A Pensacola Engagement Session

I have known Katy for a while. We have many, many personal friends and acquaintances in common, plus I have known her mom for years and her grandparents for my entire life! She and my brother-in-law share an aunt and uncle. On top of all that, Katy has assisted me on weddings in the past! We share two alma maters, McGill-Toolen Catholic and Spring Hill College, and got along instantly from the first time we met. She is truly a kindred spirit!

A few years ago, while on a drive back to Mobile from a wedding, Katy was telling me all about her boyfriend Mikey. I could tell from that conversation that Katy had found the one! On top of that, Mikey sounded like a super nice guy. I felt like I knew him just listening to Katy talk about him. Katy and Mikey moved to Florida a while back and I remember Katy’s mom telling me that she thought a proposal was in the near future. I was soooo excited for Katy and hoped that I’d get to work with her as her wedding photographer. I just knew we would have the best time working together!

Fast forward to last fall, and Katy reached out saying they had officially chosen a date for December 2022! I was nearly at capacity for 2022 weddings when she reached out, so I was super excited to have the date she wanted available. There is something truly unique about photographing a wedding for someone who has worked for you in the past! They truly have an inside view of what the wedding day is like from a perspective most brides don’t have. It’s truly special to get to work with Katy now as a bride-to-be!

Two Amazing Locations

I very rarely travel outside of the Mobile Bay area for engagement sessions, but when Katy asked me if I would consider driving over to Pensacola for her and Mikey’s engagement session, I decided it was the perfect timing for an away day to celebrate my birthday a bit early. March is a crazy busy month, but it’s also my birthday month. So I spent the afternoon in Pensacola enjoying some down time with my parents before meeting up with Katy and Mikey for an early evening shoot.

Originally, we planned to shoot in downtown Pensacola, but at the last minute Katy asked what I thought about starting the shoot at DUH for Garden and Home, which wasn’t far from our original starting location. I am not super familiar with Pensacola, but ironically this was the one location I’d done a photoshoot at before! Katy and Mikey love plants and gardening, so this was the perfect location for them! Katy called in advance to make sure we had permission to shoot on site. Since we were shooting after hours this meant we had the whole place to ourselves. Y’all it was a dream!

After spending the first half of the session at DUH, we headed for a special beach in Pensacola that Katy and Mikey frequently visit. Mikey’s parents live just a few minutes from this beach and met us there with Katy and Mikey’s pup so he could be in a few photos too. We made it to the beach at the perfect time of day! We had a gorgeous Golden Hour followed by an amazing Blue Hour! Blue Hour is the short window of time after the sun sets, but is still illuminating the sky a bit. It’s mostly something that can be captured at the beach. When I find this type of light I get REALLY excited! I was thrilled that Katy shared my enthusiasm!