I literally couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish my engagement season than with Katie and Ryan this past weekend in Richmond! I loved getting to meet Katie and Ryan in real life after months of chatting on Instagram, it was like I’d known them for longer than that!
How he proposed:
Ryan orchestrated a big event with a group of our friends. He convinced his friend, Francis, to lie in our group chat and say we all needed to hang out because we were fully vaccinated and because he was moving away. (Which katie learned later he was in fact, not moving)
We made plans to all meet at a local winery in Leesburg called Zephaniah, we had never been before… or so I thought. Ryan secretly had gone ahead of time to scope out the perfect table and spot, talked with the owners for weeks, and had it all planned to the last detail!
Ryan also said he banked on the fact that I’m literally always late for everything and never on time, but that low and behold it was the first time I was ready early and ready to leave. So he then had to keep stalling and coming up with excuses for why we couldn’t leave while waiting for all our friends to get there.
The group of friends I knew was going was there when we arrived, and in hindsight were all acting really weird and hugging us. I didn’t even notice the decorations or the engagement related confetti or congrats banner until later on haha.
Ryan immediately said “I lied about why we are here today, and then said “you can come out now”. To my surprise his brother, and several of my friends walked out from behind some bushes and he got down on one knee. I’m not even sure if he actually said the words “will you marry Me” haha. But I will never forget that I had a pokemon bandaid on my ring finger because I cut it cleaning the day before thinking our friends were coming over after to grill out.
The Engagement Session
These two were so so gracious and flexible as we came across a pretty big event on our original session date and location: Belle Isle on the same day as the Richmond marathon! Needless to say, we decided to go ahead and move things around and it literally couldn’t have been more perfect.
We met at Libby Hill Park where Katie was KILLING IT in a red flowy dress, I mean total bombshell. Ryan was just as handsome in his suit and was so laidback telling whatever Katie and I wanted to do, we’d do it. We then headed to Rockett’s Landing for a location and outfit change and I couldn’t tell if I liked her blue and white floral dress with the tie straps on the shoulders or her adorable sweater dress more!
I loved getting to hang out with these two and I cannot freakin wait until their October wedding at Sweeney Barn! 2022, please get here faster so I can see these two adorable humans again! But until then, I’ll be reliving their session with some of my favorite photos from their gorgeous fall Libby Hill & Rockett’s Landing engagement session in Richmond VA 🙂
