Joe and Michele's Vintage Engagement Photo Shoot

It was really nice to be on the other side of the camera for this photo shoot on Sunday. Michele and I are getting married in June and we wanted to do a different style engagement photo shoot. With the help from Dina & Don (Michele's Mom & Step-Father) and our wedding photographers Chris & Bri we were able to capture the look we were going for. We would both like to truly thank them for are their help and support through this.
Michele and I put a lot of time and thought into what we wanted to do and how we wanted the final images to look. From the get go we both liked the 40's themed style and it was just a matter of finding the right props and location for the shoot. This is where the fun comes in... The wardrobes were relatively pretty easy to find thanks to Michele's internet skills. Most of the items were purchased on Etsy for very reasonable prices, like my pants which were only $15!
We used numerous props to completely capture the look of that era. Trying to incorporate items from both of our families into the shoot. From a 1940 Ford to a a newspaper with FDR on it, we pretty much covered the gamut of props to incorporate.
Lastly, we needed to find a location to do this. Michele and I had made a few road trips out to the country to try and locate a cool looking spot. All trips ending in just an empty tank of gas and no solid location. We were in search of an old Victorian style house in the country and we were not having much luck. The idea was brought up with Michele's hair stylist Natallie and she had a few recommendations for us and offered to drive us around to all of them. We met up with her a few days before the shoot and we all hopped in her convertible, I honestly can't remember the last time I was "California Dream'n" in a convertible. Sporting the shirt and shorts I came highly prepared.., it was just a little cold I must say.
The first locations we drove to were both great and Natallie knew the owners, but, it was not exactly what we were after. The last location we pulled up to was a gated house and it was it, it was absolutely perfect!!! We were parked in front of the gate with a call box right out side the drivers side window thinking we were going to be buzzed in. So, I asked Natallie, with a bit of excitement in my voice, "do you know the owners of this house..?" Natallie replied with an honest answer of, "no, I do not". She knew it was just a great spot. A silence fell over us for a brief few second as we gazed out at the perfect scene we were after. Then Michele's cute voice chimes in, "Joe will push the buzzer and ask if we can use this house..." I slowly look over at her with a little grin on my face thinking, "this should be very interesting..". 5 minutes before we pulled up to this house Natallie was saying folks in Ramona are either going to greet you with milk & cookies or a shotgun, so, I was hoping for the milk & cookies approach when getting out of the car.
Got out of the car, pushed the buzzer, waited patiently, and a lady with laryngitis picks up on the other end. I introduced myself and explained to her why we are in her driveway. Right away she says, "come on in, let me open the gate for you".
The gates slowly opened up to this long driveway lined with trees leading up to this Victorian style home, it was seriously straight out of a movie. We were pleasantly greeted by Dolores at her door step and she wanted to apologize for her laryngitis. This was definitely the "milk & cookie" type folks we were after! Next we were greeted by Dolores's husband Louis, who right away wanted to show us the pond around back. Michele and I looked at each look other like, "can this place get any better"?
After a full tour of the property Dolores and Louis graciously said Michele and I could use their property for our engagement shoot. All the pieces were finally in place and now all we had to do was the actual photo shoot.
I will leave the rest of the explaining to the photos. Below is just 2 images for now, once we get the final images are complete I will post some.
1st image was taken at Michele's Mom's house before we headed out with our photographer. 2nd image was provided to us by our photographer.

Special thanks again to everyone involved with making this happen.

Michele I love you more and more each day and look forward to many more adventures with you.