Aileen & Paul ~ Engagement Session, Lake Merritt & Oakland Rose Garden

Aileen & Paul are getting married on August 9th at the Berkeley City Club!  To register to view their wedding images on Pictage, click here.

I had such a good time photographing them and getting to know them better at their engagement session, and I’m so excited to photograph their beautiful day.  Here is the full slideshow of the engagement session, or scroll below for a few highlights.

I love, love, love shooting at new places, and Aileen & Paul’s engagement session gave me some great opportunities.  I’ve been to Lake Merritt a number of times, but I haven’t actually shot there.  We started the session there, and although it was still really bright out, I was happy with the sweet, soft glow it provided to the shots.

So sweet!

Since Aileen & Paul live in Oakland, they know all the beautiful spots.   Next we went to the Oakland Rose Garden… which blew my mind!  It’s tucked into a residential area, and so peaceful and lovely.  I could have shot here for hours!

I shot most of these with my good old 50mm opened all the way… I call it my “dreamy lens”!

These two are so darn cute & I loved the vintagey look of Aileen’s dress!!!  And of course, playing with the backlight… one of my favorite things!

Aileen and Paul have such great smiles and expression.  This more serious one is a favorite too!  I had so much fun photographing them both!

To end the shoot, we headed up to Grissly Peak in Berkeley, where Paul proposed!  So sweet!  These two shots were my absolute favorites of the day.  I’m a sucker for a beautiful silhouette shot, but being able to frame it with the beautiful trees heading up to the spot where Paul proposed… well that’s the kind of surprising moment that if you are lucky enough to catch and capture, just brings it all together.

More soon!  Can’t wait to see what we capture on August 9th!