INSPIRATION

We love old movies (Noah is a major film buff : ) and thought it would be fun to go the route of old Hollywood / Life magazine couple portraits for our engagement photos. Noah was skeptical, what are we going to use these for? I wasn’t really sure either, but I knew we would need images for wedding related things like a website and I knew I wanted to mark the occasion. It was Spring 2021 and we were just starting to come out of the Covid haze.

Noah was pretty adamant that he didn’t want the pics to feel too cheesy, staged, hallmark card-y and neither of us really knows how to pose for photography, so we asked Kayla (our photographer, Kayla Schmah) to capture the in between moments – the tenderness and silliness between us. We kinda just threw ourselves at her mercy and had her direct us – which actually I suggest!

PLANNING

Locations

At the time, we had actually just bought a house north of the city and thought this photoshoot would be a really fun way to mark leaving the city after living there for 10-15+ years. We brainstormed some of our favorite places and decided to focus on those locations for the shoot to add meaning and memories to the overall end product. We both are totally amazed by the huge flowering plants called Echium, that grow all over Northern California, so we knew they had to play a part. We found an alley up on Bernal Heights close to where we live and planned the shoot for mid April when we knew they would be blooming.

We also wanted to have Kayla shoot us in our favorite park in San Francisco, called John Mclaren. We would go every morning with Arlo and watch the seasons change and we were going to miss it a lot when we moved. We all caravanned over there and it was totally worth it. The image below of us from the back with Arlo is probably our favorite from the whole group ~ it just holds so much meaning for all the quality time we spent there before and during the pandemic and the respite that place was for us. Of all of the images, it’s the one we plan to get framed.

Wardrobe Styling and Props

I decided to wear a dress from DÔEN, one of my favorite brands for feminine dresses and my go-to dip dyed sweater on top from Born to Roam Vintage, the natural dyed vintage clothing line based in Sonoma. I figured these would look good in color and black & white. Noah wore his signature Nike mid-blazers and collared shirt and bonobos. Easy peasy. Noah is a voracious reader and he often reads to me, so we brought a specific book that means a lot to us. This was another shot that we felt was extra special, so I encourage couples to think of a simple prop like this to add another element of personality to the shoot.