Spring Engagement Photo Session at the Bellevue Botanical Garden

On  beautiful sunny afternoon I took Shayna and Charles to the Bellevue Botanical Garden for an engagement photo session.  This was a rather long trip for the couple, as they live just outside Dallas TX.  But they have decided that they want to get married in the Seattle area, at the Salish Lodge at Snoqualmie Falls.  So they made a trip to Seattle to scout out the venue, and while they were here they wanted me to spend some time with them on their engagement photos.

I always enjoy engagement sessions, especially when (as with Shayna and Charles) I will be photographing their wedding at a later date.  Engagement sessions are almost always much less stressful for the couple than the photo taken on the wedding day, and these sessions also serve two other purposes.  First, they let me get a feel for working with the couple as well as to find out a bit more about them.  And second, it lets the couple find out that photo sessions can be FUN, and that their wedding photos will be fun as well.

The Botanical Garden is one of my favorite places in the Seattle area for almost any type of outdoor photo session.  Engagement photos, families, high-school seniors, even weddings!  It offers many different backgrounds for anything from an individual person to large groups of people.  We were here a bit early in the spring season to have many flowers blooming, but during the summer several parts of the garden are covered in many varieties of flowers.

We began by exploring the parts of the Garden closest to the entrance, and slowly worked our way deeper and deeper into the Garden, which extends for well over a quarter mile into the woods.  At the far end of the Garden is a beautiful suspension bridge over a ravine deep in the forest.  We stopped for photos whenever we spotted places that looked like good “photo opps” and ended up with a LOT of great photos!

Some of those photos can be seen below.  I hope that you like them!