Well I’ve had the weather be a factor before on shoots but this one takes the cake! Nicole & Austin’s session was supposed to take place weeks ago but the weather gods had another plans.

You know that crazy Saturday about 3 weeks back where the wind was so bad and it hailed? Yeah, that was the day we were supposed to shoot. Funny thing is, we even tried to and it did not go well lol. Nicole and Austin pulled the sports cars to the back of their property to get a few photos with the cars but Mother Nature didn’t go for that at all. About 30 seconds in, a tree comes crashing down only 6 feet from where we were standing. No joke, it was a miracle that it missed us and the cars. We quickly ran back to the cars and got the heck out of there.

So after that craziness, we decided to chop the session into 3 different days, that way we could shoot during the week and maximize what little warm weather we had left. The following Monday, I came back out to Nicole & Austin’s property and we were able to shoot the cars and their save-the-date photo. Austin is a huge car guy and wanted some photos with his custom cars. I’m a huge lover of cars so I of course was all for it. You can blame my dad for my obsession as we he got a new car every 2-3 years as I was growing up. Classic 80’s T-top white convertible… yeah he one, (he also got it in purple several years later, lol).

A few days later we did our fall park photos at Beutter park in downtown Mishawaka. The colors on the tress were spectacular and thankfully it was still about 50 degrees. We had so much fun… couldn’t stop laughing! 🙂 I told Austin to run his hand through Nicole’s hair and we about died laughing. Austin took that has meaning, run your fingers through her hair like your hand is a comb. He kept pulling her hair out from her head, it was the silliest thing. It reminded me of when Ariel combs her hair with a fork in The Little Mermaid. He tried and tried but never quite got it. That’s okay though because it made for some really funny photos.

Lastly, we ended the session just last week in downtown South Bend. Our plan was to go to Silver Beach but with the time change, snow and all of our work schedules, it just wasn’t feasible. Nicole and Austin go to Merle Beach once a year so we wanted to bring a little beach into their session. However, the city photos turned out to be so much more dynamic than we could have imaged!

We started under a bridge (kind of in the ghetto) where we did a 2 light set up. This particular photo had to done in 2 parts. First my assistant would light Nicole, then we’d all freeze and she’d turn and light Austin. The reason myself and Nicole and Austin couldn’t move was since I had to fuze the two photos together, they would need to line up perfectly, hence the no moving part. It came out so good and totally unique from any other engagement photos you see now a days.

We walked around downtown, got some alley shots, and ended on Michigan street for a gorgeous night shot. The sky was bright blue and the street lights were beaming. Despite being cold and having to wait forever for traffic, it was the perfect end to an amazing 3-part session.

Nicole & Austin – I can’t wait for June 8th to get here! We are going to have so much and create some amazing memories together! <3 S

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Photography: Sarah Sage Photography LLC