Renee and Brandon knew they wanted something different. So we recommended St Francisville! Despite Kirstin’s family being from St Francisville and our countless visits to it, we had never shot there before. It wasn’t until we brought up the idea of traveling almost 2 hours that we learned St Francisville held a special place in their hearts as well. Unbeknownst to us, the pair had taken a weekend get a way to the small town and had already fallen in love with it. So Kirstin made a few calls to a cousin and set us up for a fun day of sight seeing!
We started the day off at St Mary’s Episcopal Church. Built in 1857 in the Gothic Revival style, and tucked away just north of St Francisville, we quickly realized that we had stumbled across an absolute gem of a location! It’s huge open windows let the perfectly overcast day’s light pour into the chapel. Combine that with these two radiating the love vibes and voila! Absolute magic!
As an avid fan of books, we knew Renee wanted to incorporate that into their shoot. Luckily everyone knows everyone in St Francisville. And Kirstin’s cousin knew the owner of a lovely little used book store called The Conundrum. Lucky for us, the good folks of Conundrum were absolutely on board with our plan and were beyond accommodating (essentially letting us turn their quiet little shop into an impromptu photo studio!). And to top it off, they hooked us up with a couple bikes to ride around the historic downtown area of town.
After the shoot, faced with a gallery of amazing images, Renee finally confessed that she had initially been concerned they would look or feel awkward in front of the camera. In a world where amazing wedding photography can be found around every corner (and on every Pinterest board), its easy to get overwhelmed and intimidated. We often see others and think our own lives just don’t match up to the carefully curated world they must live in. But Renee and Brandon are living proof that you don’t have to be some sort of super cool model flying to far away exotic locations to have photos that capture you in a way that showcases how unique you are (and how amazing your life is!). These two absolutely rocked their engagement session. And all they had to do was be themselves, hold each other tight, and laugh at all of our lame jokes! And in the end, that’s the best gift we could ever receive as photographers.
