While I’m an elopement and wedding photographer based in Seattle and the San Juan Islands, I’m always down to travel for sessions. A lot of the couples I work with are getting married on the San Juan Islands or the PNW area, but aren’t always from Washington State. For this session, I got to photographer their engagement session at Red Rocks Park in Colorado.
D&T are from Denver area, but are getting married at Roche Harbor Resort later in May. We were talking through their engagement session and decided that the opportunity to spend some time together prior to their wedding day would be awesome, and give us all a chance to grow more familiar with one another. While I’m always happy to document photos prior to meeting them, I find that having the time for an in person meeting at least, if not an engagement session, helps with the flow and peace of the wedding day ESPECIALLY when folks profess to be a bit nervous around the camera.
So, within a couple weeks after pinning down the details, I got to meet T&D in Denver to plan our sunrise session the next day. I’m always so excited when folks are game for trying to catch some of the best light. We decided to aim for Red Rocks Park in the mountains above Denver for sunrise to catch the true brilliant colors of the area before heading to a couple other locations.
Most folks head straight for the Red Rocks Amphitheater for photos, but we could tell it was getting busy. Thankfully there were a few side trails that had NO people that gave us beautiful views. We were all on the same page about leaving no trace and NOT being those people that disrespected the park boundaries/destroying senstive foliage to get photos.
While the trail was a little bit icy from some snow melt, it was easy to get to a spot where we could watch the sunrise over Denver on the horizon. It was an incredible warm, golden morning that lit the rocks up beautiful shades of pink, orange, and of course- red.
After exploring a bit of Red Rocks, we headed out to another location nearby to get a view of Golden, where these two spent a lot of time together forming their relationship. We caught a glimpse into the Rockies as well, which looked absolutely stunning with new powder. I flew into Denver and out again right in between two snow storms, which worked in my favor in terms of weather, cloud formations, and lighting.
After spending some time at the view point, we headed down into Golden where we met D’s mom and their lovely chocolate lab pup. I’m a huge fan of adventure engagement sessions that include dogs, and this pup was no exception. He was a huge fan of the snow, and keep spazzing out trying to rub his face in the snow. We walked around the park in downtown Golden for a few more portraits. We had to compete a little bit with the senior picture crowd showing up around the area, but it was a beautiful spot to catch the last of the fall colors at a slightly lower elevation than Red Rocks.
Leaving Denver and their engagement session, I felt even more excited about their wedding. I love being able to spend some time getting to know couples before their wedding day, because I feel it really enhances my eye for what moments might really be meaningful to these unique people and their families. While there’s a lot that is easy to see and document, no two weddings are truly “the same” and each one has so much that is unique to the people in attendance and details that this couple chose.
For example, we may or may not be doing a day before “mermaid” shoot for D, who is a literal professional mermaid at the Denver aquarium. SO STOKED!
Here’s to more adventures together in the future, I’m so excited for your wedding celebration (and our mermaid shoot!!)
