Initially Meg and Rusty wanted to go to a different location for their portraits.   I won't say where it was, but it was a spot I've grown tired of shooting over the past few months.  So I tried to talk them into doing a more urban shoot and driving around town with me to find all the cool run down buildings in St. Louis.  Fortunately for me, they went for it, and the photos turned out awesome.  They climbed on all kinds of weird stuff (including a dresser someone was throwing away...) and waded through crazy weed patches for me, it was great.  At one point we were all so covered with these stick weeds it looked like fringe.  They couldn't have had a better sense of adventure about the whole thing, and I think it paid off.

You'll see these two on the blog again very soon - they are getting married this Sunday!  They really pushed their engagements to the last minute, but I'm glad they decided to do it.  Based on this session, the wedding this weekend should be a blast!

I love when couples like old run-down stuff as much as I do :)  Angela and Sean liked the more urban stuff I've been doing, so we wandered around downtown for some cool backdrops.  I've never seen someone so excited to sit in front of a pile of scrap wood - it was great!  We also took some photos at Angela's grandfather's house for good measure, which had some pretty fall colors.  I think they are my last engagement session for a while - thanks for making it so fun, guys!

Sheena and Ryan are getting married in Florida in about 6 weeks, and they decided (somewhat) last minute to get some engagement photos taken in St. Louis before they leave.  We met at the Landing and then wandered around the riverfront for some more urban shots.  The wind was going crazy towards the end of their shoot, and Sheena's hair was definitely doing the whole windblown thing.  I think it looks cool in some of these shots.  At least we finished before the temperature dropped so drastically last night and the snow started!  Best of luck to Sheena and Ryan at their upcoming beach wedding!

Ok, so these two have been engaged a while....they are getting married at the start of June.  But since they both live out of town, this was the first chance we had to do engagement photos.  Good thing the weather was so nice this weekend!  The wind got a little crazy (poor Kate had hair flying everywhere), but it was fantastically warm for April.  I'll see these guys again in June - should be fun!

Darci and Marc are the winners of my Engagement Photo Contest! 

These guys let me drag them to some of the places I've been dying to shoot in St. Louis before I leave town - including some run down buildings (one with a killer rooftop) and the train tracks behind Union Station.  At Union Station we worried for a minute about getting yelled at for being where we shouldn't.  As it turns out, we should have been more concerned about getting stuck.  While we were playing on one of the train cars furthest out,  another train started rolling in.  It made for good images at first...then we noticed we were completely trapped!  The train was really long, and there was no way around it to get back to our car.  In the end we had to duck under the other (not moving) trains, climb up a hill, hop over a fence, and then walk the long way back to the car.  It was really funny, and I'm glad Darci and Marc saw the humor in it instead of getting upset with me!

Thanks to all who entered the contest!  Darci and Marc met at a wedding back east a few years ago, where they bonded over a mutual love for mountain biking.  Marc was living in Colorado then, and it just wasn't the right time for them to get together.  But a few years later, the two had kept in touch and things fell into place.  Marc moved to St. Louis and they got engaged back in April.  Congratulations to them, and good luck with the wedding planning!