I cannot believe it is mid-August already. I’m stuck between decorating my house for fall & enjoying the warm sunshine outside in a pool. It’s definitely still too hot for soup season- during the busy summers I usually make a batch of my spicy chicken salad for us to eat on throughout the week. My husband loves it! We found the recipe through a vendor at a wedding expo we attended as vendors and it’s our go to now. It works so well because I usually have sessions in the evenings while my husband works on any and all vehicle projects and it’s the perfect thing to just eat whenever. We keep super busy in the summer, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

Engagement in the Botanical Gardens

Emma & Sam are set to be married in May 2025. We were able to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather for their engagement session and I’m so hyped to share it! We went to Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to incorporate all the summer blooms and the greenhouse jungle. The blooms were so beautiful and colorful. It perfectly complimented this couple. I did hire an assistant for this session to take all the behind the scenes videos. They can be found under my Instagram BTS Highlight! You can see how I work with couples and interact with others throughout a session to get those dreamy engagement portraits!

Something unique that Emma & Sam did was to include their son in some of their engagement photos. Typically when I work with a couple, they choose to get photos of just them (which is completely okay). I really loved that they chose to incorporate their little family because it’s normal for them to be together anyway. If you already have kiddos and you’re getting married, don’t be afraid to incorporate your family in your images! I highly encourage we do a mixed family and couples shoot if that’s something important to you. I love making accommodations like these. Your kids will love to be involved and will look back and remember how you included them in such a big day. Emma and Sam brought their mom to watch over their little guy during the times he wasn’t in the photos.

We started our session with the gardens to the left of the big greenhouse building. Immediately there was this gorgeous ivy-like wall that we had to use. Matthaei Botanical Gardens had a couple fountains throughout the property as well we were able to use. One of my favorite photos from this session actually happened without prompting! In the jungle greenhouse area, their son had stopped to play with these little plastic frogs he brought with him. He was playing with them in this really large water basin and Emma and Sam squatted down to interact with him really quick. His whole face looks so happy to be playing frogs with his parents. I melted.

Another moment I fell absolutely in love with was the family toasting each other with sparkling cider. Emma had brought the cutest blanket and some sparkling cider for them to toast with. We found an open area near the bonsai tree section and set everything up. Their little guy was so excited to just be present and drink juice with mom and dad. He even clinked his sippy cup with their champagne flutes.