*Engagement Session at Howell Territorial Park in Portland, OR.*

I remember first talking with Valerie over Zoom or Skype when we were discussing weddings and had been so excited to actually meet them both in person.

These two are both super adventurous, they love the outdoors and enjoy a variety of different activities from snow sports, hiking to river rafting! You don’t have to love adventure to be a Kate Holt Photography Couple but we more than ever right now have been working with couples who love the outdoors! We love it because sharing adventure is more enjoyable with others!

The week before this engagement session the rains had been coming down hard and often plus the weather apps and Portland are not always the most accurate so we were watching the weather likes Hawks to make sure that it would be a perfect day.

By the day before the forecast was clouds with a little bit of sun but, brrrrrrrr, was it cold!!

Brain and Valerie were both troopers and stuck with me the whole time despite the cold!

We spent some time in several different locations and Valerie brought a few different gorgeous outfits for different locations! I love the fall feels in one of them which you will see as you scroll down! Valerie’s best friend Summer was along with us and was so much help organizing the outfit changes and such! Having her at Valerie’s wedding is going to be great because I can already foresee lots of help and planning to just make the day go as smoothly as possible!

I have a confession to make right here, right now. Here goes . . . I talked to my wife - Kate - later that evening and told her all about my shoot with Valerie, Brian and Wyatt. Wyatt is their dog and he is the most adorable and friendly dog! I casually told Kate we did shots with Wyatt here and there.

Kate asks, “You took the dog into the park?”

In response, oblivious to why she is asking, “Sure, of course.”

Where Kate laughs and says, “You do know you are not supposed to have dogs in the park?”

I respond with some slight frustration, “Man, they should put a sign up or something!!”

And Kate laughs even more saying, “There is a huge sign right at the metal fence you walk by to get into the park!”

I’m like, “Oh . . .”

So I apparently cannot see “no dogs allowed” signs or missed it because I was having a good time getting to know Valerie and Brian on the way in! But, even so, Wyatt was amazing and had a blast touring the park and he is a perfect model for photos too as you will see below! We took advantage of the last tree with fall leaves for his photo and, needless to say, he killed it!

I cannot wait for the wedding of these two in 2021 to capture their love story and all that brings.

Here are some of my favorites from the session with them which I wanted to share . . . enjoy!