to be good.
The greenhouse in late winter is genuinely underrated. It’s warm and a little overgrown, soft light coming through the glass, the kind of space that slows you down without you realizing it. From there we wandered down to the water and back up through the garden. Bare branches, muted everything, nothing pulling focus. Just them against a quiet backdrop that let the two of them be the whole picture.
Then we drove to Lucky Strike in Tysons. A bowling alley arcade. Not the obvious choice for an engagement session, and completely the right one for these two.
I love when couples bring a second location that actually means something to them, because that’s where the session stops feeling like a session. We walked in and I pretty much put the camera down to let them do their thing. Skee-ball, basketball, whatever caught their eye. They weren’t thinking about angles or light or where to stand. They were just playing, and that’s exactly when the best frames happen. Not in the posed moments, but the ones where they’ve completely forgotten there’s a photographer in the room.
Tom and Steph, I had the best time with you two. Can’t wait for your wedding day.
Interested in an engagement session that actually feels like you? Reach out today.
