Engagement Photos

Billy and I had our engagement photos taken way back in May, the day after I returned from my bachelorette trip (I'll blog about that experience soon!). I was super nervous leading up to the day because at a week out, this was the weather forecast:


Eeek! Nooooooooo!

See, our photographer, Jen, was traveling all the way from Grand Rapids to do our engagement photos for us in Ypsilanti. At the time Billy was working in retail, which meant that trying to get an entire weekend off so we could make the trip back to Grand Rapids was nearly impossible. A Sunday afternoon, however, we could manage. So I was hoping that this day would work out, since Jen's schedule for engagement photos during the summer was quickly being filled.

Everything worked out however. (Insert big sigh of relief here!)

It was a fabulous sunny day. We wandered around Depot Town and Frog Island Park and got some fabulous photos.

I have to say, one thing I cannot wait to do after the wedding is over is write up a full vendor review about Jen. Not only is she incredibly talented (as the forthcoming pictures will make obvious), but she is always so bubbly and happy and is clearly very passionate about her work. She's a completely unobtrusive photographer; when we met up she told us to "do our thing" and she'd take the pictures. True to her word, there wasn't a lot of formal posing done. Occasionally she'd make a suggestion, or stop us in a nice stand of trees to do the "traditional" engagement photo for our parents/newspapers, but nothing demanding. Billy had been sure he was going to hate doing this, but he found that he actually had fun!

Of course, since we had so much fun, Jen has now created a monster. Not only did I leap at the chance to get boudoir pictures done by her, but I'm plotting how I can convince Billy in the future that we need to make periodic trips back to Grand Rapids to have more pictures taken. I'm a total prima donna sometimes :-D

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

I want to put these two in a folding frame side by side. We're both just so cute!


Ha, this photo confused both sets of parents. Luckily, Jen and I share a love of shoes, so I thought this one was great (and is, I hope, a foreshadowing of the lovely shoe shots I'll get at the wedding!)


There was a vintage car show going on at the park! The owner of this car even let us hop inside for a few pictures, but I think this is my favorite of the bunch. I'm going to give a copy to my grandfather who loves cars (when I got my senior pictures done in high school, we took a picture of me with my car and gave that one to my grandfather, too. It's a theme!)


This, however, is probably my favorite photo of the day. I absolutely LOVE it.

I know some people hesitate before getting engagement photos taken, but if it's in your budget (or included in your wedding package like it was for us!), I definitely recommend having them done. Not only do they capture a unique moment in time, but they give you a chance to get to know your photographer before the big day!