Winter Engagement Pictures in Boston :: Arianne + Roger

It was a chilly 31 degrees when I met up with Arianne and Roger on the Saturday before Christmas. Arianne is currently at medical school in the windy city of Chicago so she thought the Boston weather was almost tropical ;)

Arianne & Roger both volunteered to mentor high-school kids. On the first orientation evening Roger saw Arianne and he said he "just knew". Being the responsible guy that he is, he first had to establish that she wasn't one of the senior kids they were there to mentor! So his first words to Arianne were "Mentor or Mentee?"

Roger was pretty overjoyed when Arianne replied "Mentor."

Over the course of the program Roger really hoped to get the opportunity to get to know Arianne and as luck would have it, one evening they walked to the train station together.

Roger had done some research on possible bars and restaurants in the area just in case such a situation were to arise. So he was perfectly ready with the suggestion of a local bar where they could get a drink together. It turned out that the bar was kind of in the wrong direction but luckily Arianne knew the area well. A drink led to a date, dating led to a proposal and Arianne and Roger will have their wedding at the beautiful Hamilton Hall in Salem, MA in June! And by the way, I must mention how insanely excited I am to work with planner extraordinaire Christina Doucette of CMD Event Design on their wedding.

Anyway, enough with the rambling right? You're here for the pictures and who am I to deny you?

We started out on Beacon Hill:


When I meet with my wedding clients to do engagement pictures, I explain that it's not going to be a stiff posed experience, it's more like you're on a date. You just happen to have a crazy English paparazzi-style photographer stalking you ;)

I'll find some nice light or an interesting location and throw out some suggestions. Sometimes I don't need to suggest anything - as in the case of Arianne and Roger who laughed and giggled and hugged and kissed their way through the session without any prompting. In this picture I asked them to simply walk towards me. Roger took it to the next level and decided to scoop Arianne up in his arms:


Love capturing the way that couples look at one another:


Hopefully this gives you an idea of the fun and craziness that happened that Saturday afternoon:

And here's the behind-the-scenes of the jumping:


Our original plan involved skating on the frog pond but it was like a mob scene. So Arianne and Roger hopped on to the ice just under the bridge in the public gardens and did a little skating/sliding/kissing :)


Check out the cotton candy clouds:


We really wanted to get some pictures with all of the twinkly lights along Comm Ave but there's a sort of murky/dusky time just after the sun goes down where the light is low and flat but it's not yet dark enough to highlight the Christmas lights.

And that's when you pop into the Boston Public Library for 10 minutes! From the Boston Public Library's website: "We are happy to have you take photographs of our buildings for your enjoyment" so it's a great indoor location in Boston to take engagement pictures. However it's important not to cause any disturbance and that includes the use of flash or tripods and if you go at dusk you'll need a photographer with a camera capable of a high ISO and some fast lenses...


The Boston Public library closes at 5pm and I think we got this one at around 4:50pm - you can see the dark blue of the sky in the windows:


I think this was a paper or some kind of home goods store but I liked the glow of the lights as a backdrop:

We got back to Commonwealth Avenue once it was completely dark. Arianne and Roger got comfy and then we had a completely random moment where it felt like a mini-marathon was taking place in Boston as maybe 40 runners raced around the two of them. So here's a behind-the-scenes:

As Arianne was only back from Chicago briefly, their day was a flurry of invitation selection, cake tasting and engagement pictures and so Maria, Arianne's mother was there. I usually suggest that clients come alone for engagement pictures but I would have Maria come along anytime. She not only carried all sorts of bags but for the late night pictures actually held my light and gave the most hysterical feedback to Arianne and Roger:

Lighting credit: Maria Cordon

And that's it for Arianne & Roger's preview - full gallery to follow tomorrow. Thank you guys for being so lovely to spend time with, so easy to photograph and I'm so looking forward to your Spring shoot!

Coming up this afternoon - YES! - two posts in two days (I told you I was catching up) is Neeta & Rich's "trash the dress" shoot on the beach. Starting tomorrow we'll have Jen & Wiktor's wedding at the Wayside Inn followed by Caitlin & Peter's winter engagement shoot in Boston and then Meg & Dave's winter engagement shoot in the snow!

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Or send me an email if you'd like to schedule your own winter wonderland engagement pictures or chat about your wedding plans at leah@leahhaydock.com

If you'd like to see more winter engagement shoots you can check out:

- Lori & Kris's winter engagement photographs in Boston **here**

- Lunda & Jonathan's winter engagement pictures in NH **here**

- Neeta & Rich's winter engagement pictures in the snow in Newburyport **here**

- Erin & Jeffrey's pictures inside the Boston Public Library **here**

As always, comments most welcome....