Notebook-Style Engagement Adventure Midwest Wedding Photographer

Rain-soaked, Notebook-Style Engagement Session

While most of our stories about our wedding couples begin at a coffee date a year or so before their wedding, our story of Cortnie & Alex begins way farther back and runs much deeper. When Tia was a senior captain on her high school’s dance team, Cortnie was a wide-eyed, ready-to-conquer-the-world freshman. Tia was bound and determined to make her senior year on dance team amazing. That started with deeply investing in each and every team member, no matter fellow senior or freshman. After one competition, Minnesota was drenched in snow. Tia offered to take Cortnie and her high school bestie (who’s now a bridesmaid in their wedding – eeeek!) to McDonald’s to get to know them more. This blossomed into an amazing friendship. Tia loved getting to show those ladies the ropes of dance team. Then she was able to come back as an alumni to watch them dominate.

Around the same time, Cortnie and Alex began dating, as little freshmen in high school. Fun fact: these two’s dating anniversary is just a few days off from ours! From there, Cortnie pursued her teaching degree while Alex began serving in the air force. And what troopers they were. After four long years of long distance, they were engaged back home in Chaska. Now let us just say, that we were long distance for one year during our freshman year of college. And that was torture, you guys. So to imagine the fight and strength that these two went through while away from each other for so long, we applaud them and know that they have something between them so, so special.

The Day Of

So, it should come as no surprise that when it wasn’t all sunshine and butterflies on their engagement session date, they persevered and made the best of it. We had one chance to get their engagement session done last summer while they were in Minnesota checking off their huge list of wedding to-dos. But that evening, Minnesota chose to turn the sky dark blue and downpour. We had less than ideal conditions. So we waited out the storm in the car for a bit, but it didn’t seem to be parting. So we said “heck, why not,” and jumped out into the rain. And besides Alex’s drenched shirt and the sometimes-obvious rain drops, you can’t even tell that it wasn’t a perfect, sunny day. Because do you remember that “something special” between these two? It doesn’t disappear at the sight of a storm. Instead, it squeezes out in these pictures in the form of tickles, starry eyes, and dreamy hugs. And so while the session ended abruptly with tornado sirens and us sprinting back to the car, this is still one of our favorite sessions because of the emotion and “special-ness.”

Now, as Alex completes his fourth deployment, Cortnie holds down the fort at their new home in New Mexico (with the cutest puppy on earth, might we add). The two of them will reunite and get to share that something special with everyone at a big ‘ole party in June at one of the dreamiest venues in Minnesota. We got to witness these two high school sweethearts from the start and can’t wait to be there to document the day as they begin the start of their forever.