Christine and Mike

Christine wasn't a dog person -- for years Mike wanted to get a dog, and she told him absolutely not. Apparently she softened up, because not only is she the proud mama of the cutest cockapoo, Rushford, she loves him so much she wanted him to be a part of her engagement photos! So, Rushford hung out with us over at Bird Island Pier to start the engagement shoot...

We call this one "The Family Portrait."

Normally, I'm saying, "look at those eyes!" about our humans, but I can't help myself. He's so cute... Look at those eyes!! And get this - he doesn't shed...a dog lover's dream.

Christine and Mike are both marathoners (and Mike is a one-time ultra-marathoner!!) and the Buffalo marathon goes right past the pier and old bridge area,which is how they came up with the first location for our shoot. We love shooting "urban landscapes!"

Hey, it almost looks warm in this photo, doesn't it? You can barely tell it was 40 degrees out. Believe me, there was no need to gently encourage Mike and Christine to get closer during any set-up.

Totally smoking!!

This is one of those great examples of what Rich is doing while I'm doing something else! My photo up, Rich's photo down :).

So, we found the one tree in the area with some leaves still on it and played around for a few minutes, because I refuse to admit it's winter. Just because the furnace is roaring away doesn't mean anything!

This was my favorite shot of Rich's... seriously, Christine and Mike are really bubbly, friendly, talkative people, and we spent the whole shoot talking! This photo is amazing. It looks like they are the only two people on Earth...even though there's a dude with a huge camera about 6 inches away!

Look at those eyes!! (okay, so Rushford didn't have the only gorgeous eyes at the pier)

Then we decided to head up to Hertel Ave to shoot a few more photos. Christine and Mike used to live in the neighborhood, so it was cool to shoot them in their old hang out. You know, if you're going to do an engagement session, make it reflect you!

Christine got the whole room-full-of-flowers proposal as a TOTAL suprise, so I thought them wanting to shoot in front of Romeo and Juliet's on Hertel was too cute! Mike is the classic romantic lead. And seriously, how jealous am I? Did I ever mention that Rich proposed to me while driving down the street. So romantic... so, I have to live vicariously through awesome proposal stories like Mike and Christine's. (Rich Edit: Good Lord, Alyssa brings this up ALL the time, you know - seeing as how we shoot couples in love for a living. Here's what really happened: I got the surpise word that I was leaving for Afghanistan (you know, war) in THREE DAYS, and so I brought it up in a conversation driving around Honolulu because I was madly, passionately in love with Alyssa and knew she was the one and didn't want to miss my chance. She agreed, and then we found out we actually had about a month to plan before I was gone over seas (I did leave three days later for training in California). I could have handled the proposal better, yes, I admit that...but now we're bickering on our blog - you did this, Alyssa! By the way, we celebrated our four year anniversary last month! :) It's been the best four years of my life.

(Alyssa re-edit: You proposed while driving the car. Now get out of my blog post!)

Here's another awesome shot of Mike and Christine Alyssa took...I'll give her back her blog post now. :)

Anyway, thanks, again, guys for coming out and braving the cold for the shoot. I know it was a bit brutal, but you guys were absolutely fantastic! We can not wait to shoot you again this spring!!