Est. 2012 | Colorado Springs, Colorado and Charlottesville, Virginia wedding & family photographer

It’s always an honor when I have a wedding planner refer my name to their brides, but when it is the wedding planner’s own brother then it is beyond flattering. 🙂 Courtney from A Sweet Soiree contacted me months ago seeing if I was available to document this exciting time of Chad’s life. Well, of COURSE! We counted down the weeks until their engagement session and ended up with one of the most gorgeous summer days! Can I please have this weather every session/wedding? We met at the beautiful Sky Meadows Park which was a great contrast to where they currently live towards the city. After all, they are getting married in Napa Valley next year! Who wouldn’t want beautiful greenery and views? After running around the park for the first half of the session, we finished up at Barrel Oak Winery down the road. As we were walking around, a random cat seriously followed us just waiting for the perfect moment to photo bomb their photos. The cat did manage to sneak into a photo, haha! Just see it yourself below! Overall, I am in love with Chad and Sabrina’s willingness to open up in front of the camera. They were incredibly sweet, joyful and not to mention, photogenic. 🙂

Thank you Chad and Sabrina for a great time last Friday! You both are so sweet … not to mention, gorgeous … together!! Congrats on your engagement and enjoy some of my personal favorites! xoxo!

Chad & Sabrina’s Love Story

How we met

We met about 3 years ago through work. At the time, Sabrina was living in Chicago and Chad was living in the D.C. area. We were management consultants for the same company and were staffed on the same project in Southern California. We were working on different workstreams, but definitely had an eye for each other…

Sabrina: On my first day on the project, the team introduced themselves to me. When Chad introduced himself I remember thinking ‘Wow, this guy is very good looking, friendly and smart. This is the kind of man I want to marry one day.’ I did not actually think about pursuing Chad since I was new to the project and wanted to focus on work. I also assumed he was already taken.

Chad: I had been on the project for a few months before Sabrina joined. I remember this first day she walked into the team room. She took my breath away. I introduced myself trying not to trip over my own words. For the first few months we weren’t working directly together and I was so incredibly shy to try to initiate conversation.

We started spending more time together outside the office, sharing meals and drinks and learning about each other on a personal level. A connection started to develop but we were both hesitant as coworkers. After a few months of being on the project, Sabrina went to visit her sister, Natasha, who also lived D.C. Chad came and met us out one night with one of his good friends, John. We started out with a drink on a rooftop patio and were having a really good time. Natasha’s boyfriend also joined and we all decided to go dancing. We ended up dancing for hours.

Sabrina: It was the first time I was meeting Natasha’s boyfriend, Jeff. Being the protective older sister, I watched the two of them like a hawk. I was having a great time dancing with Chad but he could tell that I was also worrying about my sister. I remember him asking me and I said I was a little distracted. He leaned in close and said “let me give you a better distraction” and kissed me for the first time!

Chad: When Sabrina texted me and said she was in DC I immediately called John and told him he had to come out with me that night. I said I’d been looking for a chance to move past the co-worker phase and needed a wingman. John didn’t even hesitate. I remember being so incredibly excited to be dancing with Sabrina. It felt like we were the only ones on the dance floor as I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I knew that she was special when she didn’t run away or laugh hysterically at my terrible dance moves. As we continued to dance I got increasingly nervous because I wanted to kiss her. I didn’t know how she would receive it. Being co-workers I thought, ‘could I get fired?!’ I saw an opening and made my move anyway. The rest is history.

The proposal

We planned a vacation to Bali, Indonesia in May 2015. We both love to travel, and Bali had always been a destination on our bucket list. We hadn’t been on a big vacation for a while so we were both looking forward to it. We had talked about marriage and I knew that he would propose soon, but I definitely did NOT think he would propose on this trip. I didn’t expect that he would travel across the world with a ring.

We landed in Bali and got to our hotel around dinner time. Chad suggested we eat dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel since we were tired from the 2 days of travel to get to Bali. We got ready and walked down to the hotel restaurant. The hostess walked us past all of the tables and out to the beach. Chad had organized a private gazebo overlooking the ocean for dinner with our own private server standing beside it. Rose petals and candles framed a walkway path up to the gazebo. The sun was setting in the distance behind the beach and ocean. It was the most breathtaking and stunning thing I have ever seen. At this point I still did not think Chad was about to propose. He is very romantic, and I thought maybe he just planned a special dinner for us on our first night to start the vacation. He had rose petals that spelled I <3 U in the walkway to the gazebo and rose petals in the shape of a heart on the beach.

We walked up to the gazebo and asked the hostess to take photos of us with this beautiful ocean view at sunset. As the hostess is taking photos Chad turns to me, grabs my hands and starts shaking. He NEVER gets nervous so I knew now that he was going to propose! That moment on was a huge blur as I blacked out from excitement and happiness. All I know is he got down on one knee, asked me to marry him and I said yes. After, we celebrated with a delicious private dinner while listening to a country love song playlist Chad made for this special occasion. It was all out of a fairytale and I thought how could you top this kind of proposal? But there was more. While we were enjoying dinner, Chad had the hotel staff decorate our hotel room with more rose petals and ordered a bottle of dom on ice. It was the greatest way to start our vacation and we celebrated our engagement during the rest of our 2 weeks in Bali 🙂

CONGRATS!!!