Weddings

Washington Real Engagement: Jenn and Ryan

One couple chose their favorite hiking spots for their relaxed portrait session.

Arlington couple Jenn and Ryan, who have been together for two years, love going to Gravelly Point in Arlington to watch planes take off and land, and hiking on Theodore Roosevelt Island (on the Potomac, between Arlington and DC), which is where Ryan proposed. So when it came time for their engagement photos, shot by Sarah Culver Photography, the couple decided those two locations would provide the perfect backdrops.

“I’ve seen quite a number of engagement shoots that seem to have no backstory to them,” says Jenn. “I’m a writer, and I care about stories, so while I initially decided we’d take pictures ‘somewhere pretty,’ it kept bothering me that there was nothing personal about the places. But then I remembered Theodore Roosevelt Island, where we got engaged and still hike, and that turned into a memory of us watching the planes take off and land at Gravelly Point. These places had some sort of story behind then, a connection, and I thought it would make the pictures more meaningful—which it did.”

Jenn and Ryan will marry in October 2012 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the bride’s hometown. Check out more photos from their engagement session after the jump.

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