Let me introduce you to two of the most fun and adorable people I have had the pleasure of photographing. Esmeralda & José are high school sweethearts who will finally be getting married next January. They have been patiently waiting for this for several years and they are more than ready to enter into this next stage of life. These two are incredibly thoughtful and generous people and it was a joy to finally get to meet them in person!

When Esmeralda and José reached out to me several months ago about photographing their engagement photos (and wedding) in California, I was SO incredibly excited! The West Coast is so radically different from the East Coast and it has been a longtime dream of mine to get to shoot out there one day.

I flew into L.A. on a Friday afternoon a few weeks ago and after getting my rental car, I drove straight to the beach to meet Esmeralda and José for the first part of their engagement session. Esmeralda had scouted out beaches with her family several months ago and decided that she wanted to use the Carpinteria Bluffs for their beach session. I was hoping that we would get glorious golden hour beach photos and my goodness did God provide the perfect sunlight for this session!

Esmeralda and José found me through Instagram and we connected immediately and it felt like we had already been friends for quite some time. Since I was running late to the beach thanks to getting my rental car taking WAY longer than I anticipated, we basically had to jump straight into their session and wait to chat until after the sun had set. Even without my typical small-talk to help warm them up, they were completely natural in front of the camera and I knew within minutes that their photos were going to be some of my all-time favorites.

A quick fun fact: the sun was setting so fast that I didn’t have time to take any ring shots at the beach, so I grabbed a few of the small rocks from the beach, threw them into my backpack and took them with me for the second part of their session that took place at Sequoia National Park the following day. I shared a fun little BTS (behind the scenes) video of that on my instagram story (and saved it to my BTS highlight), so if you want to see where these ring shots were really taken, go check that out.

Y’all, these were some of the VERY first images we took. See what I mean about them being pros in front of the camera?? Also can we talk about the light, and the mountains in the background?? To say I am obsessed with everything about these is a bit of an understatement.

Stay tuned for part two coming soon!

Xoxo,

Mary Kate