Cuyahoga Falls, OH

The mission: a summer evening spent in a beautiful park with a waterfall, having a picnic, and taking great engagement photos.

The reality: all of the above plus sweating, melting turtles, and some gut-busting laughs.  Also, a Moscow Mule taste-testing session post photo shoot.

It was an evening full of little unexpected things.

One thing we weren’t expecting during Shelby and Jimmy’s session is that they completely skipped the awkward phase that almost always happens at the beginning of an engagement session.  It’s a little unnatural to have someone follow you around with a camera, but these two totally took it in stride.  With Jimmy working in journalism and Shelby being a musician (she just released an EP!  You can find her YouTube channel here: @shelbyolive ), they weren’t strangers to the camera.  Also, we all had the humbling experience of sweating at extreme levels for a summer evening, so any kind of dignity we previously maintained was gone.  If we weren’t before, we were all at the same level now!  The light was perfect out on the dock, so we knew shooting there would be beautiful.  But it was so toasty!

 Another moment of the pleasant unexpected was during their dock picnic.  Shelby packed the picnic basket that she got from Jimmy for her 22nd birthday (earlier this month!) and filled it with summery goodies, including but not limited to: watermelon, an entire bunch of grapes, a hybrid sandwich (one slice wheat bread and one slice potato bread which Shelby likes but mentioned other people don’t, but I like it…what is the truth on this subject? Someone tell me!), and a bag of hipster half-popped popcorn.  There was also the surprise (and much adored by me) addition of cookies with turtles made of frosting on the top.  Shelby informed the group they were too cute to pass up, even though she isn’t a big fan of frosting! 😉 

During dinner, there were many kisses, laughs, ornery looks, and laugh-kisses where one half of the couple would laugh mid-kiss…we’ll let you guess which half that was 😉

 

 

Truly, Shelby and Jimmy were all smiles, even when the icing on the turtles melted.  We also had an unexpected rogue cork in the sparkling wine we brought! Jimmy popped the bottle, and then we heard it crash through some trees nearby, swish down the leaves, and plop merrily into the lake.  Needless to say, the wine was super bubbly and delicious 😉

Shelby and Jimmy also sported their friendship bracelets that they made for each other a week before they started dating back in ‘09.  They were at Shelby’s house and found a bunch of alphabet beads.  In the words of Shelby: “We ended up making friendship bracelets out of a shoelace string and whatever alphabet beads I could scrounge together. They say, “JIMMYBFE” and “SHELBYBFE” because we didn’t have enough “F’s.” We decided BFE would be our new thing– best friends for eternity. LONG STORY SHORT– to this day we wear our friendship bracelets on every anniversary and plan on wearing them in our wedding too.”

How cute is that?!  We were so excited to incorporate them into their engagement session!  Shelby and Jimmy wowed us with their understanding love for one another and their sense of humor. 

After their engagement session, we went to a restaurant nearby to taste test some drinks for their signature cocktail next July.  We each sampled a spinoff of the traditional Moscow Mule and can’t wait to sip it with them next July!

Film Processing: Photovision Prints