What Being Engaged Looks Like

Welcome to part 1 of the engagements people.

Zach and I woke up at an hour that people should only ever wake up for to get good lighting in photos. The sunrise was scheduled to be at 5:44 according to the weather app, but we met our amazing photographer Drey Johnson  at a circle K in Mesa at 5 am so we could drive into downtown Phoenix together. Drey was super awesome and bought us a Pop Tart to munch on during short drive while we told her everything there ever was to know about us. 

I decided to do our engagements in downtown Phoenix because yknow everyone does it in nature nowadays so I thought we could mix it up, and Drey said she knew of lots of great murals in Phoenix and I just thought that would be the coolest (and it totally was). 

Drey recommended that we wear two different outfits for the shoot... but you might recall the struggle I had to come up with one, so I just stuck with the one outfit and figured I would be okay with it in the end as long as I looked dang good. 

I currently only have part one of our photos (but Drey is amazing so part 1 is pretty much an entire session for other photographers) which include photos from a bird mural and at the Rossen House in Heritage square. 

Drey seriously rocked our world with poses that actually made us look good, and taught us a teeheehee trick that made Zach's smile look super dope. She kept us laughing, having a good time, dancing to music. I highly recommend her to anyone who is looking for a good photographer (if you hate me and don't want me to take your photos that is of course).

So enjoy everyone some of my favorites from part 1 of the engagements:

These are Bird War 3 according to EJ:

Zach and I were seriously dying waiting for these photos. She gave us a more than reasonable and generous timeframe of one week to get all our photos back. She said she usually just edits all at once, but if she ends up breaking up the editing then she will send us the photos in parts. We kept hoping that she was just saying a week to have some cushion room for editing and were going crazy waiting just 3 days for photos... yes we are very crazy. I woke up this morning to notifications from Zach and Drey that said part one has been completed and I was dying because of how perfect they turned out! Now I can't wait for the rest of the photos, but at least I have these photos to keep me sane until then.

After taking the photos Zach and I hung out for a little bit before he was about to crash. While he was sleeping I went to Sydni Frost's bridal shower! It was so fun seeing people from my home ward and catching up with everyone! Me and Sydni had the same 5th grade teacher (but she was a grade older than me) and the teacher came to the bridal shower... and she actually recognized me and my mom! I was seriously in 5th grade 12 years ago and she has so many students, I thought for sure she wouldn't even think I was someone she might knew. It was crazy!

On Sunday it was a Richardson Sunday. Both Rory and I were speaking in our ward. We were both asked to speak for 15-20 minutes. I decided that I only wanted to speak for 15, and Rory said he could easily talk for half an hour on his topic, so we figured we were solid. On Sunday morning he asked me how long my talk was, to which I said 5 1/4 and that I timed it out to be almost exactly 15 minutes. He then said great because his was 8 pages. Then it dawned on me that my talk was single spaced... and that most normal people go double spaced. Sure enough Rory is a normal person, and my talk was actually longer than Rory's. But when we actually gave our talks, I spoke for almost exactly 15 minutes (exactly like I had planned) and Rory spoke for 35. Oh we went over time all right... but who cares about staying in Sacrament meeting longer when you get to listen to two Richardsons speak y'know. My Dad said that our two talks really showed the difference between Rory and me. Mine was very journalistically written, and centered on how the movie Grease can be related to our devotion to Jesus Christ (oh yes, I am serious). While Rory's talk was much more historical and theological. It was awesome.

On Monday Zach and I partied with Trev, and instead of going to our own wards FHE, I convinced them that it would be more fun to go to Lauren's FHE where they were having a soda bar. It wasn't that their FHE would necessarily be more fun than learning about gun safety.... they just had free soda, and how could you possible deny free soda yknow. AND it was for the better anyway because I saw the goddess Lauren Stahle (and I proposed to her, and I am officially 1/7 done with my tribe), and I ran into one of my great friends from theatre in high school Becca! Good things happen at FHE sometimes people, it's true.

Exciting things to look forward to:

1. I have so many shoots in Tucson this weekend, and I am so excited because it's also the weekend of Susannah's wedding. I couldn't have planned it better!
2. Diana's wedding is only two weeks away, which means me photographing my very first wedding, and I am SO psyched.
3. The geometric casings have really multiplied in my house, getting all prepped for the wedding.
4. School is almost out for the summer!... oh wait I work full time now so it doesn't really matter LOL