AMILEE & JEFFREY

Engaged  |  Lockwood Gorge & Round Valley, NJ

When Jeff called me in June, I will be honest in saying I wasn’t expecting him to tell me that he was getting married in September. Like, this September, which was in two and a half months. I know there are miracle working couples who can pull off short engagements, but I didn’t know you could do it THAT short. But they ARE a miracle-working couple, in so many ways, and I was thrilled to spend the evening (four days later) wading in water, getting sprayed with champagne and laughing like crazy!

We started the session near Amilee’s hometown at the Ken Lockwood Gorge in Clinton, NJ. The water was sparkling and the sunlight shined through the tall Oak trees. We walked along the trail, finding different niches to shoot and playing with the effects of water. While I stayed on land, these two ventured out climbing over rocks and tree trunks in the middle of the river and hung out on a boulder while the water rushed around them. By dragging the shutter, we were able to get some awesome motion blur of the moving river! We quickly moved to our second location, Round Valley Park, where the sun was just peaking around the trees, allowing us to get some amazing flare and warm sunset photos.

One hands down highlight of the session was cracking open a bottle of champagne for Jeff and Amilee to share. We all wanted to get a celebratory photo with the champagne spraying across the image. Of course, we always imagine this magical moment with the cork popping off in a non-life threatening way, the champagne bubbling artistically out of the bottle and everyone having joyful, candid expressions of the faces. Well, we may not have had all of these aspects come perfectly together, but we still got some hilarious bottle-popping photos as the cork unexpectedly shot off before Jeff released it, and half the champagne sprayed all over Amilee before we got anything under control (including our laughter). Enjoy!