Katie-Joy and Kyle met online. Now okay, I know what you are thinking, and timeout! Let’s be honest with ourselves. Who hasn’t met someone online in today’s world. Am I right? With that in mind Katie-Joy was skeptical of how this was all going to work out, if it was even going to work out. After talking online for several months, they decided “what the heck let’s meet!” Four years later Kyle proposed to Katie-Joy on El Matador beach with his brother filming the entire thing! How romantic right?

Fast forward to their engagement session, Katie-Joy and Kyle met me at an Applebee’s for lunch in Highland, California. We enjoyed our spinach dip, BBQ ribs, and chicken fingers, while getting to know each other a little deeper. That’s totally normal right? Getting to know someone while you have ranch dressing dripping from you chin. While across the table Kyle’s fingers are covered in BBQ sauce. I would say we were off to a honest and casual start. We then carpooled up to Big Bear where we were finding locations to capture their love story. I drove them fifteen miles off a dirt road to a National Parks Service road. I told them, “don’t worry I totally know where we are going.” I’m sure at this point the two of them were thinking “are we getting out alive?”

We ended up at the Champion Lodgepole Pine Trail that had a 2 mile hike with an open golden grass field! With fresh mountain air in our lungs and the temperature being just right (not too cold, not too hot). Being able to capture their love in a pure, raw state was magical. Engrossed in Pine trees, tall golden grass, and the sky above us, it was nothing short of magical. We continued the hike to the Champion Lodgepole Pine, the tallest pine tree of it’s kind.

Hiking back to the car we then proceeded to Big Bear Lake Village. Window shopping and checking out all of the local woodcarving and paintings in town. We even came across a wooden bear that Katie-Joy and Kyle jumped on! Come to find out Katie-Joy is obsessed with bears! Good thing we came to Big Bear! To our surprise all of the Fall leaves that were changing happen to be all in the downtown area. “This is so perfect, we have to capture this,” I mentioned to Katie-Joy and Kyle. It is not very often we get to enjoy Fall leaves in Southern California. We continued walking the streets until sunset. After the sun went down, we were freezing! It was only 55 degrees! To most people that live up North, they would argue that it was perfect sandal and shorts weather. To us SoCal beach lovers, we were freezing our butt off!