A Dauphin Island Engagement Session

From the first photo of this engagement session, I knew I was going to have a hard time narrowing down favorites for this blog post! Cat and Daniel are just the sweetest couple and, best of all, I know both their families! In fact, I was at a Parish Council meeting a few months back when a fellow council member, Danny, asked me about availability for his son’s rehearsal dinner. I typically only photograph rehearsal dinners for weddings I’m also photographing and when I told him this, he said, “you wouldn’t happen to be doing the wedding on April 1st, would you?” To which I responded, “I do have a wedding that date. Who is your son marrying?”

My jaw almost hit the floor when I found out his son was marrying Cat, who I’ve known since I photographed her sister’s wedding last year. I was so excited to be able to say that, yes, I would be available to photograph the rehearsal dinner if they wanted to add that coverage AND that I would get to work with two families I know. This whole situation is so Mobile…once again I was reminded of what a big small town we really are!

Cat and Daniel have an amazing love story! While they both went to McGill-Toolen, they weren’t in the same class and didn’t really know one another. They ended up meeting at a wedding and have been together ever since! I love that they have planned their own wedding reception to take place at the same venue where they met. I always love working with the same families over multiple weddings, and Spring 2023 is going to be the season of sister weddings, which is so much fun for me!

An Autumnal Surprise

When we were brainstorming location ideas for Cat and Daniel’s engagement session, I suggested Dauphin Island. Even though they had already had portraits taken on the island right after Daniel proposed, I felt like it would be totally worth it to return for their official engagement portraits. We were blessed with the most gorgeous weather, although Daniel and I did agree we wished it was about 10 degrees cooler than it was.

Our original plan for this session was to go to Cadillac Park and the East End beach. But, a few minutes into the session, I started thinking that it had been a while since I’d been to the Bird Sanctuary. Cat and Daniel were up for anything, so we decided we’d go to the sanctuary and then to the East End beach. Little did I know an AMAZING surprise was waiting for us at this location.

Thankfully, I remembered the path to the beach even though it had been a while since I’d been to this spot. As we rounded the last corner on the path to the beach, I gasped at the sea of yellow blooms that greeted us! This is clearly a seasonal wildflower and we were just lucky we came across it when it was at it’s peak bloom!

Best of all, Cat told me that her grandparents used to bring her and her sisters the Bird Sanctuary when they were little girls. I knew then that we should stay at this spot for the rest of their session and I’m so glad that we did! This is one of those unrepeatable moments that will always be special to Cat and Daniel and their engagement portraits. Even though I photograph many sessions every year, I know this is one of those that I’ll always remember.