For those of you that don’t know me, one of my absolute favorite things to do on the planet is laugh. I tend to be a happy and silly person and so laughing is something I find myself doing all the time and I just love the feeling of it so much! You can’t miss it when I laugh either. It’s this loud cackle that can scare babies (although I never mean to) and it comes deep within and sometimes brings tears of pure joy to my eyes, when I hit one where I just can’t stop. It also means that I value the ability to make me laugh in a partner (which mine does all the time, lucky me!).

This same feeling of pure joy is what I felt when photographing Taylor and Aasrith for their engagement photos. Just soooo much love and joy and laughter was felt during this whole portrait session. The way the are together and how happy they are just gave me all the feels! Even when I was working on their photographs later in post, I just could not stop smiling the entire time.

Engagement Photos Around UF Campus

In general, Taylor and Aasrith are both UF alumni and so we definitely wanted to start our engagement session on the University of Florida campus. The architecture, landscaping, and football stadium are always so pretty to take portraits any time of year.

Engagement Photos at Sweetwater

From there we headed to Sweetwater Wetlands Park to catch the setting sun across the water. If you’ve never been there, Sweetwater is one of our city parks and is a man-made wetland habitat of more than 125 acres, filled with birds and other wildlife. Often you can catch a glimpse of an alligator or two. Taylor and Aasrith walked along the paths of this park for the second date and have made it a habit of coming back when they can so it made for a perfect second location for our engagement session. It’s so peaceful out there and despite what turned into a bit of an overcast afternoon, we had beautiful sunset colors in the sky while there for photos.

Engagement Photos Downtown With Sparklers

Last we headed to downtown Gainesville. There was definitely good memories from the very first time they met down there so it was a perfect finish to a perfect engagement session. I might even call it a “sparkler” finish…(scroll down to the bottom of the images if you want to see what I mean!)

And listen, if you’re in a newer relationship and your partner doesn’t ever give you great big belly laughs like you’ll see in some of these images, maybe think about moving on.

Engaged couple on UF campus by libraryEngagement session on UF campuslaughing couple on UF campusEngagement Session at UF stadiumEngaged couple at UF stadiumEngagement session at sweetwater wetland preserveEngaged couple at sweetwater wetland preserveEngaged couple at sweetwater wetland preserveEngaged couple at sweetwater wetland preserveengaged session in downtown Gainesville engaged couple with sparklers at Hipp