I met Katherine and Nick last year because they were winners of our engagement session giveaway! It was such a sweet blessing to gift this session to them and extra sweet that I got to capture them in their hometown, while I was there for a wedding! We began in the streets of SF, we then went to a museum, the woods, cliffs, AND even some stunning ruins! San Francisco has my heart! I cannot take all of the visual beauty that is found in this city. One of my favorite moments from their shoot was when I proposed an image that required them to hike down a cliff, they both nonchalantly agreed! Extremely brave! They hiked along the edge of the cliff side to get to the bottom (you can see this dangerously gorgeous image below) all while Katherine was IN A DRESS. Meanwhile, I was waiting to take the shot and I was legitimately praying for their safety. It is my one of my favorite images from last year!

Their love story began while they were studying abroad in Barcelona. While it sort of began as a fairy tale (set in the most beautiful location), it grew from that experience into something very real and grounded in mutual respect, admiration, and deep love for each other. They were in Barcelona with their college architecture program but didn’t know each other because of the difference in their school years.  During the trip, they did a lot of walking tours and architecture related site seeing. Somehow Nick always ended up walking next to Katherine or drifting towards her. Katherine told us that her first impression was that Nick was that he was a bit of a bully. He was always teasing her. She was the TA for the trip and he loved to tease her about that it. Nick said that the first thing he noticed about Katherine was how fun, playful and adventurous she was. She would eat anything and down to experiencing everything (again, the girl hiked down a cliff in a dress)! 

These two shared their first kiss was under the Eiffel Tower and then he proposed while they were on a camping trip to Big Sur. Nick is quite the romantic! This man does everything big for his girl! When he was trying to plan how to propose, he knew that he had to ask Katherine at Big Sur.  For the past few years, they have been camping at this epic spot in Big Sur – one they happened upon.  That spot quickly became very special to them. Fast forward a few years — they were in a very crazy season, Katherine had just moved up to San Francisco for a new job and Nick was still working in LA. They were living in different cities and trying to be intentional with spending physical time with each other while living in different cities. They decided to plan a long weekend together in Big Sur. As they arrived at their spot, they sat down to enjoy watching the sunset and much to Katherine’s surprise, Nick got down on one knee and proposed!

Katherine + Nick, thanks for allowing me to capture your love story! CAN’T WAIT for your wedding day!

What do you love most about each other?

Katherine: I love Nick’s sense of adventure, his innate way to make me laugh, and I love how incredibly sweet and caring he is.  When I’m having a bad day he does everything in his power to turn it around!

Nick: Is this a trick question?  Everything, of course.

Tell us a funny story relating to your relationship! We love adventuring and Nick has really turned me on to camping.  One of our first few camping trips was to Big Sur. We didn’t have any of it really planned, but we drove up there together and had hoped to just find a campground the morning of for a long weekend (Valentine’s day weekend).  Unfortunately, Big Sur is extremely popular so once we got there every campground was full. Big Sur is pretty remote and we were slowly getting discouraged but decided to go talk to a park ranger to see if there were any other options.  The park ranger told us that our only option was to backpack into a campsite, which was not an ideal answer since we had a cooler and tons of stuff. But because we had no other options we decided to follow his advice and drove up some random windy road up into the mountains.  As we were driving up the road we started to see people camping on the side of it and realized that maybe we could just do that if we had to. It wasn’t ideal, but the views were still wonderful. So we just stopped at one spot and started unloading the car. Once we got situated we looked out at the vista and saw this insanely beautiful meadow across the valley on the other side of the mountains.  It looked epic and we could faintly see a car! We thought, wow maybe you can drive there! We decided to go for it and packed up our stuff and started driving onward. About an hour later we go to the end of the road and consequently made it to that heavenly meadow. There were some people camping there and it was the most incredible location! We had the best time that weekend and ended up going back for 4 years in a row (sometimes twice a year)!  

What’s the secret to having a successful relationship?  Respect, communication, balance, admitting you are wrong, really really really loving each other and reminding each other that you really really love each other 🙂

What personality trait of your partner that you wish you had more of? 

Katherine: Nick is very true to himself.  He doesn’t ever try to be something he is not and is incredibly genuine.
Nick: Katherine is really good with people, she has a million friends and everyone loves her.

What is the most honest thing you can say about love? Love is the most incredible thing.  It binds you to someone in a way where you can’t imagine a day without that person.  When they aren’t there you are wishing that they were. When you are around them they lift you up and make you into a better version of yourself.  Love is hard at times but it is so sweet and worth every ounce of effort that it takes.