This week has been heavy. And it’s been heavy for important reasons, but heavy nonetheless. Hopefully Kristen and Andrew’s super fun engagement session in Old Town Alexandria can help lighten the mood! You know it’ll be a good time when we start off with delicious Italian Store pizza… mmm. I’m in love with the photo of Kristen beaming at her slice of pizza (aka the “get yourself someone who looks at you the way Kristen looks at pizza” photo).

Throughout the session Kristen and Andrew were super down to earth and fun people. We explored all different backdrops – which is what makes Old Town Alexandria such a great location for a session (something I talked about on the blog a while back)! My favorite spots for this session were definitely the sidewalk with gorgeous backlight filtering through the trees, and the sweet little historic house gate that made the photos look like they were taken in a secret garden.

I also did a little bit of experimenting in this session, trying out a prism for the first time! It was a lot of fun to hold the prism at different angles in different positions to see what would happen. We got a fun glassy effect in some, reflected the light in others, and even got some way-cool distorted reflections reminiscent of double exposure photography. Overall, for my first attempt at experimenting, I’m pretty thrilled with the results.

Our session was the weekend of Kristen and Andrew’s would-be wedding date which – no surprise – got rescheduled due to the virus. While I won’t be photographing their wedding up in New Jersey next year, I’m so glad I got the chance to celebrate in a special way with them, help make this weekend something fun, and remind them why they’re going through this tough time of wedding planning. And I can’t wait to see their wedding photos when they can finally get hitched!