I hadn’t heard of Ford’s Landing Park until Marissa and Michael suggested it for their engagement session and I’m so glad they did! I’ve done numerous sessions in Old Town Alexandria but have always stuck to the King Street area, never venturing further south. I had no idea that this quaint, quiet, adorable little section of town was just a few seconds away. It’s the perfect balance of open public space and little residential streets. While our session was just a few weeks ago in early summer, I could see it being a beautiful spot in the fall with all the foliage around, or the spring with plenty of opportunity for pretty blooms. It has all the charm of Old Town Alexandria but with far fewer crowds and cars, which can detract from the session. And we kept to a relatively small area around the park for Marissa and Michael’s session – I’ll definitely be returning to explore even further around this underrated part of town!

Marissa and Michael chose to have their engagement session at Ford’s Landing because it’s where Michael proposed just a couple weeks earlier. It’s such a romantic place for a proposal! They had attended mass at a nearby church that is near to their heart, and then walked around the park leading up to the proposal. I love when clients choose a sentimental location for their engagement session photos whenever they can, because it adds so much more meaning to the photos when you look back on them years from now.

This session was held at 8am but we could have started even earlier for better light! With sunrise at about 5:30am in the early summer, open spaces like Ford’s Landing Park can have gorgeous golden light from about 5:30-6:30am. While a lot of locations (like the King Street area of Old Town Alexandria just down the road, or more urban parts of Northern Virginia and DC) have too many buildings or foliage blocking that sunrise light and therefore require a later start time like 8am, I had no idea that Ford’s Landing was so open to the east; I’m dying to go back bright and early to see how that golden light changes everything in the park. Thankfully we can still get gorgeous photos any time of day in any weather condition so bright and sunny in the mid-morning didn’t stop us from getting some really stunning photos, even in the more open areas of the park!