It was soooo hot.
Literally it was 99 degrees in Portland that day with a fair amount of humidity and we all felt like we were not so slowly dying.
That being said Katie + Zach (especially Zach) were absolute troopers through our afternoon engagement session in Portland. We started out time together at the Stumptown Coffee shop downtown. It has these big west-ish facing windows that let in tons of natural light, with historic brick walls, a window people-watching bar, and air conditioning. It wasn’t at all difficult to get these two love birds to cuddle over their respective cups of iced coffee.
Zach and Katie grew up in our mutual hometown of Corvallis (GO BEAVS!), even lived less than 5 minutes apart, and enjoyed the same parks & rec programs during the summer. …but Katie went to a private school while Zach was stuck in the trenches of public school. They finally met, through a mutual friend, in 2010 after they graduated and have been together ever since. Fast forward to last February and Zach had gotten them a romantic weekend in Cannon Beach for a Christmas gift. He wanted to “enjoy the beach with snacks and a bottle of 2010 wine” but Oregon does what she wants and it poured all weekend 🙁 “Let’s go look at Haystack Rock…” he would say hoping that the weather would cooperate. It did not. Finally they had dinner reservations on Saturday night; even though Katie was starting to get an idea of what was going on here, she went along with it until she felt the box in his coat pocket. Panic! They both played it off cool until Zach officially asked the next morning, it was still raining, and Katie replied with an enthusiastic, “Of course!!!”
Back to our extremely warm engagement session…
After coffee we briefly wondered around downtown then headed to the Washington Park rose garden. It was in full bloom and also full of tourists. Nobody seemed to mind or even notice us, except for a few cheers when I had them kiss on the big terraced stairs. Katie showed me all their wedding colors in the different roses in the experimental garden. I love how she loved all the textures and saw the subtle differences in pinks and whites. We worked until we could no longer tolerate the heat and desperately wanted to get back in the car with AC.
As I mentioned in a FB sneak peek post, Zach’s Dad (Todd) was my very first photography teacher. I remember when Zach was just a little dude with his younger brother at the grocery store. It is such a privilege to capture his love for Katie and their upcoming wedding. I once beat Todd in a photography competition and I look forward to blowing his mind yet again. haha!
[…] you just can’t get enough of these two check out their engagement session from earlier this […]