Ashley & James | Beautiful Outdoor Engagement Session at Turtle River State Park | Grand Forks Wedding Photographer

Earlier in the Summer, I held a contest on my social media for a giveaway of one of my Engagement Session Experiences for FREE to 2 lucky couples. The dozens of entries I had come in were narrowed down to a handful of Finalists by the required conditions and rules of the giveaway. From that small number of finalists, Ashly & Jame’s story stood out to me and after an initial zoom chat…they were chosen as 1 of the winners.

We planned for a fun outdoor session in the nature of Turtle River State Park. We couldn’t have been any luckier with the evening we got either. It was sunny, calm, and in the low 80’s. The only thing that kept it from being perfect was the constant swarm of ladybugs that followed us for the first half of our shoot!

All three of us were in the water at some point and I seriously thought I’d be the one that fell all the way in…but all went well and we were able to get some awesome shots! We also were blessed with a wonderful sunset as we hiked up a hill to get a few last shots.

I love working with adventurous couples like Ashly and James and I had so much fun on our shoot with them!

I’m honored and excited to be shooting their upcoming 2024 wedding and I know it’s gonna be a blast!

Jessica and Casandra | Beautiful Duluth Fall Engagement Session at Banning State Park | Duluth Wedding Photographer

Earlier in the Summer, I held a contest on my social media for a giveaway of one of my Engagement Session Experiences for FREE to 2 lucky couples. The dozens of entries I had come in were narrowed down to a handful of Finalists by the required conditions and rules of the giveaway. From that small number of finalists, Jessica & Casandra’s story connected with me on many levels and after an initial zoom chat…they were chosen as 1 of the winners.

We planned and set a date for me to drive over to Banning State Park (which is about a 4.5 hour drive for me) and came up with a super fun gameplan. On the day of our scheduled shoot, however, we were thrown a curveball that it would be raining most of the day. After chatting…we decided to go ahead and still have me drive down for the shoot.

We got started a bit late AND the cloud cover made it get darker sooner than we’d planned so we had to alter our plans and focus on the shots we REALLY wanted. It WAS raining most of the time but the trees gave us great coverage. I had a blast walking around in the forest with Jessica & Casandra (it reminded me of growing up in Michigan and being in the woods every day).

We found a beautiful spot at the base of a waterfall and the couple was adventurous and willing to climb on rocks, get in the water, and whatever else it took to get some epic photos!

Lack of time aside…We lucked out and seriously couldn’t have asked for a better evening for a photoshoot! Since it was raining out, we pretty much had the entire park to ourselves!

We literally used every ounce of light we had and ended up hiking a mile or so back to our vehicles in the pitch-black darkness through the forest. I loved it!

Jessica & Casandra were so much fun to work with that after chatting, we’ve decided to work together again for their 2024 wedding in the Duluth area! I can’t wait to see the shots we get on their special wedding day!