Liz & Christian Are Engaged!

I met up with Liz and Christian in their hometown of Washington DC a few weeks ago to shoot their engagement session. I am originally from the DC area so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to pack up the family and make a trip of it. We could not have picked a colder or wetter weekend, but thankfully Liz and Christian were great sports and braved the elements. It poured rain most of our trip out there, but the heavens gave us about an hour of no rain for our shoot so I was so thankful! We are so lucky in Arizona because with the exception of maybe a couple weeks a year we don't worry about rain. It is always funny to me to go to other places where people talk about the weather...here we don't carry coats, umbrellas or check the newspaper for the forecast...very simple every day it is sunny and hot, hotter or so hot you don't want to live anymore:) As a photographer that is my only real element. I don't take into account stuff falling from the sky or getting frost bite in May, I just assumed it would be sunny:) If I would have just looked at the forecast I probably would have packed something other than flip flops and capri pants...oh well lessons learned.

Liz is originally from Arizona and met Christian in law school and they now both live and work in Washington DC. They will be coming back this fall for their wedding which will entail a ceremony at Brophy and a reception at the beautiful Sanctuary on Camelback Resort & Spa. We will be shooting the wedding with Serendipity Videography and when I was talking to Taryn about Liz and Christian the main thing I could come up with to describe them is they are just classic. I had such a fun time getting to know them. They are two of the sweetest people I have met in a long time (makes you wonder about the whole attorney thing, but that is probably just a cover). They were a little hesitant about this whole picture thing at first, but eventually came to terms that it had to be done. They handled my directness with stride and eventually lost the "what did we get ourselves into" look after the first 20 minutes or so. I tend to forget that people always stare at us and not everyone can tune it out like I can. Eventually I just told Christian to pretend like he was famous and we were shooting for a magazine....that didn't help much either. He eventually just went with it as he knew I was not going to give up.

They both have a great sense of humor and are incredibly smart. I am always fascinated by everyone's lives so I probably overwhelmed them with my 10,000 questions, but it was so much fun for me to get to know them better.

I even got introduced by Christian to something called a zip car which is just about the coolest invention I can think of. I was only up to about 2000 questions up to this point, but this just put it over the top with me! (I probably sound like I am from the backwoods as this is part of their everyday life...) I did actually find out they are in Phoenix, but not sure if they would be as beneficial here, but I guess if you only need a car for an hour or two this would be the way to do it. Here is the skinny on the ZIP cars ....

When we decided to move our shoot to another location Christian offered to drive and we walked up to this car with a zip logo on it. I had seen a few since we had arrived and thought it was just a company car and he worked for them. Turns out you just rent these cars by the hour (only $9) and pick them up in all kinds of locations around town. When you are done you just swipe your card and leave it. If you need gas there is a gas card in it so no need to stress about gas prices either! What a concept. No insurance, no car payment, no tires, no breaks, no car washes and you just leave it when you are done. Now with kids it would not work well for me, but when I was childless it would have been my dream. At this point in my life I would be on the "do not rent to list" as my kids would have half my house dumped in the backseat along with nose prints on the windows and black shoe marks down the back of the front seats...which is a daily ritual I have just had to come to terms with in my life and hope to be exiting very soon. I am sure they were laughing the whole way home that this fascinated me so much! Trust me it does not take much in my life anymore...

Thanks for sharing your day with me and stopping the rain for a bit!~ We look forward to your big day!

Below are a few of my favorites. You can view their slide show by clicking the link at the bottom of this post. Feel free to leave any comments for Liz and Christian as they are always fun to read!

I just love the green! It was so hard to come back and shoot in the desert after this:)

This one is my favorite.

Liz has a real grace and classic beauty about her.

Christian thought I was insane for making them cross the street and taking pictures, but I really like to capture life as I see it and one day when they live in the burbs with their 3 kids they will be thankful to have a piece of the city:)

I notice that a lot of people don't hold hands anymore, they just put their arms around each other. I really love how Christian always takes her hand.

I love this one...I like how you can see the Washington Monument through the trees.

I remember my Grandpa taking me to Union Station and running around thinking it was the coolest place in the world. I wanted to take a real trip on a train and never did so about 10 years ago I took a week off and went across the country alone on Amtrak, one of the best experiences of my life.

I can't get enough of the trees!
You can view Liz and Christian's slide show by clicking this link!