Have I built it up enough? Are you ready to see how silly we looked in our engagement photos?

Please note: Neither am I fishing for compliments nor am I holding our wonderful photographer responsible for any of the below. Mr. Road Trip and I are absolute goofballs and ridiculously awkward (at least I am) so I’m more shocked when I think I look good in a photo as opposed to the alternative. Still, we had a lot of fun, so I have no regrets for the day–not even the copious amount of duck faces.

We started out our day Honey Lake Plantation–actually, no, we started our day meeting up in the Publix parking lot because it’s an hour from town to our venue and Kara lives south of town as it is, so we offered to chauffeur her around between locations just to make things easier. The drive time also gave us a chance to break the ice a bit more–never a bad thing.

The photos started in front of the chapel on the property, with me feeling very self-conscious and therefore very giggly.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

But I managed to pull it together for a decent shot after a bit.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Prop #1: the banner comes out to play:

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Then we moved over to a bend with a view of one of the lakes. Admittedly, this looked a lot cooler in my head, but it’s still a good shot. And very reminiscent of how we spend most Friday nights–only it’s a sofa instead of a stone bench and the view behind us is our dining room and bar instead of a gorgeous lake. And in the bottom right corner is one of our monkey cameos.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Time to change our view, we headed off towards to main hall and posed for this artfully tilted shot under an arch. The circular drive behind us is where cocktail hour and the ceremony will be held (the former on this side of the fountain, the latter on the steps). We’ll have to remember to get a shot of us on the day from this vantage point, too. Apparently there’s an art to the toe-kick pose, an art I’ve yet to master (though not for trying). And this is one of the few non-duck-face kissing pictures we managed.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

And then the obligatory walking-down-the-road-towards-our-future shot. Teasing aside, I did pull this as one of our inspiration pictures, and I do like the way it turned out.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Kara had this awesome idea to shoot us with the fountain between us and her and I LOVE this shot. Trust the pros, right?

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

We also did the picture frame pose–frame provided by Kara–and of the dozen or so she sent us this one is my favorite. We really look relaxed and natural in this one.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

I’ve decided that pictures of me sitting on the ground without something in front of me are a bad idea. Combine that with kissy-face and I’m generally unimpressed. This one Kara cropped just right and I think the sepia tone makes the duck face less ducky. It might also make a good shot for the back of our Save the Dates. We shall see.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Now, after this we tried for some arty shots among the semi-tall grasses behind us but they must not have looked at all good because none were included in our discs. I’m not super surprised, as we were standing in a hole and I was leaning over at an awkward angle, but we gave it a good go. And then the strap on my shoe broke, so it was good I had several pairs in the trunk as back-up.

It looks like we’re on a bridge, but it’s actually the back stairs up to our reception venue shot while Kara stood on the same landing on the opposite end. Sneaky photographers for the win. What do you think of our monkey climbing the tree?

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Eventually we moved on to Lofty Pursuits–we can only take so much nature, after all. I had a severe slouching problem in a lot of these shots, so our bright red dress amidst neutrals didn’t work out like in my head, but they’re still some cute shots.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Then we got sneaky–smooching behind the soda. One sure-fire way to avoid duck-face!

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Finally, it was off to Secret Headquarters for our last shots of the day. These were, overall, the best shots of the day because I think we were all about the playing and being silly and just letting our hair down.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

It helps that there were toys to play with, too.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Brian, the store owner, suggest we swap my sapphire for a different sort of ring (Blue Lantern, anyone?)…

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

And we wedged ourselves between the stacks in the graphic novel room for our best approximation of another of our inspiration shots.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

We pinned a cool collage on our inspiration board and Kara put one together of our detail shots. I really love those shoes. Oh, and Mr. Road Trip, too, of course!

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Okay, 19 pictures has GOT to be enough of us, yes? And, yet, I like nice, round numbers so here’s a 20th just to appease my OCD a bit.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

We ended up with 477 shots from our engagement session. Now, a lot of them are different treatments of the same shot, but for someone who wants lots of choices this is an awesome thing. Plus, Kara was all-around awesome in hanging with us for a total of 5 hours, 2 of which were spent in the car, when her engagement shoots only last an hour or two on average. The thing that made the difference is that she was just as excited as we were and pretty much up for anything, but she was also great about telling us what to do where and when that I have no doubt we’ll miss anything important on the wedding day.

That is, perhaps, the best reason to have an engagement shoot with your wedding photographer: the make sure everyone’s simpatico and nip any problems in the bud early on. I’m really glad we found Pink Shutterbug Photography and actually looking forward to seeing pictures of myself again in the not-so-distant future!