Bob & Emily | Mammoth Park | Greensburg, PA Engagement Session

(Whew, am I behind on engagement session blog posts or what? Without fail, this happens every single year – and 2019 was no exception – fall is always an incredibly busy time and between weddings & engagement sessions & meetings & family sessions [which I don’t do *cough* don’t tell anyone] I seem to be creating content faster than I can blog it. So, that’s a terribly amazing problem to have – and it simply means that my blog is still full of beautiful love stories in January, February, and March when I’m typically not out actively shooting [it’s freezing out there after all – who wants to be outside?] So, here we go! I’m excited over the next few weeks to publish the last few engagement sessions I photographed in 2019 – and that should let us coast straight from the “off-season” into “on-season” – and 2020 is going to be amazing, I can’t wait!)

Emily & Bob went to high school together. They were just friends and nothing more. Okay, maybe not “just friends”, but “really good friends”. Like, if friendship is a level between 1 and 10, with 1 being someone you just passed on the street, 2 being someone you’ve talked to a few times, 4 being someone you’d grab coffee with on occasion, 6 being someone you intentionally needed to spend time with (you know those people), 8 being someone you’d consider closer than family, and 10 being a lover – in high school, Emily & Bob fell around level 5.5.

As high school graduation came & went – Emily went to college & Bob joined the Marines. They both would find themselves back “home” around similar times though, and that’s when their friendship began to move up the scale. Without fail, if they were both “home” at the same time, they purposefully carved out some time to hang out together. But they were still “friends” – nothing more.

Of course, their friends & specifically Emily’s Mom could see straight thru this charade – there was definitely a spark of something more there! It took a while, but when Emily was a senior in college & Bob was getting closer to the end of his 5-year commitment with the Marines, they finally began officially dating. And it’s funny, because the transition from “just friends” to “boyfriend & girlfriend” was so fluent, that neither can really pinpoint the moment it happened. Their first “official” date was at the bowling alley in Latrobe, but truly, the transition was perfectly seamless.

Seamless or not, their relationship has never been easy. In fact, almost the entire length of their relationship has been long-distance. Emily graduated from college & went to med school – her first 2 years being on a little island off of South America. Bob finished out his commitment with the Marines & he moved to that little island for a short period of time – the one & only time (while they were dating) that they lived in the same “state”. Emily then moved onto a hospital rotation in Nevada and Bob came back to Pennsylvania to attend the Police Academy in Harrisburg.

When we got together for their engagement session, Emily had literally just finished her time & flown back from Nevada & Bob was just a few weeks away from completing his police training. If reading all of that doesn’t make you exhausted, I’m not sure what will! These two are incredible and literally the hardest working, go-getter people out there.

We got together on what was supposed to be one of the last glorious days of fall, but instead, just as we got started, the sun hid behind some clouds & the cold air blew in. I know that you can’t tell, but it was actually quite cold at Mammoth Park in Greensburg, PA as we moved thru their engagement session – thankfully, they had no problem snuggling close to each other to keep warm! I am absolutely pumped for their wedding this fall – it is going to be magnificent!

Emily really wanted some beautiful fall colors in her photos – but unfortunately, most of the color had already drained from the trees. We did find a few bold & beautiful trees though & we took every advantage of them that we could!

I definitely threatened to steal Emily’s dress to wear for my own sister’s wedding this coming summer – but I promise, I didn’t. A quick outfit change though & as epic as her first dress was – her second option was definitely much much warmer!

There is an island out in the middle of the lake at Mammoth Park, and we contemplated not even going out onto it – but I’m SO glad we did – this series is one of my absolute favorites!

I’m just obsessed with the feel of this one in black & white!

And this was the moment Emily & Bob began to wonder if I was crazy: “Do you think you could go stand in those weeds over there?”

I was really crossing my fingers that we’d have an epic sunset – all signs pointed that we were headed in that direction! And, for literally a whole 30-seconds, the sky began to light up! I got really excited, even telling Emily & Bob: “This is it! This is what is going to make all the freezing cold worthwhile!” And just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared. And the sun literally never poked out again. Oh well.

Fun story: so we were carrying around this specific (delicate) leaf that had Emily & Bob’s names & their wedding date on it! I wanted to use it for a photo, but hadn’t found the setting I wanted yet. Without thinking, we set it down so we could take a series of photos, and then completely forgetting about it – we walked away. In fact, we walked quite aways away: out to the island & back, back up to the cars for one more quick outfit change, and then on into another area of the park. The sun had set & it was starting to really get dark when we realized, “OMIGOSH, we left the leaf way back there!” Let’s just say: Bob was an absolute trooper (joke 100% intended) in running back to grab the leaf! And the result was this photo (totally worth it!):

One last super quick change & we were out of there! I’ve never shot all the way up to literally dark before – but it was just so good & we were having so much fun, I didn’t want to stop! To further explain just how dark & late it was: there was a police officer sitting at the end of the road leading to the parking lot we were parked in, waiting to lock the gate. You can see his cruiser in the background of these last photos! OOPS – sorry officer!