Wedding Blog

Where have I been? Well, things have just been crazy, and I have lots of posts to catch up on. I’m two weeks away from finishing my last semester of my graduate program! However, the first thing I absolutely have to share with you are the engagement pictures! I last left off telling you about the wonderful makeup advice from Lo.

After getting ready, we jumped in the car and headed up to LA to meet our photographer, Mike Larson, and his wife Rachel (Remember when I talked about them way back when?). Mike and his team had just gotten back from Costa Rica a few days before and spent the whole weekend shooting a wedding in LA, but were willing to spend the afternoon with us shooting our pictures. Mike was taking pictures, assisted by Chloe, who is one of the associate photographers. We originally were going to start shooting at the Getty Museum, but the place was packed, so we started heading towards the coast.

Mr. Ducky and I met at Pepperdine during our undergrad years, so it made sense that we’d return to our beautiful campus for some engagement pictures. We have so many memories from this place and we felt like having pictures taken there would give them extra meaning.

We started off in a little patch of wildflowers that overlooks the campus. Mike warned us that we would feel super awkward for the first five minutes, but then it would be okay. Well, he was definitely right. We just giggled awkwardly for the first five minutes and slowly relaxed with the fabulous coaching and encouragement from Chloe.

All photo credits are to Mike Larson Photography

Who remembers that we make all major decisions via Rock, Paper, Scissors? I’m not sure that it’s the best way to do it, but hey, it works.

And here is some evidence of awkward giggles as we thought, ’Are we looking as funny as we feel?’

After our warm-up we headed over to Alumni Field that sits right on PCH and is the first part of Pepperdine’s campus you see from the road. It overlooks the ocean and is where lots of the major events and graduations happen during the year.

Blowing little dandelions makes white things stick to all your hair and clothing… but isn’t it amazing the detail a camera can capture?

Revenge of the dandelion!

We headed up to Hero’s Garden, which is at the very top of Pepperdine’s campus and has a gorgeous view. The garden was built to honor a Pepperdine alumnus who died on one of the 9/11 flights. It is just serene, and was a place we often went when we were first dating to just relax, talk, and take in the beautiful scenery. It’s actually where we first said I love you.

Awesome…

With Mike’s encouragement, we jumped into the fountain to get some more shots. I love the reflection you can see. It was kind of cold though, and I luckily had a dress to change into. Mr. Ducky sacrificed his jeans for the creative cause.

Water fight! If you are going to get in the fountain, you might as well splash. Actually, we really didn’t get each other that wet. Mike directed us to splash in front of or behind one another to get the picture so that we could avoid getting soaked.

We took a few more pictures on campus before leaving for our next spot.

Well that is it for Part I at Pepperdine. Next we headed to the beach, but I’m going to keep you in suspense for a little longer. Actually, I think I like the beach pictures even more! We had a great time with Mike, Rachel, and Chloe. They are truly wonderful people that have a passion for what they do. If you get some extra time, check out Mike’s blog and Chloe’s blog to see some of their amazing work.

Do you have any favorites? We are finalizing our Save the Date design and trying to choose which picture to use. But that is a whole different post to come soon!

What was your engagement pictures session like? Did you choose a place that had special meaning to you?