Happy Weekly Wednesday-! After a crazy busy 2023 photographing our clients in around 3+ cities weekly (**often in 3 states) we’re finally back to some more (semi) regularly scheduled weekly blog posts. Octobers are always (at least for the past 9 out of 15 autumns as professional wedding photographers) one of our busiest months all year for high end weddings & Engagement Sessions both for the stunning visuals and good weather in the mid-70s (i.e. non-95 degree humid days). Annually folks have always clamoured for the autumn colors and book their weddings and Engagement Sessions often months to a year in advance with that in mind for both a beautiful, picturesque backdrop of warm reds, yellows, and orange foliage (that not every state/ city is blessed with) and nearly perfect weather (*on the days that don’t have forecasted rain).
With that said, we’re back this week to introduce you to Randy & Nichole whose beachy Lake Michigan Autumn Engagement Session we captured right at the tail end of the first week of fall! Randy is in his PhD program at The University of Notre Dame here in South Bend, Indiana ((but has his home by Lake Michigan in St. Joe, Michigan)) and Nichole is in her Master’s program up in Kalamazoo, Michigan! We’re photographing their wedding day coming up just one month from today-! Their wedding ceremony is at Notre Dame’s world-renowned Basilica of the Sacred Heart (built in 1888) with their reception following at the Palais Royale (built in the 1920s- one of our top favorite reception venues here in South Bend). Anywho, onto their Engagement Session-!
Since Randy lives up in St. Joe, Michigan and commutes from Southwest Michigan to the University of Notre Dame (here in South Bend) for his PhD program as he works on his PhD dissertation & upcoming defense, these two chose to have their Engagement Session right there by Randy’s home! Nichole drove in from her Master’s program & home in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the sunset Engagement Session there on the beach and the clouds seemed to literally part for her arrival-! (It seems that there was a sort of “marine layer” of clouds after rain storms the evening prior that immediately cleared out once Nichole arrived)-!
Originally from the East Coast of Michigan (i.e. the side of the state that I like to call “the Detroit side”- or the “side that literally touches the Canadian border”), Nichole is from a tiny town where they were a bit far from the closest grocery store (as she told us in some stories about trekking in to town). Nichole started learning to be a pilot back when she was merely 16 years young (-!!!) and broke literal barriers during her undergraduate university degree at Western Michigan University. Height is apparently an important part of being a pilot, so due to her height not being up to requirements, Nichole pushed back at the university by meeting with the heads of the university & others to advocate for herself to be able to fly. Because of her efforts she was able to to have a plane tweaked for her to be able to reach the pedals, have adjustments made to the seat for height, and just generally be allowed to be a (female) pilot-!
These two have been together for a year & a half and started planning their lives together about 6 months ago-! Randy himself comes from a line of pilots in his family, but hails from Illinois originally and his PhD candidacy at the University of Notre Dame is a huge reason that they chose to have their ceremony at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus. Randy (along with being a University of Notre Dame PhD candidate) is also a pilot and was the one who had suggested that we photograph the two of them by their plane for their Engagement Session and/or during their wedding day. We tried to make it happen as best as we could, but their plane was not available/ accessible the evening that we needed it, so we pulled a few strings to make something work by using a fellow pilot’s (albeit much smaller) plane.
It’s not every day that both members of your wedding couple are absolutely badass, well-educated pilots, so we were enthralled with their story the moment that we met them and wanted to create some plane Engagement Session photographs for this pilot couple-!
Lake Michigan & the beaches there in Southwest Michigan are always beautiful, but given the irregularly warm weather all summer it was amazing to be capturing them up there a week & a half ago during the first week of autumn at the end of September. Though the temps here just last week were 11 degrees hotter than the highest ever recorded temperatures here on those dates in October (at 85 to 87 degrees) their Engagement Session was the evening after days of rain, so we lucked out with absolutely perfect, mild 70s temps-!
Southwest Michigan/ Lake Michigan is the ultimate place for dunes, beautiful beaches, nice weather, beach grasses, tourists from Chicago & abroad, a cozy life, and more, so we think that the sweet little beach town of St. Joe (where Randy lives) was a perfect spot for these two to commemorate their love and engagement!
Nichole and Randy both work full-time while in their Master’s & PhD programs, so Nichole had to make the hour trek over from her home in Kalamazoo, Michigan that Friday, but they made it work perfectly for sunset-! Jenny had scouted a few spots for their Session at Lake Michigan the day prior and we absolutely loved getting to capture these two (in a few of their favorite outfits) at one of our personal favorite Southwest Michigan beaches!
Though their larger plane wasn’t available to us that night at sunset, we managed to finagle 3 other smaller planes for them to choose from in order to create for them some Engagement Portraiture. There were 2 brand new extremely colorful , extremely expensive larger planes (bright blue and bright yellow with insane racecar detailing on them) that we were given access to utilize, but given the closeness to sunset we opted to use the smaller plane that was already outside. We closed the hangar behind this smaller plane, set up our studio lights, and captured some images of them on and with this smaller plane around sunset!
After the sun was officially down we managed to light up the runway with all of the runway lights so that we could create some last images of these pilots out on the actual runway. It felt a bit scary to all of us as that’s where folks land their planes (and where we had just witnessed a plane land in the small amount of time that we were there), but it was a perfect, serene moment fit for these two brave souls! After their Session ended we watched a bit of peaceful, beautiful fog rolled in just past the end of the runway, but then all had to head out as we all had plans for early Saturday morning.
Congratulations again on your engagement, Nichole & Randy! We had a blast photographing your Engagement Session by your home in St. Joe, hearing all about how you two became pilots, some more about school, more about your families & hometowns/ home states, and we cannot wait to capture your wedding day just one month from today at The Basilica of the Sacred Heart and Palais Royale-! You two are so kind, gentle, and sweet and we’re so looking forward to sending you your Proofing Gallery (with so many more amazing photographs not even shown here) in just a couple days-!