It’s been a crazy busy weekend here again – an engagement session, a wedding, a jewelry shoot and a bridal fair, all in the space of three days! The bridal fair was just for fun, though, and it’s been an enjoyable if frenzied few days, so I’m not complaining!

I started off on Friday afternoon at Carkeek Park in North Seattle for Nicole and Chris’ engagement session. I was so pleased that the two locations they had chosen for their session are very special to them – it’s something I always recommend to couples; if you choose places that have had an impact on your relationship, it brings a lot more emotion to the photos. Carkeek was where they spent one of their first ever dates, and it’s also a place where they’ve spent time reflecting on their relationship, on a little bench overlooking Puget Sound.

Carkeek is such a great location for an engagement session anyway, even when it’s cloudy and dull out. There’s the park itself, the gorgeous beach, lots of beautiful driftwood, pebbles, waves, tall grasses, beautiful trees, railway tracks and even trains! We spent most of the Carkeek session on the beach. The natural backgrounds seemed to gel beautifully with Chris and Nicole’s natural good looks and happy personalities, and they had very little prompting and posing from me. I love the photos of them on the huge fallen tree trunk, and the little series of hugging and kissing photos in front of the tall grasses.

After an hour or so, the rain came and we decided to move on to location two: Pike Place Market and Post Alley. I had some fun with silhouettes, and I tried to make them dance for me (poor Chris was not too impressed!) Then, we stopped by the spot where Chris first told Nicole “I love you” and it was sweet watching them from afar, remembering this day. One of my favorite photos was taken here – the one of them in the window, with a single light in the top left corner. The last few photos were more lighthearted, and we ended the day on a fun note outside The Pink Door, with lots of hand-holding, kissing, fun angles and pretty shoes. Thanks Nicole and Chris for a great session and see you May for your wedding!