Anna and Darian | A Jefferson Memorial Engagement Session

Ok… full disclosure: I had the hardest time coming up with the words for this blog post! I also totally edited & blogged this session through teary eyes. Anna and Darian are two of my sweet friends from college, and y’all…. THEY’RE GETTING MARRIED! (And I am obviously WAY too emotional about it all!) If you’ve spent any time around here, you may be familiar with my fellow photog friend, Savannah of Savannah Smith Photography! I met Anna & Savannah around the same time and we all became pretty close, so it was only natural that we decided to join forces to photograph A&D’s wedding!

If you need to know anything about Anna & Darian, it is that they are HUGE Penn State fans. I don’t think they have missed a single Penn State football game since… about 2012 (Maybe even earlier than that!!), and when they were students, you could bet that they would be front row at every single home game. I met Anna my freshman year of college where we volunteered together for the same student run philanthropy (You may have heard me talk about THON!!). I got to know Darian a few years later through Anna a few years later, when I was working on a story for my photojournalism major. I documented his football season experience, with Anna by his side. These two are simply the best and I could go on and on about how much I love the two of them (and their two pups), but I’ll keep it short today!

We got together early, early early, last Monday at the Jefferson. Savannah had woken up at 3AM to meet us, I was up around 4:30 and we all kept our fingers and toes crossed for dry skies (And maybe a little early morning glow, if we were lucky!). It had been raining in the DMV for about about a week at this point, and we were REALLY hoping that we would get a beautiful morning. Luckily, we did!! The sun came out, the air was warm, and the memorial was basically deserted. PRAISE! Every time I get to host a session at a monument or memorial, I have so much fun and literally feel like I am living in a dream…. but this time felt even more surreal because I was photographing two of my sweetest friends here in DC! We laughed and twirled and had the best time, but I think my favorite part of their session was seeing Anna & Darion dote on each other a bit more than usual. The girls headed to brunch at The Commissary afterwards for a wedding planning sync up, and Darian headed to work (What a champ!!).

This is actually just part one of their engagement session portraiture! Savannah, Anna, Darian & I are getting together in July to capture some sweet engagement photos where their relationship began: Penn State! You can bet we’ll be stopping for a pitcher or two at Cafe beforehand!

Click here to hop on over to Savannah’s blog post for more gorgeousness from our morning together!

OK… now for some serious gorgeousness from their Jefferson Memorial engagement session!!