Gina and Jake’s “Southwestern Experience” Engagement Session!

We’ve been to enough weddings with Gina there that it’s about time we got to take some pictures of HER!

Gina works at one of the venues we shoot at regularly so she’s had the opportunity to see Scottie and Breanna (that would be us!) in action plenty of times through sun, rain, wind, snow… well OK not snow… but if it did snow in AZ, she’d see us working hard in it!

Going through a wedding with someone is a bonding experience, no matter what your role in it is!  And now that we’ve been through so many with Gina, we feel like we’re old friends!

So we were very privileged when we got to meet her fiance Jake and when they asked us to be their wedding photographers!

So now Gina is not only one of our biggest cheerleaders and our friend, but she’s now an official Radiant Bride!

Of course that’s a double benefit for us since part of her job is sharing a list of preferred vendors with the brides getting married at the venue she works at.  So when she tells brides that she likes Radiant Photography enough to use us for her OWN wedding, people listen! Thanks Gina!

It was great watching Gina and Jake interact together.

He definitely knows how to make her laugh…

… and laugh….

… and laugh!

Judging by how many little phrases and sayings there are about how great laughter is… and by how many times I hear marriage advice in speeches at weddings that talk about the importance of laughing together, I’d say that this a great start to their life together!

She looks so happy when she’s with him!

I guess I should re-word that to say that they BOTH look so happy together!

Gina and Jake love water in pictures and since you can’t go wrong when you combine a peaceful lake with beautiful scenic views, we decided to head up to Canyon Lake for their engagement session.

We stopped at a little old west town (Tortilla Flats) along the way (because how could we not?!).

(Why wouldn’t there be a giant wooden Indian statue behind them?!).

When you’re an Arizona native like myself (Breanna), you tend to make a lot of jokes about Kokopellis (for all you Northerners out there, those are symbols of a Native American fertility deity… that are sold in every gift shop in town), saguaros (mostly regarding how to pronounce it), and turquoise jewelry.

(the Cardinals poster definitely detracts from the old west feel… as does the modern money on the walls and the Sharpies that were used to mark them up!)

But despite our jokes, we understand that these are the things that make our state unique and that produce stunning photos (and Clint Eastwood movies) for the rest of the world to enjoy.

(There, that one looks a little more like it was taken in an old saloon!)

So taking pride in our state, it’s nice for us to get a chance to be a part of producing some of these stunning photos to showcase our natural beauty for all to see.  So here are some of our “we love Arizona” photos:

(We tried to get some photos of that beautiful Arizona sunset but the mountains were blocking it a little too much, so this is the best we could do.  Wide open skies definitely say Arizona all by themselves anyways!)

Thanks Gina and Jake for putting some creativity into selecting your photo location and for trusting that we were up to the challenge of shooting something totally different than we’re used to!

You guys did a great job exploring with us and being flexible and we hope you’re MORE than ecstatic about the results!!

Gina, we can’t wait to see you at a wedding wearing a wedding dress, rather than your work clothes for once! 😉

Click to see the rest of Gina and Jake’s Southwestern experience engagement session!