I’ve been thinking a lot about Justine and Tyler’s Oregon IL Engagement Session recently. Mostly because it is cold, and snowy right now and I’m dreaming about beautiful summer evenings, but also because I met Justine at the 2024 Blumen Gardens Bridal Bash, and I’ll be there again in just a couple of weeks for the 2025 bash.
Justine and Tyler are going to be getting married on a friends private property, and they really wanted to take their engagement photos there too. It is a really special place for them. It is a place where they go to have fun and get away from real life, and they wanted to include that in their session. It was really important to include Tyler’s vintage truck, and their four wheelers.
Well, the second Justine said “four wheeler” I was HOOKED. Before Austin and I got into steam engines, Austin’s hobby was racing motocross, and we spent countless hours riding quads all over his family farm. In fact, my own engagement photos featured our two seater can am that we had bought so we could trail ride together. I cannot express how excited I was for this engagement session.
When I showed up to the location that Justine had sent me, I was a little worried. I like to try and use Google Maps to scope out locations that are unknown to me before showing up to a session so that I can start thinking of ideas, but all it showed me was a corn field. So I had no idea what I was walking into. I met Justine and Tyler at the entrance to the field, and they took me back into the timber to show me where they planned on getting married, and let me tell ya, this is a don’t judge a book by its cover situation.
I felt like I had walked into a fairytale. I mean, there was all this beautiful timber, that had these beautiful open glades hidden amongst the trees, not to mention the freaking sparkling blue pond! I was in heaven! Justine and Tyler kept asking me if I was sure that the location was okay, and I was just focused on not shrieking with joy. (If you’ve ever worked with me, you know how I start yelling when I get excited, but I had literally just met these folks and I didn’t want to scare them off right away. I needed them to get used to my weirdness first.)
I used every last bit of daylight that I had available, and we had SO MUCH fun. You can see in that last photo that the sun is coming down and is almost directly behind Tyler’s head. It was DARK in the woods by this point, and I had to turn my settings way up to get that shot, but I knew it was gonna be good and I couldn’t leave without it.
I’ll admit, I actually felt a little underprepared for their session, because I should have brought my own quad with. Thankfully, Justine and Tyler let me ride their extra quad and I didn’t completely embarrass myself on a machine that I’m not familiar with. When I got home from their session, I told Austin that he’ll be loading up our quad to take it over to their wedding so I’ve got my own for their wedding day.
Engagement sessions are something that I always encourage every couple to have before their wedding day. If you’re unfamiliar with how an engagement session works, or you’re not sure if that is something that you want to spend the money on, be sure to check out these other blogs that I’ve written below.
