Let me just start by saying, I am sooo excited to be rolling out my first engagement session of the year! A little backstory to this one: Mallory & Will hired me after a bad experience with another photographer. One of the things Mallory pointed out was that their original photographer just didn’t capture their personalities. She said she considered them a fun, playful couple and was disappointed that all her photos looked stiff and posed. It all boiled down to just one phrase, “It just wasn’t us.”

With my brides who have switched photographers, there is always a little extra pressure to really give them something they’ll love to make up for everything they had to go through in order to ultimately have me shoot their wedding. It was too late to redo her Fall engagement session, but luckily, Mallory had something really unique in mind for her wintery engagement shoot that would really help make it special. The only drawback was, it was something that would really only be possible if we had some snow on the ground: riding snowmobiles on the frozen lake at her parents property! If there was any doubt left in my mind that Mallory and Will were not quite the super-serious couple I had seen in her first engagement pictures, this suggestion put that theory on ice!

Unfortunately, I can never guarantee any kind of weather, so we scheduled for February 13, snow or no snow. Well, I must have wanted to do her idea as much as she did, because on Friday, we got about four inches of snow and on the spur of the moment I called Mallory up and offered to cancel my plans for the next day if she wanted to do her engagement shoot TOMORROW. I definitely caught Mallory by surprise, but by some miracle she was able to fit it into her extremely busy schedule. The next day, we got up bright and early, and I headed over to Fleetville, PA, in four-degree weather. When the sun came up, I texted her on the way that we had reached 12 degrees and we joked at the small improvement.

The lake itself was frozen, but still covered with a perfect layer of untouched snow, so I suggested before we got to messing it all up with snowmobile tracks, we take some of the nice pictures we had in mind first.

Before I left, my husband made me promise not to walk out on the frozen lake, but when I saw the couple start riding fearlessly around on their snowmobiles, I figured if it could hold that much weight, it could certainly old little, 100-lb. me. Sorry Sean! 😛

There were a couple more shots I had in mind before I was done with the beautiful lake, which is very near and dear to this couple. Mallory grew up by the lake, and she couldn’t imagine doing her engagement photos anywhere else.

While his fiance was taking a short warm-up break in the truck, I secretly asked Will to tackle Mallory at my signal. He executed his mission beautifully, and truly took Mallory by surprise; thanks Will!

Satisfied the couple was now FULLY covered in snow, we headed inside to warm up and take some shots by the toasty fire Mallory’s dad had made for us, and enjoy a cup of her mother’s delicious hot cocoa. Thank you Mallory’s parents!

Yesterday was an amazing day filled with laughter, love, adventure and even danger that only a couple as fun, athletic and spontaneous as Mallory and Will could have made possible. Suffice it to say, it was an absolute pleasure getting to know these two, and I couldn’t have asked for a better couple to kick off 2011 with!