Julie and Andrew are engaged!

Julie had always wanted to go up the ladder in a firetruck.  Lucky for her, she happened to be dating a fireman!  And apparently Andrew’s a genius fireman because when the time came to propose he decided that would be the perfect way to do it.  He must have been right, because she said yes!

After all the tears, celebrating, and beginning stages of wedding planning were over, emails were exchanged, meetings were had, and Julie and Andrew picked Radiant Photography to be there to share in their big day!

Of course, before that day arrived, we needed to go out and do our “practice photo session” (aka engagement session).  We call it practice because engagement sessions help us get to know the couple a little better (their style, how to make them laugh for the camera, if they like long walks on the beach, etc.).  It also gets the couple used to the idea of having the paparazzi following them around everywhere and helps them learn to ignore the cameras being shoved into their faces so they can keep enjoying the moment!

When we asked Julie and Andrew to customize their engagement session to fit them, we never expected them to pull it off the way they did! Firefighter Andrew (again… he must be a genius) got us special permissions that we have never had for a photo session before!  As you can tell by the first photo, getting to use the firetruck was a definite plus (and it gave them a chance to re-live the proposal moment)!

Here are some others we got to take around the station…

(Since we were doing all the fireman stuff, I thought it was necessary to get one cheesy picture with it.  They didn’t necessarily agree with me… but they let me have my fun anyways! Ha.  I hope this one doesn’t embarrass you guys TOO much)! 😉

The other cool thing we got to do was go gallivanting around in this abandoned church that had burned down earlier that week (and yes, it was approved as “safe” for us)!

Scottie is the kind of person that is interested in absolutely everything.  He always wants to explore and learn about everything around him.  Needless to say, a burned down building with all kinds of artifacts (and what he would call “treasures”) to discover and identify… was pretty much like heaven to him!

I had to keep reminding him that we were supposed to be taking pictures because he kept getting caught up in his own little world while he was checking out all there was to be found in this new land (“Goonies never say die” right?!).  I did happen to think that the half burned Bible and hymnal pages were pretty cool though.  They definitely could’ve been mistaken for a pirate treasure map with the edges burned like that.

Julie is the type of Radiant Photography fan that we LOVE!  She keeps up with all our Facebook posts (fan us if you want to see all our new pics and blog posts) and she knows our style well.  She’s been following along with all our engagement and wedding stories and storing them in the back of her mind while dreaming up her own (which we think is awesome)!  One of her favorite things that we do are the sunset pics in wide open fields.

So when we asked what she wanted for her session, she was so excited to finally get a chance to have those type of shots that she loves with her and Andrew in them!  And of course, we were very pleased to oblige such a hardcore fan as her (I don’t think I mention nearly enough how much we appreciate our fans)! 🙂

So here are Julie and Andrew’s sunset pictures. Go ahead, take the time to imagine you and your fiance’ (future or present!) in these…

(This is one of my favorite photos that I’ve ever taken and processed.  This one and that tree one that everyone thinks is fake… and it’s SO not!).

Julie and Andrew, we are SO glad we finally get the chance to work with people who have been our fans for so long.  We can’t say enough how much we’ve grown to love you guys already (and we haven’t even shot your wedding yet)!  You are both such amazing, fun (fun times 3 actually), caring individuals and we feel priviledge to not only meet such wonderful people in our lifetimes, but to get to work with you as well!  Getting to know people like you is the reason we do what we do.  Thanks for making our art and the work we pour our hearts into, so much more valuable to us.

Click to see the rest of Andrew and Julie’s Scottsdale, AZ engagement session.