Paul and Bethany - E-session madness!!

I kind of went over this in my sneak peek post, but I'll recap...

Bethany is my first cousin (and older sister of Josh, whose engagement photos I did last fall), who just got engaged a little over a week ago. Josh is getting married this July, and Paul and Beth have set their date for August 8––of THIS year!!

Since we didn't have a lot of time (our weekends are all crazy, and once I hit the start of "wedding season," I'll be REEEALLY busy...), so we threw together a very last minute trip to Petoskey, MI to do their e-session in Paul's hometown.

Who knew Petoskey had SO many amazing places for photos??! Seriously, ama.zing. And so much fun!! (Of course, spending time with Beth and Paul is ALWAYS fun, but you know.)

So we basically spent all of Sunday taking pictures... we took a few breaks to have lunch with Paul's family and to warm up a few times (it was SOOO cold!!!!), but other than that, we were pretty much on a roll!

The newly engaged couple were SO much fun to work with and were incredibly cooperative and adventurous––they were up for anything! I'm so glad we were able to take a whole day to do these––there's no WAY we would have gotten this kind of variety from a typical e-session!

I finally managed to pick through all 1,800 photos and pull out some select favorites! (Let me tell you, that was hard.)

There are still a few more shots sitting on my memory card at home in my camera that we took on our way out of town at night when the street lamps were all lit up... maybe you'll see some of those in the coming days. :)

























Paul had used these signs to propose when he picked Beth up from the airport.. I'm so glad they brought them along!! Cutest story EVER. Right out of a movie! (These shots have nothing to do with the actual proposal story––we'd have to hit up Detroit Metro Airport to recreate that moment!





And even though this is SO not the REAL moment, I absolutely love the total cheese factor going on with their expressions!!















Coolest little coffee shop EVER... I loved their broken mugs framing their storefront! They also had the coolest booths I've ever seen––we waited for the green one that was a tiny nook in the store window for ages (apparently we weren't the only ones who loved it), so while we waited, we had a good time in their cool stripy booths! :D

















This one completely cracks me up... we were going for something new and crazy, and when the wind kept making it difficult to pose with that skirt, we kind of just gave up––but not before getting this shot!







After freezing to pieces on the walkway to the lighthouse, we raced back to Beth's car to heat up for a bit. Perfect opportunity for some more picture! :D Beth has always been super proud of her BMW, so I wanted to get some shots of them inside it for sentimental reasons.











































Our last stop before heading home was at the State Park––Paul in particular wanted to get some photos on the beach at sunset, and I'm so glad we went! It was gorgeous and completely empty... freezing still, but the light was beyond beautiful and the lake was frozen, giving a very cold and cool contrast to the burning light on the sand.